Alaska Adventure

Yesterday was not a good day to be a cone. Many of them died. I think my problem was my visualization. I kept picturing them as middle school students, and then I just wanted to run them over.  Today was much better. Ninety degree backing, curb pull ups, revisited driver side parallel parking, and more pre-trip practice. It has been very cloudy the last few days with some snow last night. The sun flare hit us a couple days ago but not during a time when I could see it's effect on the Northern Lights. Now I'm headed out for $1.50 chicken tacos. I'll let you know how they are. Not bad. Not Arizona. But not bad.

I am so stoked right now. Just got back from my first skills test driving a bus. We did an air brake test, straight backing, offset backing both ways, right and left turns ( a few snow banks were in mortal danger here), and I parallel parked a bus twice without killing any cones. Yeah!!  I did not turn the bus on its side.  Can't seem to figure photo rotation out in blogger.

CPR and First Aid training today Another nice day cleared most of the streets I went out to look for the Aurora Borealis at 9:30. Nothing happen for about an hour. Then a ribbon of green light came up to the east  far away from where I was expecting it. The light played across the sky directly overhead until it reached the horizon in the west. Because the ribbon stretched from horizon to horizon, I could not capture all of it in one picture. So I took pictures of each end in portrait orientation.  Another phenomenon you cannot see in the photos is the way waves dance across the ribbon, moving second by second. The exposures took 15 to 20 seconds each, so you see an accumulative effect but not each individual detail. Occasionally more ribbons of light would form to the north under the overhead strip, and I would capture those in landscape orientation.  A little after midnight my phone got too cold and shut down, so I went back to the hotel. Here is a progression of picture...

I passed the air brake test and filled above the line for the drug test. Finished paperwork and celebrated with a mushroom Swiss burger. It was a beautiful day with sunny skies and 34 degrees. May try to view the Northern Lights again tonight. Not much going on tonight.

The morning was filled with meetings and paperwork. After lunch we went to take tests at the DMV. I passes the general drivers license test, the CDL safety test, and the passenger test. Tomorrow I have to pass the air brakes test and the drug test as well as finishing paperwork. The people here are competent and good to work with so far. View out my window. 

After a great night of viewing the northern lights, we drove the rough road to the border, on to Tok, and finally into Fairbanks. We saw a nice herd of caribou right on the road. Later we drove out to Chena Hot Springs, which was very different from those at Liard. Chena is commercial ($20 per person), with hordes of people, uniformly hot water (for the most part), and a cold wind that frosts your hair almost instantly. Sorry, I did not get pictures. Then I checked in to the Westmark Hotel where the company is putting us up during training. A hot shower felt good, as did the continental breakfast.  Only in Fairbanks do you see electric plugs at every parking spot to power your block heater. A few more aurora pictures from Thursday

We left Watson Lake early and traveled over snowy roads with strong gusty winds all day. It made for exhausting driving. We went through Whitehorse and Haines Junction to camp near Destruction Bay on Kluance Lake.