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Our new friends emily, patrick and jordan.

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The show is mildly amusing but i'm really lovn the all you can eat salmon and ribs - and lots of veggie fixins.

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We're heading in to cabin night, a dinner theatre extravaganza celebrating the gold rush. Should be pretty funny. Much to paresh's dismay i told our waitress it's his bday.

Fotolog Thursday

On Thursday we went on an excursion to Point Barrow to see Polar Bears in this Hummer, owned by a sketchy dude named Frank















We were joined by Lana, an L.A. lawyer who is in the enviable position of traveling around for a year or so. She had just arrived in Barrow when we met her and she was looking forward to 2 nights in the same place. We wondered whether Barrow was the best place for that. We were itching to get out after 1 night, nothing against Barrow it's just...a strange otherworldly town that merits an overnight visit and that's it. I look forward to hearing from Lana about her time there though. We gave her the blog address, hopefully she'll comment.

Here are some shots of the ice.















Pretty stunning.

This used to be a seal (I actually did see a live seal thru binoculars, but sadly no polar bears.)
















Me chillin'.















Getting onto the smallest plane ever.















The view from the plane. Absolutely amazing.

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Just got done with rafting. It was a class 3 rapid, pretty mellow but beautiful scenery. I even got to guide the raft down the river a bit. Turns out rowing a boat's like riding a bike, old crew and row boat instincts kicked right in.

Here's a shot of Paresh in the get-up they gave us to wear. It actually kept us quite warm despite our getting super wet going over some of the waves.

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The grand denali lodge

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We've arrived in denali. It's chilly but not raining. We're heading up to our hotel then we're gonna go white water rafting.

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The birthday boy...or should i say supreme being - a woman who checked us in to the cruise out of seward was like 'doesn't paresh mean supreme being?' he was like 'yes, yes it does.'

Friday

We have an 8:15 train to Denali. It's a 4 hour train ride, so shouldn't be too bad, we're old pros. Once we get there we'll have the whole afternoon and evening free to celebrate Paresh's birthday (I have a couple things up my sleeve...)

Chance of rain in Denali: 90%.

Happy Birthday, Paresh!

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Many local inupiat artists were selling their crafts at the cultural center.

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Barrow is super expensive due to the difficulty of transporting things there. Here's an example from the grocery store.

Fotolog - Wednesday

Here are some pictures from our time in Barrow. We had an incredible tour on Wednesday, just the two of us in a van driven around by Ron, a teacher from Texas who's lived in Barrow for 11 years.

That's the Arctic Ocean in the background. It was in the 40s generally when we were there, with open water just off land with ice extending far into the distance.

A funny milepost.

Whale bones.

Local Inupiats singing and dancing at the cultural center.

This is where we stayed the night.

Here I am with ice floes behind me.

Midnight sun. This picture doesn't do justice to just how light it was out but you can see how high in the sky the sun was at midnight. I couldn't make it til 1am. Paresh woke me up from a 2 hour nap as it was to see this. I'm glad he did.

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Happy anniversary kyle and blue! Cheers!

Back

Finally landed in fairbanks.

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Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

Barrow

After an at times harrowing plane ride we arrived to a rainy cold Barrow some time after 11am only to discover we have no cell service (Cellular One is the only service up here.) It's a tiny town right on the Arctic Ocean. We went on a quick tour of the town, then just got through watching a welcome ceremony by local Eskimos at the cultural center. This involved music and dance and culminated in a blanket throw where we all gathered round a blanket made of seal skin and pulled it taught with a child on top, hurdling the kid into the air to the ceiling. I recorded some audio of it -- I may be able to send it to the blog, I'll give that a shot tomorrow.

It looks like the sun is out again. We're planning on seeing the "midnight sun" tonight, which actually is in view between 1am-1:20am. We're heading back to Fairbanks tomorrow afternoon. Not sure what we're going to do with all this time, maybe go on an excursion in the morning. We'll see. More pictures tomorrow night when we're back in a cell service zone.

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On the plane

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Our plane - yikes

Weds

Forecast 4 barrow was rain but we're told its 46 and sunny. Theyre fueling up now per our weights. We'll land in coldfoot then barrow

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Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

Fotolog - Tuesday

of the train from the train
















whoah















some crazy bridge thing















ahh, on solid ground in Fairbanks...

Fairbanks

We arrived in Fairbanks at 8pm tonight. It was (and still is as 11pm approaches) about 70 degrees F. It's absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately I can't say the same for Fairbanks itself. We took a walk after dinner and the city is sort of industrial, at least the area around our hotel. We're close to the train station as well as the airport, which is good since we need to be at the airport at 7am. We have a 3 hour flight to Barrow, which is the northern-most town in the U.S. We're going to go on a tour of Barrow tomorrow including an Inuit ceremony and then will stay overnight at the Top of the World Hotel and fly back Thursday afternoon. We have been instructed to bring only a pack weighing 10-15lbs with us on the flight. I suspect the plane will be a slight one, which should make for a pretty interesting experience.

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I went to the bathroom and noticed there was a small strip of clear glass to look thru. Made for a cool photo technique

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Our train guide michelle. She was great, charming and informative. Made the time pass relatively quickly.

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Riding the rails in style

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View from the train

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Chillin in the dome car

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We are now heading north to fairbanks on alaska railroad. We have a 12 hour train ride ahead of us. Fortunately, seats are quite comfortable. There are 2 on either side of a center aisle.

Fotolog - Sunday

aerial shot from the plane to Katmai

(this is a picture of...) me in my waders heading to the beach















our group heading up from the beach; it was 8 of us plus Chris, our fearless leader (center)














we hiked up into a meadow where the bears eat, play, fight and...well, this is a family blog...
















this is toward the back of the meadow: mama, yearling cub (1 1/2 yrs old) and another young female. the bears tolerated our presence, aware of us but unconcerned since we respected their space. because of all the tours that visit there, most of these bears have seen humans since they were cubs.













Bro and sis Ben & Emily in the foreground approached by another male who wants to play. They're all around 3 1/2 years old, about a year before sexual maturity.















here's that young male running from Emily -- we know who wears the pants...














here's Peaches sunning herself as a gentleman caller looks on














here's scare bear, so named because she's extremely shy around other bears. she's known for being much more comfortable around humans. whenever we saw her all day she was hanging by herself.














here's my favorite bear shot of the day. so peaceful, as though we're not even there.














throughout the day we were fairly consistently surrounded by ten plus bears at any one time, but at a pretty good distance away. it was amazing how unfazed we became by the presence of wild bears in our vicinity. I found myself even wanting to get closer. well, as the day wore on, one bear in particular seemed to feel the same way. as we walked back toward the beac, this dude decided to come by and check us out.

















to give you a sense of how close he got, I took this with the zoom of my digital camera, sans telephoto lens. he was definitely within 20 feet. definitely got my heart rate going.














and here's what they call the "hero shot."
















here's a shot from the beach at the end of the day. you can see the mountain where the mama bears have their dens, and the beach where the bears come down to dig for clams.















Chris's husband Ken came to get us in the plane. Thanks Chris and Ken for an incredible adventure.