Alaska Mtn Range as seen from Camilla's office.

Dogsled taking a ride (sans dogs)

Nathan and I assisted timing a skijoring competition.

Fairbanks Ice Dogs - Look fierce, huh?

Rounding the last curve, heading to the finish line....and I'm ready with the stop watch.

Skijorers had one, two, or three dogs. We assumed they'd all be huskies, however none were huskies. They were all breeds and all yippy before the competition.

The ceiling of the ice arena is mirrored - permitting visibility of areas that might otherwise be blocked. Pretty cool, huh? (Yes, pun intended.)

Pickup with dog kennels used for transporting skijoring dogs.

A beautiful drive down the highway.

The trees and bushes have been very frosty - and gorgeous.

The view out of my office window. There's never any wind of any strength, so smoke goes nearly straight up. Yup - just like pictures of Alaska of smoke coming out of chimneys.

Sunset over Denali as viewed from my office window. Had to put this one in to make my sister really, really jealous :-)

We're continuing to enjoy Fairbanks and all it has to offer. The snow is like no other I've regularly seen before. When it comes down it is all sparkly, and it stays sparkly. The weather never gets warm enough to melt the snow, which apparently results in it continuing to sparkle.

Further the frost and snow on trees (and everywhere else for that matter) never melts either, making them look so picturesque day in and day out. Small rock is used on the roads for better traction (no salt). The fact that the snow alongside the roads and streets doesn't melt keeps it continually clean.

The thermometer has headed down, with this morning being around -20 F. Again, there isn't any wind, so it didn't really feel that cold. I didn't wear anything on my head (no hat) to work and back and my head stayed perfectly warm. I do notice that more and more co-workers are plugging their cars in at work. Previously it was only those of us from the lower 48 that were plugging in.

We enjoyed volunteering for the skijoring competition. It gave me a chance to wear my Alaska gear (big klunky, warm boots, Columbia jacket, thick gloves, and gator I made) and even though it was 10 degrees, + 10 that is, it wasn't cold at all. The most uncomfortable thing was going indoors to receive instructions and our glasses fogging over to the point we were blinded and being so bundled up it was nearly impossible to take them off!

The photo above of Nate and a bear were taken at the University of Alaska museum. I attended a film there one evening that pertained to subsistence living. It was interesting to see how hard those people work to eat and make a living.

I have taken over 1100 photos since leaving Sioux City in July. Today marks 4 months since I arrived in Fairbanks. Hard to believe it's been that long. Things have really changed, too, as when we first arrived we had about 2 hours of dark, and now we have about 18 hours of darkness. It seems odd to be going to work in the dark and for the sun to go down before 4 p.m. Not that I'm getting anxious, but the other night I took a look of weather records on the internet the other night and saw that on my April 23 birthday I can expect the sun to come up at 4:45 a.m. and set at 9 p.m.