Mountains

On the way home from Alaska the kid sitting next to me asked what were Illinois' gun laws and what kind of trees we had. I could answer the second, but he stumped me on the first. He was going to be a junior in high school and was from a village in the bush. He and a whole group of other high schoolers were headed to Tennessee for a christian youth rally. The girl sitting next to him was much more sophisticated since she was from Anchorage but they got a long really well once they realized that they both liked the band Skillet. Skillet. Yes, a real christian rock band. Although their conversation about the band resembled an Onion News article. 

Later in the flight he woke me up to see if I wanted the cookies that were being passed out. I tried to tell him he could have them, but I don't think I was intelligible. He got the point, hopefully, I didn't have any cookies when I woke up.

On the flight to Alaska I sat next to an older man who was also a talkative christian and who also woke me up, but this time to tell me about things to do in Alaska. One of which was to stop at the Igloo on the way to Fairbanks. The Igloo was supposed to be a novelty hotel that was designed to look like an actual Igloo, but extra large. I did stop, on my way back to Anchorage, and the place was a total dump. Apparently it was never finished before it was abandoned and when I got up close the whole thing just looked like a dome covered in spray foam and chipped white paint.

Now I want to go back and ride my bike on the Dalton Highway from Prudhoe Bay to Fairbanks. The advice is that after a hard 414 miles you don't want to end up in an industrial oil and gas town, but rather a kind-of real city.


I wish I had taken an extra day to go up to the Arctic Circle.