It's been a weird fall. Temperatures have bobbed between properly freezing temps and the 50s. The birch and fireweed have long since faded, but the snow hasn't come, which means that the ugliest part of the Alaskan year has stretched from a couple of grayish weeks to over a month. The kids are actually hoping for snow...which will last for about a week after we finally get some stuff that sticks.
The frost is promising.
Our only snow so far. It melted 12 hours later.
The temperature is finally falling, though, and we've got predicted highs in the 20s next week, so we (I) did our winter layout. My storage closet vomited its summer contents all over my living room and we (I) spent an hour and a half pairing mittens and gloves, sizing snowpants, and digging hats out of pockets. Somehow I'd acquired four extra pairs of boots over the winter; since the girls all wear boots at least one size too big, I kept one in-between pair and donated the others, along with some of the extra gloves and hats that apparently spawned during their summer in the closet. We are ready whenever the cold decides to arrive.
Fall's busy. Of course, I'm starting to suspect that homeschooling six kids means my life's busy and will be for a while. During the fall, though, we add four birthdays and three major holidays into the mix. Since Rick was gone on a job-mandated camping trip for a few weeks, we also made a couple trips down to Anchorage and Denali National Park.
Denali was the first. For most of the year you can only go 15 miles into the park with your private vehicle; otherwise you have to take a bus or start walking. Lots of people take either of those options, but with the aforementioned horde of children, I'm not hiking in bear-country and I'm certainly not sardining us onto a bus for a minimum of 6 hours with the requisite car seats. However, after the summer season ends, the park road opens up for another 15 miles. One perk of the mild weather was that I knew Bertha could make it out that far. I packed us up and headed out.
It was beautiful. Most of the wildlife know where the people will be and stay beyond the 30 mile line, but we did manage to surprise a caribou. We also got our first taste of winter during a couple of snow flurries. We ended the day with the girls getting their Denali Jr. Ranger badges and some gourmet popcorn at one heck of a deal ($1 a bag instead of $8 because the guy was closing for the season and wanting to get home to Fairbanks a.s.a.p. because his wife was having a baby the next day). It was delicious. I may have eaten all of the Black Bear Crunch (caramel with dark chocolate drizzle) on the way home.
Anchorage was a much longer trip. The afternoon before I had the feeling I needed to get my snow tires on, which was weird because it isn't consistently freezing or icy and the roads are clear. I'm glad I did, though, because the roads iced over during the night and I was fishtailing all over the road on the hills outside Fairbanks. I can't even imagine how it would have been in my normal tires.
In Anchorage, we went to the temple, which is always a good experience. One of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to visit with some of my favorite people. We took the kiddos to the pool on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson--which was luckily indoors, because even Alaskans don't think swimming outside is fun in 42 degree weather. After the temple, the girls and I went to the Alaska Zoo. It's a tiny zoo since it's limited to animals that can survive sub-freezing temperatures for a third of the year, but it was fun. There were a decent variety of critters, from your typical Alaskan animals like polar bears, moose, and foxen to yaks, tigers, and one very pissed looking llama.
We also ventured out to a mall. I remembered why I don't miss them.
The drive home was incredible. I love the shifting daylight up here. Frankly, it's easier to appreciate a gorgeous sunrise at 8:30 than at 5. I also love how the drive seems new every time I make it.
For most of this trip home, we had a pretty good view of Denali and his wife (the Tanana native name for Mt. Foraker, the second highest peak in the Alaska range). We even won the lottery and could see the peak of Denali. This may not sound like anything special, but at 20,156 feet, Denali makes its own weather and you only have a 1 in 3 chance of seeing the whole mountain.
We made a side trip to Talkeetna. It's a quirky little town about twenty minutes off the Parks Highway that serves as the base camp for the flight-tours of Denali. I've wanted to go for a while--mostly because of the name, to be honest, but also because it is supposed to be beautiful and have the quintessentially offbeat Alaskan sense of humor. I picked the wrong time of year to visit. I'll have to try again next summer when everything isn't grey and dead, but the quirkiness was definitely there.
The best part of the trip was the BEARS. The whole time we've been here, we've heard about bears but never seen them in the wild. In all fairness, I don't exactly go looking for them, and we get more moose wandering around Fairbanks than bears--so seeing these guys, just 20 feet off the side of the highway outside the entrance to Denali, was amazing. Totally worth almost hitting the guy ahead of me. (I didn't see the bears at first, just the car ahead of me throwing on his brakes and giving me a heart-attack while I slammed on my brakes, 'cuz Bertha doesn't exactly stop on a dime.) When I could think again I pulled off the road, clambered into Brenna's lap, and took several pictures from her window while the park ranger eyeballed me to make sure I didn't get out of the car.
Any way, that's been our fall so far. With any luck, winter will get here soon, and the party can really get started.
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