I know you're all dying to know if I've hit anyone while driving those 40 foot monsters. I've only hit air pockets and frost heaves, thank you very much. In all honesty I'm doing pretty good. But when we're not driving buses, we're looking for other ways to get in trouble.
Like going to an ice museum.
The ice museum was pretty small, but pretty sweet. It's kept at 20 degrees all year, so I guess you could technically say that for most of the year they have to heat it (get it, because it's usually ever colder outside?) Actually, I have no idea. I just know everything inside is made of ice.
They give you jackets to wear inside the museum, isn't that nice of them?
I'm pretty proud of myself because I didn't bring in a tripod but was still able to get some cool (and I do mean cool) pictures. The colors come from little colored Christmas lights, and the ice is usually melted right around where the light is.
The detail was pretty impressive. They had a bar inside where you could pay more money to drink a martini out of an ice glass or some touristy junk. Instead, we brought blow dryers and drank the sculptures.
The ice museum is located at this place called Chena Hot Springs. It is a natural mineral hot spring in the middle of the mountains, so it's pretty legit to take a dip when it's -40 outside. The day we went it was like +40, so still cool enough to have some dramatic effect, but not extreme enough to have your body suddenly break in half due to temperature extremes. Although they are open year round and people do like to torture themselves.
We had packed a picnic dinner, and even though it was nice outside, the mosquitoes weren't so nice so we ate inside. If you've ever heard legends of Alaskan mosquitoes, they're all true. They're known as Alaska's state bird because they're so ginormous.
I'm sure you're thinking "well how do they survive the winter?" which is exactly what I thought, but rest assured the mosquito eggs have this special incubator gel in them so they are able to lie dormant over the coldest part of winter (just the eggs, not the actually sucking birds).
Once break up happens, things start to melt, but there is no where for all the melted ice to go, and we all know (or will know now that I'm telling you) what happens when there is a bunch of stagnant water: mosquitoes.Thankfully, they usually go away by the end of July.
Speaking of suckers:
In other random blog worthy news, I got a bad cold this past week and so I've been out of touch with reality. Don't worry, I haven't had too many delusions of grandeur.
We've got a nice little posse; once season starts I think it might break up because everyone's schedules will be so different. For the time being we do everything together, and it usually happens at our place. To be honest I haven't had this much fun in life since Attila was a Hun.
Here's a picture I took of the sun setting, which I think happened around 10:30. At night. Crazy, right? I'm pretty stoked for the midnight sun. They don't have fireworks on the 4th of July because it never gets dark enough!
Today we went to a co-worker's house for a bar-b-que. Her husband is an ice trucker and is on the reality TV show Ice Road Truckers. She was telling us all sorts of crazy stories about what goes down in the life of an ice trucker. They actually spray water on one part of the highway so that it will freeze more evenly and he actually drives out on the frozen ocean in the Arctic to bring supplies to the rigs.
One time there was a camp of 200 men who hadn't received food for several days due to harsh weather, so for four days her husband hand shoveled snow to get his truck across to the camp. Keep in mind you have to keep your truck running the whole time or everything will freeze and you're in a whole lot of trouble. I've never seen the show but we're going to have a marathon and watch all the episodes. She said that besides having to re-enact dramatic scenes, the danger they portray on the show is spot on.
I tell you what, this is just the beginning of all the interesting people I'm going to meet this summer.
I'm in Alaska.
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