Let's Do This
The Prodigal Son Returns
It's late and it's cold ... well I suppose those two things always seem to be true for Fairbanks, Alaska in February. In actuality it's 11:00pm and its -2 F - not so bad when you consider the big scheme of things and how bad it could be. It's been nearly 7 years since I returned to Fairbanks and even longer since I returned to Alaska in the cold of winter.
The Chena River running through the heart of Fairbanks doubles as another roadway during the winter.
I return to Fairbanks to begin my journey to Antarctica. By October of this year, I will trek down to New Zealand and make the hop across the polar ocean to the great southern landmass. As I begin this journey, I'm reminded of a quote by Raymond Priestley that I read many years ago:
"Half the fascination an Antarctic expedition possesses is to be found in the sharpness of the contrasts experienced during its course, for it appears to be true that a hell one day is liable to make a heaven the next."
I can see from my hotel room that the Northern Lights are out in all their atomic glory - I should get up. As I wander the empty streets of what passes for downtown Fairbanks remembering all that I had forgotten but my soul had remembered, I'm followed in my wake by the mysterious blues and greens of the Northern Sky. I knew I missed them - I missed laying in the dry snow for hours and watching them dance across the sky, mesmerized by their at times sinuous form racing one way and then the other, I missed straining to hear the sound of light and energy rasping against the sky. An hour passes as swiftly as a minute in the quiet and stillness of an Alaskan night - it's time to go in because well ... it's late, it's February, and it's freaking cold.
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