Flashback Alaska: Arctic Circle

I suppose there are a few things you should know about taking a trip to the Arctic Circle:

• lots of people never attempt this on their own...while others make the trip on bicycles and motorcycles....that is crazy and honestly living in most of Alaska is about living extreme!
• there are tour buses that make the trip frequently and for about $200 per person you can be taken up and back in one day departing at 6:30am and returning around 11pm.
• Charlie is enamored with the pipeline...it's the reason we moved to Valdez (his job there in the Coast Guard revolved around the pipeline, we don't want another Exxon Valdez spill)
• There are only two stops (gas/convenience store) along the way and one of them won't have any gas the day you go
• we first had to drive about 7 hours from Valdez to Fairbanks the day before so we could start this trip
• It was almost 30 degrees warmer at the Arctic Circle than in Valdez...I wouldn't have expected that!
• that after doing this trip we realized how very crazy this was to do!!

So here goes, welcome to the Arctic Circle:

This is where our trip starts and just beyond this sign is where the paved road ends and the gravel starts....for hours and hours and hours you drive on a gravel road....

This is what 75% of the drive looks like and that's the Alaska pipeline, to the right, and it runs from Prudhoe Bay for 800 miles to Valdez, where we lived.

This is what the other 25% of the trip looks like....fields and fields of fireweed as far as you can see....do you see the pipeline? Yes, Charlie we all see the pipeline!

Here's a little video that we made while there. Look how much our kids have changed.

So after about 5 hours of driving we got there safe and sound...grilled some hot dogs...ate some chips....watched out for crazy man eating wildlife (ok that was just me)...took some pictures and about 45 minutes after arriving we turned right back around to make the 5+ hour trip back to Fairbanks.

Here are Charlie and I right before the "Arctic Circle Incident."

Don't we look happy and oblivious?...maybe even confident...we may have even taken turns saying things like:
"arctic shmartic.......the Nowak family did THIS, we don't need no stinkin' tour bus......pppffffttt.......it's just a long, bumpy drive....pppaaahhhhllleeeaaassseee."

Mmm Hmmm...in all our confidence we loaded back into the car and settled in for the loooooong drive back. I volunteered to drive back cause "hello, we are Arctic Circle Rock Stars now, DUH!" We approach the first of two gas stations, about an hour into the return trip, and pull in. Now at this point I just wanna get to Fairbanks and download my pictures and get something good to eat so I pull into the gas station after driving "Mario Andretti style" for quite some time. I see a yellow light come on on the dashboard and my little personal alarm goes off. Then we get out of the car and hear the sickening sound of all the air pouring out of our right rear tire. Yeah I hadn't driven over a nail...I had ripped a nice slice in the tire with some boulder size gravel. All I can say is thank goodness for Chevrolet who gives you a full size, real tire as a spare. And thank goodness for my husband who can change a tire while I buy a snack for the kids and find out that there is actually no gas at this gas station.

We, and by we I mean Charlie, finish the tire change and then proced to the next gas station hoping and praying they have gas. Luckily they do and we fill up and then drive nice and slow back to Fairbanks cause now we have no spare and for the next 4 hours or so there is NOTHING and maybe no one to help. I'm sure everyone can imagine my pure joy (read: freaked out terror) at this point in the trip.

Upon Charlie's insistence we make a few stops on the way back to view the scenery and take a hike in the woods?????!!!???. Let's face it this would not ever have been an idea I had...we know I am a scaredy cat and taking a hike in the woods...in Alaska.... is definately not my thing...but we walked and we saw.....

....moose and I prayed that we didn't see bear...which we didn't...thank goodness for that because if we had been attacked and killed by a bear I never would have forgiven Charlie!!!
We did get to see stuff like this though and it was BEAUTIFUL!!
If ever you go to Alaska I highly encourage you to do the Arctic Circle trip, but may I recommend the bus tour. Had we taken a tour we would have paid $1000 for our family. That sounds quite pricey but when you consider that upon our return we had to replace all of our tires which were completely destroyed by the rough road, and that cost well in excess of $1000. The tour really would have been quite a deal.

I will say this - you can't put a price on this experience and the fact that we can say we have stood, as a family, at the Arctic Circle, if only for a few minutes, on a very long and adventurous day is worth it!!