They Headed North

So Meg and I decided to make a weekend pilgrimage to Fairbanks, Alaska.

After just under 6 hours of driving, we ended up at Pike's Landing.  For the weekend, we had the Ice Festival, Chena Hot Springs, and a remote cabin on tap.

After arriving in town, we had plans to eat at the Turtle Club, but those plans went awry with a 2 hour wait.  We headed to the Silver Gulch Brewery instead and had an awesome dinner.

With only a couple hours left, we checked out the International Ice Festival in the single digit weather.  It was pretty damn amazing...

This is Meg's second snowmachine ride, on her own personal pink snowmachine.

Meg rockin' out in the kids ice tunnel.

Riding the ice luge on a cardboard box.

North to the Future!!

This sculpture was titled "Coming Home".

Later that night we retired to Pike's Landing, and grabbed a drink at the bar.  We got up the next morning and ate breakfast at Sourdough Sam's and checked out the Ice Fest in the daylight.  By the way, it was -20F when we woke up...

Meg makes her way through the ice maze.

It was rather cold riding the free train.  What a cutie!!

Hitting the bowl.  No Mom, not that kind...

More ice luging.

What can I say...they did an ice job with this one...

Meg's favorite animal.

                             

Titled "Conception", how'd they do that?

The next adventure was getting out to a remote cabin that was 6.5 miles off of Chena Hot Springs Road. The Nugget Creek cabin is accesible only by foot, ski, or snowmachine.  We chose the latter, borrowing a sled from one of my buddies.

Meg prepped for a little throttle therapy.

The Nugget Creek Cabin.

The cabin via the wood line...

After we got the fire stoked, we headed back out to the road and drove another 25 miles to the Chena Hot Springs.  Arriving just before sunset, we soaked in the hot springs while the ambient temperature hovered in the single digits.

Cabin life.  Drinks, hot dogs, snacks, cards (Hands and Feet), lanterns,  and dogface.

The necessary items for Hands and Feet.

Cool picture of cabin life...with a lot of stuff going on (new BD Lantern, cabin log, "The Club", iPhone music, and Meg).

Taken just before we would see the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights.  I really couldn't figure how to use my new bad ass camera, so no bad ass pics.

We had some pretty stellar views of the aurora.  We headed back to Anchorage the next day, of course losing an hour due to daylight savings time.

860 miles of driving...but it was soooo worth it!