Thrive Outside

Waking up in a proper campground with an actual outhouse, was a dream.  We got in super late (1 am) because of the road closure and construction.  It was a short night.  We ate breakfast in a REAL RESTAURANT in Cold Foot.  I loved all the history of how the Gold Rush went all the way up to the interior of Alaska.  I knew it went to Fairbanks, Nome, Juneau, and of course Palmer.  But, the gold rush drew people who were "late" and finding it a bit crowed in the Fairbanks area, miners would take barges up the river to the interior in search of gold. One story I read the river froze early, and some walked back but others just survived the winter sharing what they had off the barge until they were able to retreat in the spring. Feeling like we could conquer the world, we left our luggage (panniers)  with our gracious support car and Uppa (James' Dad who searched for us and was willing to drive over 600 miles to help us since we flew to Prudhoe and needed ...

Throughout the night, we were startled by the sounds of a massive truck using their jack breaks.  We had no idea how loud they actually could be.  Thankfully, we were able to fall right back to sleep.  I guess that is the disadvantage of camping near the road at the bottom of the hill. The sun was gone but so was the mass of mosquitos on our tent.  The slight breeze kept them off and it only had a normal amount.  We packed up in a cloud and started our journey.   The low clouds made it so we had no idea what was 7 feet ahead of us, but our legs knew.  It was a CLIMB.  As we are continuing to slog up the hill, we hear the sound of (thump, thump, thump) like a helicopter.  Knowing that the sounds of the trucks sometimes have that similar sound, we both were like that must be a truck but it sounds like a helicopter.  Well, it took just a few minutes to confirm, it was a LOW flying helicopter.  It was hovering about 10 feet...

We awoke to that irritating high pitched hum-mosquitos clung to the tent.  At one point during the night, we assumed it was raining but it was only the constant thumping of the mosquito landing on the tent.  Who knew these beasts that weigh so little can recreate a rain storm on our tent fly? I felt sick inside.  James being so encouraging, helped me to get going.  And to my surprise, it was great.  The weather was perfect and only when we stopped did we encounter the swarm of bugs. The view changed slightly and we pulled off for a few minutes to take a photo. We heard there was a place to get second breakfast at Happy Valley (even showers).  However, dreaming of the refueling activity, we were disappointed to see a mostly abandoned area.  A kind gentleman let us refill our water bottles and allowed us to set up the tent to enjoy a lunch break.  It was now HOT!  We fell asleep quickly under the shade of the tent, but woke up...