Christmas Parties! Chocolates! Star Wars releases! Sub zero temperatures! Winter is here and she is a demanding task master. We had 3 Christmas parties in one day. One with family, one at church, one for work. The work party was mercifully just going and seeing Rise of Skywalker, no awkward small talk.
This family party had a special guest appearance from Grandpa Claus, er...Santa. definitely Santa.
Despite being the second Santa the kids had seen that day, they were still thrilled to see this Santa at the ward party.
I forced a family picture on my kids while they were still all dressed up after church, we tried to ease the agony of a family photo by allowing stuffed animal buddies aaaand a silly face version:
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| A visit to Mrs. Cavanaugh's and this was my kids favorite part. Well, that and the samples. |
To kick off our 2020, Lee had a work trip to Fairbanks Alaska. If you're thinking, "Isn't it kind of cold there?" Yes. The answer is yes. He had to stay a little over a week, so I flew up to visit him for the weekend. It was beautiful. It was cold. Our first visit on our weekend of adventure was the North Pole. Well, North Pole Alaska. It's a little town near Fairbanks whose main draw is the Santa Claus house, where kids can visit with Santa year round. Daytime temperature: -35 degrees Fahrenheit.
Fun fact: car thermometers don't generally measure below -40 degrees, if it had gotten colder, we wouldn't know. The thermometer wouldn't have told us.
When the world is this cold, just don't breathe without your mouth being covered. You will likely not stay outside for more than a few minutes, that's how long it takes for your hands and feet to start hurting. If you need to be outside longer than that, you need some legit cold weather gear, which I do not own.
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| I just didn't breathe while posing for this photo. Air too cold. |
An adorable "Santa's Workshop" area inside, along with a huge gift shop, and we made sure our postcards were getting postmarked from the North Pole.
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| I love kitschy, touristy road side attraction style photo ops. |
From there we hopped in the car. When it is below -20, you gots to plug in your car. Batteries do not like cold, they lose their charge. It takes quite a while for your car to warm up enough to be comfortable to sit in. Also, I've never cared for seat warmers, but they are a necessity when it's this cold. I didn't go anywhere without that seat warmer on. And that included heading up to Chena hot springs. You may be wondering, how? Why? Weren't you miserable getting in and out of water when it's that cold? The answer is: getting in is unpleasant. the air is freaking cold. You are in your bathing suit in sub zero temperatures. Your feet are so cold that the hot water is like needles when you step into the water. However, the water at Chena is seriously hot. we couldn't even walk to the hot end of the rock lake. You hang out in that for an hour and your body is radiating so much heat that you can comfortably walk back to your room in a bathrobe and slippers without feeling the least bit chilly.
We had fun with our frosted hair and eyelashes. Lee looks like a Backstreet Boy in the 90's and I look like a crazy witch.
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| My hair froze like this. Pretty awesome. |
Did you know that it can get too cold to snow? When it is -20 outside, it won't snow. But you can make your own by tossing hot water into the air. It'll mostly turn to snow before hitting the ground. Do not do this into the wind, if it blow back in your face you'll get heat and freeze burns at the same time. Science is fun!
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| I call this car-tography, pictures taken from a car because it's too cold to get out. |
Chena is also known for the ice museum. A whole buncha ice sculptures and bar inside an insulated igloo that is open year round. During our visit, it was about 40 degrees warmer in the ice museum than outside.
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| The ice xylophone actually worked in the sense that it made sound, but it was in no kind of tune. |
If you have $600 laying around, you can stay the night in the ice museum hotel room. You can sleep on a bed made of ice in a room made of ice in your very own sub zero sleeping bag. No bathroom, you'll have to head to the real hotel for that.
For even more money, presumably, you can also get married in the ice museum in this little chapel. Apparently the husband and wife team to create all their ice sculptures did get married here, so did their daughter.
You can sip an appletini from a glass made of ice at this museum, but they didn't have a non-alcoholic version so we passed. Also, they were $15.
We toured the greenhouses and geothermal power plant at Chena. I love a good hydroponic growing system and this one seems to work really well. Things we didn't see: the Aurora Borealis. We tried. The skies were clear, there just wasn't strong solar activity during our visit. We also didn't see animals. I was hoping for moose, but saw none. I did see paw prints that were definitely from a Lynx.
We headed back to Fairbanks for the night so I could catch my early flight home. Fairbanks: home to what must be the last Fred Meyer in existence.
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| The thriving metropolis of Fairbanks, as seen from our hotel window. |
