More adventures in Fairbanks
Lots of good events in Alaska the past day or two.
Yesterday I went for a short run in the morning around the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. The campus is on a small hill not far from the hostel where I’m staying and has a very nice outdoor Shakespeare theater that reminds me of the space in Regent’s Park, London where Tanya and I saw the Merchant of Venice a few years ago. Otherwise the campus seems pretty unremarkable. On the way back, I had the awesome realization that the shop where the race registration for the run I wanted to do tomorrow is probably the closest business to my hostel. Yay! I went back when the store opened and met Bob from Running Club North who was very helpful and assured me they could get me to the race as he handed me bib #83. Then he put me in touch with Steve, who had been the club president for a couple years and we negotiated a “you scratch my back…” (I come carry around some tables the day before the race) “…and I’ll scratch yours” (he’ll drive me to the race). Otherwise yesterday there was a cookout at the hostel and it was release day for the final Harry Potter book and the small independent book shop up the street - Gulliver’s Books - was holding a midnight sale and huge outdoor party for it. I couldn’t really resist the will of the people so I hopped on the bandwagon at 6:00 and got spot in line #125. I wandered around for more of the afternoon and evening before coming back to a very nice cookout at the hostel and eventually going out that night to get the book. This is one of my favorite conversations I had this day:
- Me (to two kids in line for Harry Potter who were obviously dressed like Harry Potter and Ginny, affecting my best fake-interested-Trick-or-Treater-parent voice): Now, who are you two supposed to be??
- Them: (silence)
- Me: Hey - could I get your picture? Are you two together?
- Them (after looking at each other awkwardly and answering the second question: No, we don’t know each other
- Me: Oh, well could I get your pictures anyway??
- And then they let me. It’ll be in flickr when I get another internet connection, but it was great.
Trivia: according to someone else in line - the kids at the front of the line at that shop who had been in line for 11 days held the longest vigil in the world for the book’s release. I had to think “don’t you want to do something else with your summer in Fairbanks???”
This morning I lined up for a bus into town so I could get to the travel center and start thinking about my next destination (something I didn’t wind up accomplishing) and also to see the Golden Days parade. Everything is going back to running for me right now and this did, too. It turned out there was a 1 mile race for Golden Days and I met a woman who was running that and is running the race tomorrow and agreed she would drive me to the run tomorrow (this is preferable since if I go with the club president, he needs to get there at 6AM). So hooray! After the parade I met Keith, who is the current Running Club North president who drove me to the Silver Gulch Brewery where the finish/bbq/beer sampling will be after the race.
Trivia: Silver Gulch microbrew is one of the furthest north breweries in the US (I have a hard time believing there are no microbrews in the arctic circle to give it top honors, but that’s what I read). Then I went back to town, had lunch at a diner where I expected Schneider and the rest of the cast of One Day at a Time to saddle up next to me. I took the waitress’s question “did I tell you it was my 21st birthday last night?” to be my cue to get the check and head back to the hostel.
It was 93 degrees today according to the thermometer on the Key Bank downtown. I feel exhausted from the sun and just want to rest now.