For our 8th marriage anniversary, we headed further North than we've ever been. There we found the Aurora Borealis, snowmobiles, and the coldest temps we've ever faced.
We've previously celebrated anniversaries in Austin, Texas (1st & 2nd); Siem Reap, Cambodia (3rd); Victoria, BC (4th); Portland, Oregon (5th); Bogota, Colombia (6th); and Vancouver, BC (7th). But for this year we wanted to go somewhere neither of us had ever been. So we settled on Alaska.
After finishing a day of work on Monday, December 2nd, we left Zero with some house-sitters, met up downtown and headed to the airport for an 11 pm flight to Fairbanks, Alaska. It was a long day of travel, and we passed out in our hotel pretty fast. But a few hours later we were up again before the sun (it didn't rise until 10:30 am) and looking for breakfast. We found an amazing Crepe place in town and spent the day exploring the area before heading to our next stop the following day.
The next day we headed to Borealis Basecamp, a fancy resort about 30 miles outside of Fairbanks, where you stay in special igloos with a large viewing port to watch the Aurora Borealis. Unfortunately during our stay the Kp index, which measures geomagnetic activity, never got very high. We were able to see the lights, but it was not enough for our camera to get a photo.
After a fancy steak dinner we settled into our igloo, and managed to see some lights around 1:30 am. The next day we had an 11 am snowmobiling tour. We were geared up with as many layers as we could fit under our jackets, but the sun barely hit the area we were in, and it made the ride VERY COLD, about -17 F.
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| We can't get away from XT's haha. |
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| We encountered some dog sleds too. We could have done this, but sitting there while someone else drives sounded boring. |
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| It was so cold that Johanna's eyelashes froze. |
After our snowmobiling adventure we had lunch at the Borealis Basecamp lodge and filled up on hot chocolate and coffee to try and warm up.
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| This is around 3 pm. |
We had an amazing time in Alaska, and hopefully we will get a chance to ride our motorcycles here soon.