If I were your age, starting fresh... Alaska, it's the last frontier. Up there,
you can be anything you want. Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch
with a sawed-off shotgun the next.
Good morning from Alaska. Today is March 1st. What are we doing in Alaska in the middle
of winter? I am glad you asked. This is a very good question that I'm sort of asking
myself again now because it just, like, popped into my head and when I get an idea, I just,
like, can't let it go. And so, here we are in Alaska and now, I'm kind of like, what
did I do?
Garrett: I know it's going to be chilly out there. I just can't conceptualize it yet.
Kristin: Yeah, I'm a little scared to go out that door right now. He's going outside so
he can see what it feels like.
How was it?
Garrett: It wasn't too bad.
Kristin: Okay, my turn. I want to know what it's like. Oh, snowing. This is okay. I can do this.
Just arrived at our rental car. It is covered in snow and ice.
Okay, we're finally in the car. I have to say it's a little weird that we had to Uber
to go get the car but it's fine. It's the only company that has snow tires, which is
crazy, but all the rest of them will give you a four-wheel-drive vehicle but no snow
tires.
So we landed in Fairbanks, Alaska last night, and then we planned absolutely nothing for
the next three days. I did that on purpose so that we could chase clear skies. That's
kind of the best way to see the aurora. We have a really good forecast for the week that
we're here. The cloud forecast, on the other hand, is not great so fingers crossed that
we actually get to see some aurora because that's kind of the whole point of this trip.
But the next three days, I don't even know what we're doing.
Where are we going?
Garrett: I don't know.
Kristin: Okay. We have to be out of here in 15 minutes. Where are we going, Garrett?
Garrett: I don't know.
Kristin: Where are we going?
Garrett: I still don't know.
Kristin: Okay. Like all good decisions, this one was made last minute and we're gonna head
out to the Castner Glacier that is about two and a half hours away. And we're gonna just
go out there for the day and come back...Santa Claus...which means we're gonna be driving
a little bit at night, but Garrett's confident.
Garrett: So far.
Kristin: Great.
These mountains are, in fact, dramatic as fuck. It's so cool. Spotted our first glacier.
It's a glacier, man.
Winter or summer, the ice cave is apparently always there. Word on the street was all we
had to do is find our way there and then walk along the frozen river and we would find the
cave. We figured that getting there would be the hard part and the hiking would be easy,
but we were wrong.
Well, everyone has turned back but none of them have snowshoes on. I do but Garrett's
were too big to fit in the suitcase so we didn't bring them. And I'm hoping we'll make
it because it was like a two-hour and forty-minute drive here. I don't know how far we've gone
but fingers crossed.
It's pretty disorienting because it's just nothing but white all around me
and I see a couple in the distance
and I'm just kind of following them, hoping they know where they're going because
I don't really, like, there's no trail.
But I don't see any cave or anything or any sign of it so I really hope we find it.
There it is.
You guys kept me going. Thank you.
It's amazingly smooth. I feel like the only thing I can do, I have to lick it.
Your tongue could get stuck. Don't do that.
It's really so cool.
Tired, very sweaty, totally wet from the sweat. It's all good though. It's all good. Hoping for an uneventful drive back.
I got a frozen drone battery. It needs charging.
Good morning from Fairbanks. Made it back last night. I'm currently balancing my camera on a napkin holder.
Once again, we didn't, like, book anything or plan anything and I don't think you could do this here in thesummer but since it's winter,
it doesn't really seem to matter. Garrett: That's my sweater.
Kristin: The road to Chena's a little bit bumpy. It's bumpy. The Chena Hot Springs are
an institution. They've been around since the early 1900s and the waters were thought
to be healing. Still are. It's a big complex.
When you visit today, you'll notice that there are a lot of things going on. It's a huge
resort with so much room for activities. Since it's an hour outside of Fairbanks, we decided
to rent a room for the night.
Looks like that dragon's gonna eat you.
That's a nice white noise machine but I have to say, unfortunately, I was almost immediately
disappointed. Okay. Well, our stuff already exploded all over the place and I was warned
by the reviews but this is probably...
Garrett: It's rustic.
Kristin: It's rustic. Okay.
Garrett: It's not bad.
Kristin: It's not bad. It's not bad. It's not great though.
Garrett: This is not great.
Kristin: Yeah.
However, once I finally got into the water at the hot springs, my demeanor changed entirely.
But then at night, the vibe totally changed. It kind of seemed a little bit almost like
a party atmosphere and it really felt to me like millennial bath time, and I got to say
I was kind of here for it.
Back to Fairbanks now. That's on the Chena Hot Springs. I like the springs themselves
and if you go in the morning, there's really almost nobody there. It's so hot but I like
it. The accommodation and the restaurant, I don't know. To put it into perspective,
we have booked a, like, mountain yurt that is totally secluded and has, like, aurora
views and is really awesome and has a hot tub that is about the same price per night.
And I don't know, I just don't know if the value's there for that place. Just stopping
by for the day, it's only 15 bucks so that's how I would do it next time. But, at least,
we didn't have to drive out and drive back all in one day, so that's the perk.
Another thing you can do in Fairbanks in, like, February, March is check out the world
ice sculpture festival. It seems like a cool thing to do here. And how often do you get
to see ice sculptures where you live?
Are you excited?
Garrett: Always.
Kristin: Always.
It's actually really fast.
Oh, that's the big daddy's slide.
I don't actually know how to play but...
Garrett: You don't know?
Kristin: Let's try. No. So neither of us know?
Garrett: Well, I just forget how to set it up.
It's Aladdin.
Kristin: It's pretty cool. These are, like, so complex and I've never seen an ice sculpture
before that was making, like, a political statement. It's very interesting and this
is definitely... This is huge, so I can't even imagine how it looks like in normal years
but it's an amazing thing to do in Fairbanks, absolutely worth the $16 entry to get in.
It turned out that driving in Alaska wasn't that bad. It was often pretty well plowed
down to tar and because it's so cold there, it didn't really freeze and create ice on
the roads
Garrett: I could live in Alaska. Yeah.
Kristin: It's beautiful but it's like this most of the time. It's always winter here.
Garrett: Snow.
Kristin: And even though it was -11 at times, as long as you have the right clothes on,
you'll be fine.
But the biggest thing is are we gonna see any aurora on this trip? Even though we had
some really good nights, we still hadn't seen anything.
Gearing up and we're gonna go out and play. I'm so excited that we got clear skies. It
was definitely not forecasted.