Driving To and Fro; time in Fairbanks.

On Friday, I was able to break out of my dulldrums for a day and my spirits have lifted a bit. Fort Wainwright required that I have an occupational health physical and briefing to in-process at fort Greely. So at 0500 (yep that's early) I departed on the road of death in a 2006 Suburban at 20 below to be poked and propped, turn my head and cough and in general freeze my tookas off. I spent Thursday preparing the Suburban for the grand voyage of 100 miles of frozen road (see earlier post for icy condition report). It needed fueled and an extension cord, which I dug up at outdoor rec with a bit of assistance. I then headed to the fuel point. Military fuel points for the unknowing resemble 1970's fuel pumps. Short metallic, with rolling dial numbers to keep track of gallons dispensed. They also have the old metal dispensing handles that hang on the side of the pump and unfortunately for me, no locking mechanism to allow me to hang out in the cab while the suburban drinks up some petrol. Oh no, I had to stand in the blowing cold in a North Face fleece for 5 minutes without my mittens (the wool ones I was wearing are too slippery to hold the handle with). I think I may have gotten my first taste of frostbite. (Many people don't realize that some liquids are really hard to freeze, for our purposes alcohol and gasoline, so they can become supercooled, basically matching the air temperature as a liquid. Great White North hint: don't leave your vodka outside to have cold shots later, it can literally turn your teeth into frozen chicklets and freeze dry your tongue to be used as a snack later. In my case the supercooled gasoline had been in contact with an interior metal piece of the handle and I inadvertantly touched it when i hung it back on the pump, freezing the end of three of my fingers. It felt oddly enough like a burn you'd get touching a hot skillet or other hot piece of metal. So there it is, my first frostbite. I was of course none the worse for wear and now had a fully fueled and prepared Suburban at my beck and call. 0500 comes around, I waddle out and unplug the truck and off I go. Bumpy for the first half hour at least. Tires react differently to the cold as well. They form a flat spot when sitting in sub zero temps for awhile, so driving on them feels like four flats. Anyway, I drove slowly through the blackness on a frozen road without lines up and down hills twisting and turning the entire way. A bit apprehensive would be an understatement. How crappy would it be to die the first week here in the middle of winter?! To make it worse, as I headed north it got colder, like negative 40 cold. The heater in the Suburban could hardly keep up. I had to shake my legs to keep them from getting cold. Regardless, I made it safely to Wainwright and early to boot.
The poking and prodding went quickly, they found out three things: #1- I have crappy eyes, not Foxworth crappy but crappy enough #2- I have pretty good hearing, not in the range that Hollie's speech falls into :) but borderline excellent otherwise and #3- that rugby has taken a toll on my body. After a short lecture about Seasonal Affective Disorder preventions and proper lifting technique, I was free to check out Fort Wainwright and Fairbanks. This part of the interior is generally a bit colder than Delta and also a little less windy, so everything was covered in snow. Kind of like the North Pole in the Rudolph cartoon. I headed to the Birch Hill ski resort on Wainrwright to check it out. It was early, so it wasn't open but the sunrise had illuminated the hill enough for me to see. It reminded me of Sundowns in Iowa.  Three hills of runs and a bunny slope. Not Colorado, but a great place to tune up or have a fun getaway day once the temps climb above zero.  

After cruising around and checking out FWW, I ran a few errands around Fairbanks. My general impression of Fairbanks was that it is indeed a city, with the usual traffic, ghettos, downtown area and big box suburbs. Except for the snow and ice, it could be almost any other older small city. The other thing about Fairbanks, which is really more about Alaska in general is the crazy big trucks that everyone seems to drive, more even than a Gamecock tailgate. The diesel smoke and gas fumes hang in the air a lot more up here though.
After a big burrito lunch, I got back on the road to Delta. The air cleared of diesel smoke around North Pole and the temperature started to rise somewhere after Eilson Air Force Base. The drive back in the daylight was pure joy. The views were stupendous, the Alaska Range's Granite Mountains slowly creeping back towards me. The wind had died down and the heater could now keep up, it had struggled at 40 below.