one more night

i know- i said in the last post that it was my last night in the rv in healy, but as i was preparing to leave for anchorage on monday the aurora forecast for that evening showed great promise. i decided one more night wouldn't throw a wrench in anyones' plans. turned out to be a good decision, and would have been a perfect night had the clouds stayed down near anchorage where they belong. here's a recap:

around 7p that evening i discovered that i could watch "the walking dead" episodes online. i'd seen much of the first three seasons, but never actually saw the entire first episode of season one. while watching it (and episode two) i kept an eye on the aurora short-term forecast, and at 9p the buzzers started going off. it looked like south was the way to go after checking the map of cloud cover for alaska, so i pulled up stakes and headed to the area just south of denali that i photographed from a few nights earlier. clouds, thick clouds. so i headed up to june creek, which was about 35 miles north. even thicker clouds. turned around, drove back to healy and plugged the rv back in and resumed watching "the walking dead". less than 15 minutes went by and the aurora forecast was ringing louder this time- we were going to get a big show if i could find some clear skies. checking the cloud map again, 100 miles to the south near trapper creek looked like the closest area with clear skies. by this time it was almost 2a. i had been up since 630a and was already starting to drag... but it took me all of 30 seconds to talk myself into unplugging and driving south. who knows when i'd have a chance to shoot the lights again, and i had to go that direction anyways the following day to get to anchorage. so i unplugged and hit the road again, with a quick stop at the tesoro in healy to grab a miserable cup of lukewarm coffee. i stopped at a pull-off just north of cantwell to take a look up. clouds still covered the sky, but the big show that had been forecast had started and was showing through.

a couple quick clicks and i'm back on the road to find the break in the clouds. i found my break just 30 minutes later at summit pass south of cantwell (and after nearly plowing through a herd of caribou that appeared out of nowhere on the road). 

the display wasn't very bright (the images you see have been brightened quite a bit in adobe lightroom), but it was big, lots of colors, and moving fast. pulses of light were shooting all over the sky. clouds were on the northern horizon and moving my direction.

it was also getting cold. and the wind also was blowing. it may have been the first time i'd really felt cold in the last few months. despite having a chemical handwarmer in each pocket, one in each boot, and a spare pair in my pockets my fingers were so numb after about an hour that i couldn't operate the shutter remote or manipulate the settings on the camera. i took refuge in the rv and run the engine for 15 minutes to warm them back up again. by the time i got back out, the clouds were advancing further into my sky.

it appeared that the brightest and most colorful portion of the aurora (which was covering roughly 70% of the sky by this point) was behind the advancing cloud cover. it was almost 4a. the display was starting to fade, i'd already gotten about 275 photos and was content with that. got back in the rig and headed south to finish the drive to anchorage. i figured i might as well get home and sleep there since i was only 4 hours away now. unfortunately, the lights flared back up as i neared hurricane gulch. so i got out again to take some more. again, i didn't know when the next chance to get out on a clear night with a good aurora forecast- how could i not stop? i hiked through about 50 yards of thigh-deep snow to get off the road and at the edge of the gulch. the display was well past its peak- diffuse and lacking the different colors that were visible at summit pass. 

i crawled back into the rv for the last time and looked at the clock. 740a. fuck, i was tired. i drove a few minutes and decided that it'd be silly to attempt the drive to anchorage at this point, so i found a quiet spot in the denali state park, climbed in back, and sort of slept for three hours. it's four days later and my brain and body have finally recovered after that night/morning. 

i've finished moving items from the rv into my apartment. this weekend i hope to have cleared out everything stored at a couple friends' houses from when i moved away two years ago (thank you bekah and david for holding on to my junk). the rv will go to storage and be listed for sale on craigslist. hopefully i'll find a junker 4x4 in the next week and after that i look for work. if i can find a job soon enough, i may be able to keep from having to sell the rv. wish me luck.

most every image i post on here is available for purchase on my website. give the gift of natural beauty while supporting your local artisans this christmas. i'd hoped to be able to offer photo calendars this year, but the company that i print through is not able to offer that at this time. 

have a great weekend.

last night north

it's been a great 11 days in the denali area. when i drove up here on november 21st, i was racing ahead of a blizzard coming off the bering sea and headed towards southcentral and the interior of alaska. arrived in healy just as it started snowing, and then it snowed for the next two days. i was happy to stay put in the rv catching up on emails, processing photos, and making future plans. after the snow passed, i skied into denali national park on the next three days. skiing in denali is something i'd been daydreaming about doing for years, and wasn't disappointed when i finally got the chance. the first day i only went in a couple miles as i needed to see how my legs would react to skis after a couple years off. it went well, so the following day i got there before sun-up and skied from mile 3 to mile 11 on the park road. that went so well that on the third day i went off-trail in the tundra and had so much fun that a couple toenails turned black and will be falling off soon. i also got to see the denali national park sled dogs in action.

 after the third day my legs (and toenail) needed a break, so i borrowed snowshoes from the park office (note to any alaska winter travelers- the denali park office loans out snowshoes for free) and spent three days around horseshoe lake and the nenana river near the park entrance. i have a growing need to see and photograph wolves, so that's what i was after. i missed one by a couple minutes on the first day out, judging from how little snow had filled in the tracks i came across. i followed them down a hill and came across a lynx. he sat and watched unimpressed with my ability to descend a steep bank in snowshoes while trying to operate a camera.

on the second day i spooked a wolf that was drinking from a spring that hadn't frozen over yet on the lake. he ran so fast in the opposite direction that the only photos i could get were of his backside (not worth sharing here). it was a still a thrill to see one, especially from fairly close and considering how much time and effort i'd put into finding wolves in the past three months. the third day i spent several hours hidden under a tree with my camera trained on the spot i saw him the previous day, but the subzero temps killed my motivation and i was back at the rv by 2p to eat and warm up.

after a day of rest, the aurora forecast finally showed some promise after a quiet couple weeks. i drove down to a pull-off just south of the national park and set up shop in anticipation of a good show. i experienced the coldest temps i'd ever felt- it got down to -29 degrees while i was out watching. it was cold, but i still think that 15 degrees in illinois is colder than -30 degrees in alaska. when it's that cold, things stop working as they should. the electrical tape on my tripod looses it's adhesiveness; the cord of my shutter release was as stiff and straight as a stick; and the camera batteries loose their charge after just a few photos. my biggest concern was that the rv would start when i was ready to leave, so i started the engine every 20 minutes or so to keep the battery warm.

the show was good, but not great and barely worth standing outside in those temps for as long as i did. there was five good minutes of bright colorful movement, but beyond that it was a dull display. the surrounding landscape was, however, my new favorite for taking aurora photos.

tonight happens to be my last night on the road for now. the apartment i lived in anchorage before i moved back to the midwest two years ago (two years ago today, in fact) is available and i don't want to miss the opportunity to move back in there. if you've ever been there, you understand why. i hope to keep the rv to use on weekends, but if i have to sell it so i can get a more reasonable vehicle to drive around anchorage then i have no regrets. i'm not sure how i feel about living in anchorage again. it's not a bad city, and isn't nearly as big as st. louis or chicago, but it's still a city with traffic, noise, exhaust, stop lights, and too many people in a space not big enough for them all. i'm getting very used to and and very much enjoying the pace of life and quiet of rural alaska. i do miss my friends in anchorage, and being able to get some mexican food or a pizza. i'm not gonna lie- a large part of my enjoyment the past few months has come from not having to put on proper clothes, go to a job, or answer to a supervisor. my days have been my own, and having my time to pursue what makes me happy was worth more than a regular paycheck. despite being a unsustainable long-term lifestyle (i have made several hundred dollars in print sales from my website, but with the gas consumption of the rv it covered about 3.5 tanks of petrol), it was what i needed to do. i've had the space and time to mentally uncoil from a difficult two years back in the lower 48. i'm a lucky guy, and it's good to feel that way again.

sunday night insomnia

after a week and two days in anchorage i'm itching to get back up north. if i can get to sleep tonight, i'll be leaving town late morning monday- sans graeme. since an arctic low-pressure system is about to settle down on southcentral and interior alaska this week, dropping temperatures down to the -20s at night in the denali area, i figured he would be most comfortable at my friend's house. i'm hoping to do some backcountry skiing on the south side of the alaska range and if the snow is too deep he may have trouble keeping up. we both experience separation anxiety from one another when apart, but it'll only be for a week or so. i've had a lot of down-time to process photos from the past month and a half and have included a few of my favorites.

(caribou on a windy day on the teklanika river in denali national park)

my initial intention was to spend the entire winter on the parks highway photographing the northern lights and whatever else caught my eye. the incoming cold actually doesn't bother me. i dress for it well, eat high-calorie foods (and a lot of them), and stay active- so staying warm isn't an issue and rarely do i ever hear myself saying "i'm cold". certain aspects of the rv, on the other hand, do not function well in temps below freezing. the high cost of gas in interior alaska and low mpg of the rv, combined with the threat of a major repair bill(s) as a result of the cold temperature's affect on the rv has me reconsidering my plans for the next several months. i would like nothing more than to stay up north and continue chasing the northern lights, but it's just not economically sensible at the moment. thankfully a couple opportunities have presented themselves in anchorage that make it less painful give up the freedom of being on the road and settle down in the next few weeks in the big city. i'll have more to say about this as events transpire.

(the milky way from mile 268 on the parks highway)

it's been a good week in anchorage. i've had some down time to work on processing aurora photos and working on my website. i'm staying in the house i used to live in before moving to the st. louis area two years ago and have 5-star views of the alaska range across cook inlet, along with the various wildlife that wanders through the neighborhood. my former landlord and friend is wonderful enough to invite graeme and i to stay with her while we're in anchorage. i've been able to see several friends, resupply with food, and of course have an avalanche pizza at the moose's tooth pizza pub- possibly the finest pizza establishment in north america, in my humble yet accurate opinion. despite enjoying the trappings of being in anchorage, i'm looking forward to being on the road and the simple things in life- like keeping the rv's full septic tank from shattering in the cold because the handle that empties it is frozen shut, and even if it wasn't frozen i have nowhere to empty it because every rv facility in alaska outside of a single gas station in anchorage closes their septic dumps after september 15th. those are the things that make you realize that indoor plumbing is a pretty great invention. 

(mckinley rv park in healy, ak)

(dall sheep: polychrome pass, denali national park)

(grizzly bear: sable pass, denali national park)

before i zonk out for the night, i'd like to take a quick moment to plug a few businesses that deserve plugs:

1) before i moved back to alaska i bought a new, full-frame canon camera and a canon wide-angle L-lens with which to photograph the northern lights. in order to fund the two i needed to sell my previous canon camera and four lenses. i wanted to have the camera body and lenses professionally cleaned before listing them on ebay, so i sought out a photography equipment cleaner in st. louis and found rg insights photography. i dropped off the equipment with robert of rg insights on a friday and they were ready on monday. he did such a stellar job cleaning the camera's exterior and sensor and the lens' bodies and glass that i was able to list them all on ebay as "like new" (despite being several years old and dragged up and down the mountains of alasaka). being able to include in the listings that the items were professionally cleaned prior to being listed resulted in them being sold for more than most others of the same make and model on ebay. and robert performed the cleaning at a bargain price. if you live in the st. louis area and have camera equipment that needs cleaning, robert's your man and find him in the links to the right.

2) i'm a tall guy- 6'3" according to my last doctor's visit- and i have a 32" waist. most off-the-rack pants don't fit me well. the inseam is either just long enough but the waist too big, or the waist fits fine but the bottom of the pant legs come up to the middle of my shins. i also spend A LOT of time outdoors and my clothing often gets roughed up from all the time spent getting lost and having to bushwack through alders to get a view from up above to see where the hell i am. if you're like me, you highly value clothing that fits you well and that the seams don't come undone after a light sneeze. i don't remember how i found it- probably the result of late-night-insomniac internet searching- but last winter i came across outa ware. outa ware is a one-man operation manned by andy in montana. his website is full of functional, well-made outdoor clothing that you can order custom waist and inseam sizes, along with other useful (and hard to find features) that you can customize. it may seem trivial to you whimsical off-the-rack clothing buyers, but to me it was like finding a direct line to santa claus. short of flying out to take your measurements, andy will customize hiking and fleece pants, ski vests and bibs, softshell and travel clothing to fit your body-type like nothing you can get from any store. again- you might only be able to relate to my joy if you have a difficult time fitting into clothes. i own three pairs of pants from outa ware, and they are three of the only four pants i've worn for the past few months now. my ankles are no longer exposed and i'm not having to repeatedly pull my pants up because of sag. as a bonus- the money i spent on the pants go to support a fellow in montana and not to a corporation employing foreign workers in a sweat-shop. i know that's important to a lot of you as it is to me.

(my outa ware fleece pants that rarely leave my legs)

3) and finally (and briefly because it's 330a and i've got to sleep before hitting the icy roads)- everyone should own a melanzana micro-grid hoodie. i used to own four of them, but gave one away to a friend two weeks ago because he was constantly cold while visiting alaska. i wear one nearly every day. i'm wearing one right now. i'll be wearing one tomorrow. i gave one for christmas a few years ago to my friend whose house i'm crashing at now and she wears her's nearly every day. the hoodies, along with the other products they make, are hand-sewn by ski bums in leadville, colorado. they also offer tall sizes in most items for us lanky citizens. melanzana's hard-faced hoodie is my go-to jacket for xc skiing in alaska. as with my previous plug, your purchase of their products instead of buying an over-priced and sub-quality north farce piece (see what i did there with that pun?)- supports people owning and working for small businesses in our country and communities. consider shopping at melanzana and outa ware for your ski-bum family members and friends this christmas. 

i'm going to bed. i'll update from healy later in the week. oh- and thanks to deb and wendy for your purchase of prints from my website this weekend.

(east fork river: denali national park)

sunday night in anchorage

now that i've gotten some sleep after the previous week closed out with 3 consecutive nights of aurora activity, i've got some downtime to go through 800+ photos and update this. wednesday night in healy looked like a slow bomb went off in the sky over the course of 8+ hours. it was easily the best display of my short aurora chasing career, and probably the best display i'd ever seen.

temperatures were just a shade below zero, but i ran around chasing shots and never felt cold. at one point i just stopped and threw up my hands because there was so much going on in the sky that i couldn't decide what direction to point my camera. and it was bright, too. typically i have to take a 5-7 second exposure to capture the dimmer, more usual lights; tonight i was taking 1.5 second exposures and the images were turning out plenty bright. 

the photos above and below are of what's called the "corona". it only appears during intense displays and always at the peak of the sky overhead. i'd only seen it once before.

the wind suddenly kicked up at 315a and that's what finally drove me inside for the night. from what i read later online, the display was still flickering at 7a that morning- and the forecast for thursday night was even better. excited all day thursday about the "active" aurora forecast for that night, i asked around to a couple locals about where we could go that would be more elevated and away from the lights of healy. i settled on a spot 20 miles north of healy called june creek. cary and i drove up there after sundown. when we arrived it was -10 degrees, but it was a beautiful location with more snow and zero light pollution. the lights started and formed a big green bow right after we arrived. i stood outside ready with my camera and watched as the bow did not change or move or do anything. after two hours, i declared the night a "dud" and drove back to healy. i couldn't feel my left foot, which thankfully is not necessary for operating the pedals of an automatic transmission.

friday we drove back to anchorage to catch cary's flight out. exhausted from two nights of staying up late in the cold, i went to bed at 830p at my friend's house on the outskirts of anchorage. while checking my messages one last time, i noticed several notices popping up on a facebook page called "aurora lovers" that i belong to. people were going crazy about the lights in the sky in anchorage (it's sort of a rarity to get a good display in anchorage because of the city lights), so i stole my friend's car and drove to my rv parked at another friend's house to grab my camera and tripod. the show started off slow but it was a nice display over the chugach mountains.

after a couple hours standing on a hill (without my bear spray- and every sound sounded like a bear approaching), the clouds moved in so i went home. i can rarely wait until the next day to look at my photos of the aurora, so i immediately uploaded them. within 30 minutes another burst of notices appeared- more frenzied than the previous one, stating that the sky was going bonkers. i peeked out the front door and sure enough, the sky was going bonkers. back out with my camera and this time staying in the driveway- i captured some of the more colorful and unique coronas i'd ever seen in person or in pictures.

i was so happy to see clouds and rain in the forecast for saturday night because i desperately needed sleep. it's always nice to be in anchorage to see friends and resupply, but i'm already getting anxious to get back up north. i have a couple repairs to do on the rv and am guessing i'll be ready to hit the road by thursday. much of southcentral and interior alaska is getting snow right now. this guy is excited for ski season and has been doing squats and lunges to keep warm during the long cold nights standing outside to get ready for the access that skiing gives to the backcountry. i should have my website updated with recent aurora images in the next couple nights.

ps: i was asked several times if the first image is that of the bus from the book and movie "into the wild". it is not. it is a junked bus that was at the edge of the rv park in healy. the brewery next door displays the bus from the movie. the actual bus is 20+ miles up the stampede trail on the north end of healy. if the snow is good when i return, i may ski out to the bus but am more interested in photographing the wolves in that area than i am in seeing the bus. if i get out there i will get some pictures though for those that are curious about what it looks like.

the next friday night in healy

great show earlier in the week that came and went and returned for hours. clouds rolled in around 2:30a and covered the display, but i saw reports that people continued to view them until 7a. i never left the rv park- for various reasons- to get a better, less light-polluted view so images didn't turn out as well had i sought out a dark hilltop. the highlight of the night was a wolf walked six feet behind us while we were watching the lights. he was so quiet that we wouldn't have noticed him had another person watching the lights shout for us to watch out for what was behind us.

on saturday i picked up my dear friend, dr. cary rasof, and he's spending the week with me. he visits alaska once a year for a few days, but never makes it out of anchorage. it's been a treat to show him the scenery, wildlife, and northern lights of alaska. regardless of your definition of  "god", dr. cary is truly doing god's work. he's currently taking a break from working at a clinic he founded in northern india that treats people with hepatitis B that have no other treatment options. a link to his website and some of the work he's done is to the right.

we spent two days driving the denali park road. we also spent a couple hours at the denali national park sled dog kennels. we had the place to ourselves and got our fill of dog-time in.

it's been snowing since wednesday and we've been rv-bound since. graeme and i have gone for a couple walks following wolf tracks through the taiga just outside the park (interesting fact: taiga is the most common biome, or landscape, on the planet). you can't have snow without clouds, so although the aurora forecasts said they were happening- we couldn't view the northern lights. tonight looks to be clearing and the forecast is "moderate"- which i've found to be about a 50% chance this far north.

(moose- denali national park)

so i've been living in the rv for a cumulative 5+ weeks now. here's some of what i've learned, or already knew but have had reinforced:

1) there's no sewer system that sucks your bodily waste away so that you never have to deal with it again like it does in our homes. sure, there's a toilet in here, but it just goes into a tank on the bottom of the rv. at some point the tank's gotta be emptied. in most temperate places on the planet, that's not a problem. in alaska, everyone closes their septic dump in mid-september. i didn't know this until i arrived at one in late september, expecting to empty my full septic tank only to be told that it's closed. luckily i found a holiday gas station in anchorage that keeps their septic dump open year round. considering that i'm 6 hours from anchorage, that presents problems. thankfully i'm going to anchorage sunday. you develop a different view of how you use the bathroom when you don't have conventional plumbing. i've been using public toilets, state park facilities, and trees for much of this trip so far. it brings back my days at northland where we learned to substitute sticks, rocks, and snowballs for toilet paper. wiping your butt with a snowball in the morning will do more to wake you up than half a dozen espresso shots- that's a scientific fact;

2) trash is the same. after visiting a municipal landfill for the first time in 2002, i've always thought that everyone should be required to go without trash service and bury it in their own yard for a year so that they can see how much waste they actually generate over time. there's no thought given to what you put on your curbside and is taken away once a week. i'll admit that i appreciate that i don't have to worry about what i throw away once the garbage man takes it when i had normal living arrangements. now i have an appreciation for seeing how little trash i can generate because it doesn't get taken away like how i'm used to; 

3) dr. cary is writing a book and needed internet access this week to communicate with his editor, so we've been at this rv park that provides wifi since he joined me. before that i was able to get internet access every few days. the most difficult change has been not having internet access whenever i wanted to get online, especially after having constant accessible internet access for the last 7 years. i'm never bored partially because i always have the internet to learn from and be entertained by. i don't know what else to say about it other than this must be what it was like when i was a kid.

(aurora from monday after the clouds came through and gave it a unusual texture)

friday night in healy

(two thursdays ago when clouds obscured much of the display)

i left chena hot springs road wednesday morning after two previous nights of good to excellent northern lights. monday was the better of the two- big and bright with lots of movement. although it didn't start until after 1:30a, it was worth staying up for:

tuesday night's display was kind to me in that it started at 8:30p soon after the sky got dark. the moon was just a day or two past full and was rising in the north, but didn't lessen the display as far as i could tell. although it wasn't as brilliant as the previous night's display, it did have nice red and purple color representation along with the usual green:

i've been in the denali area since wednesday afternoon, driving the park road up to the closure at mile 30. i have been chasing the denali wolves for years to get good photos and have not seen them once in the 10 days i've been in the park the past month. saturday morning i'm driving south to talkeetna to pick up a friend who'll be spending the week with me. there's been A LOT of solar activity the past couple days, so if we can find clear skies then we should see some nice northern lights. 

that's all i can say tonight. i have to finish cleaning up the rv and making space to accommodate another person. sometime in the next few days i'll have some time to wax more poetic about the aesthetics of living in an rv in alaska in the winter. there are a couple hundred caribou hanging around between the sanctuary and teklanika rivers in the park, so that is what i'll leave you with:

steese and chena

recap of the past week:

last friday i drove from anchorage to the steese highway northeast of fairbanks. it wasn’t my initial plan, but the rest of alaska was covered in clouds and rain so i thought i’d head north to get out from under the clouds . the steese is a quiet, desolate place. despite the partial cloud cover, the aurora made an appearance that first night as i made my way east on the steese (that rhymes for those that keep track of such things) in the middle of the night. 

spent three days hiking the hills around the highway and reorganizing the contents of the rv so that it would feel more liveable. other than the leftover carcasses from hunters, i saw no wildlife- except for a few ravens- and no aurora after that first night. on the third night it started to rain, and was cold enough that snow wouldn’t be a surprise. typically i get excited about snow, but the steese was not a place i wanted to test the rv in conditions i haven’t taken it yet. at 1030p i pulled up stakes and hightailed it back to fairbanks in the rain and fog and then east on chena hot springs road, where i’ve been since. while the steese was wholly undeveloped in terms of campsites and parking, the state park land on chena h.s. road has ample parking, trails, and developed waysides.

on our second night in chena, i was treated to one of the best aurora displays i’d seen. the clouds seemed to part just as the show was developing and stayed apart for the duration and then re-enveloped the sky as it ended after about 45 minutes. caught another glimpse of a the beginning of an aurora last night, but clouds overtook that one and never got to see much other than a green haze. the aurora forecast is good for tonight, so fingers are crossed that the clouds go away.

graeme and i have been spending our daytimes hiking the trails and riverbeds off chena hot springs road. this part of alaska is not as dramatically beautiful as what we’re used to between anchorage and denali, but it does have its own charm. there are no treeless mountains or exposed ridges that make navigating off-trail a breeze; rather it’s rolling hills covered in birch and spruce. the chena river valley is covered in ponds and swamps. october is not alaska’s most photogenic time of year, either. fall has come and gone and winter hasn’t arrived yet to cover the landscape with snow.

events worth noting of the past week: 1) a couple evenings ago while exploring around a campsite, i came across a moose carcass in the middle of the trail. i stepped on a big gray thing  i thought was a rock by the side of carcass. when my foot went through it, i realized it was actually the moose’s discarded stomach. that was a first for me; 2) while rearranging the closet that was originally the shower yesterday, a 3-gallon bottle of water fell off the bed and smashed on the floor- spilling all 3 gallons on the carpet. that is why i’m back at the laundromat with $5/hr wifi for the second day. god bless the man or woman who invented the shop vac- with it i was able to suck up whatever water didn't already seep through the floor.

i’d been getting some questions about graeme. he seems to be taking to this lifestyle just fine. he’s got comfy places to sleep while in the rv, and he gets to go for several walks a day. he’s not eating as much kibble as usual, but i suspect that’s because he’s finding things to snack on in the forest. the red squirrels here are very loud and obnoxious and have been taunting graeme since we got here.

temperatures have stayed mild, barely reaching the freezing point at night and getting up to the upper 40s, lower 50s during the day- very warm for this far north this time of year. lots of clouds, some light rain and one day of really nice sunshine. other than running the dashboard heat once or twice a night while watching for the aurora, i haven't had to fire the furnace. i spent more than a week insulating the inside of the rv with 1" and 1/2" foam board and reflectix material. i'm curious to see what it's like in here when the temps drop to the teens and below.

as of now, my plan is to spend at least the next several days on chena hot springs road. late next week i need to head to talkeetna to pick up a friend arriving by train. some time this weekend i’ll treat myself to a shower and a soak in the hot springs at the end of the road. by far, the biggest challenge the past week has been the lack of internet and cell phone reception. it's not that i miss either terribly, it's just been such a ubiquitous part of life for so long that it's startling when it's not around. so this is what life was like when i was a kid.