Enjoy your vacation...........



I'm looking forward to whatever kind of photos you bring back.

to hear me...Everyone down here can't wait for the rains to start! Hottest summer ever, in the NW!

I'm sure you'll take lots of great photos! This might seem like a dumb question but will you drive or fly?

but we'll be driving up the Dalton Highway, aka the Haul Road, about 260 miles tomorrow. Carl has rented a big van, and since there are just 3 of us "students" plus Carl and his wife, it should be a pretty fun ride. This is the Ice Road made famous by the original Ice Road Truckers on Discovery Channel. We'll be tackling the famous Atigun Pass, which has four inches of snow already. I imagine it will be very beautiful.

Looked up the Dalton Hwy... about as remote as can be! I envy you...you are going on an adventure!

About the only other traffic will probably be trucks going up to Prudhoe and the oil fields. I'm looking forward to the silence. It should be very quiet at night. The "lodge" we'll be staying at is run by renewable energy generators since no power lines go up there.

Laying here in my room I can hear flocks and flocks of geese and Sandhill cranes flying over. Winter is on the way.

There are resorts here too in Oregon that rely on generators for power...I've been to one, the Paradise Bar Lodge on the Rogue River. Only accessible by the mail boats or small airplane (but they have to clear the cows from the landing area) Paradise is an apt description, it was close to it.

Also when I was in Bodie the rangers told me they rely on generators (I never saw them they are well hidden) as there is a small permanent population there. And that is a sub polar climate there. There's a grove of aspen above town but the trees are only three feet high because of the climate.

If you see stunted trees, can you take some pictures and maybe share them?

We have a lot of stunted trees in certain parts of the state. The black spruce are very short, very gnarly and look like gnomes in the winter when they're snow-covered.

Maybe tap wasn't the right choice.