It's been a few days since we last updated this blog. We've been really busy making the most of our time in Alaska. Here's a little catch up of what we've been up to.

On Monday we went to the Fairbanks Museum which is situated in the grounds of the University on a hill overlooking the town. It was a bit of a trek to get there but it was well worth it. The museum was full of information and exhibits about the history of Alaska, the different communities, the range of wildlife found in Alaska and of course things about the Northern Lights. In addition to all this there were two art galleries, one which had proper art in such as paintings of landscapes and people, the other with modern "stuff". After we'd seen all the exhibits we went to the shop and saw that one of the things they sold was fake snow. Silly!

One of the guys in the hostel, Alex from Singapore, offered to take us out that evening to have a campfire and watch for the Northern Lights. He has been here for about a month and ultimately wants to do a solo trek into the wilderness. Brave! We went out at around midnight to the middle of a field and gathered twigs and logs. After a few attempts Alex managed to get the fire started. A bit later on, a big white dog appeared out of the darkness and licked Charlene's face. Ringo (the dog) belonged to one of the other guys at the hostel, Joe. Unfortunately we didn't see the Northern Lights that evening. We were too cold to stay out for too long.

On Tuesday we did a tour to Chena Hot Springs, which started at 7pm - where we got picked up from our hostel by a German guy called Ralf, who lives next door above the garage.It took about 1 and a half hours to drive to the hot springs, and Ralf encouraged us to ask him questions about Alaska etc. So Dave and Ralf talked about very manish things like hunting and Ralf's various businesses, and the 8 years Ralf spent living 'off the land' in the bush!! I (Shil) had a little nap at this point ;o).When we got to Chena Hot Springs we first had a tour of an ice museum - which is full of amazing ice sculptures done by husband and wife team who are both world champions! You will see from the photos how good they are. There were also 4 hotel rooms in there, all totally made of ice, which you can stay the night in if you want…...Then we went to the actual hot springs.We started off in the indoor pool, which was more warm than hot really. Then after delaying the inevitable for a while, we finally plucked up the courage to run outside (in just our swinsuits) to the all-natural rock pool (the proper hot spring), it was -25 deg C at this time of night! But the water was incredibly hot, and there's loads of steam coming off the top so you can't really see much, and also it was dark - so it looked quite strange and mystical.Also there are snow capped rocks and trees all around you, but you feel very hot - weird!Our hair started to freeze a bit though!We couldn't stay in very long because we felt too hot (a first in Alaska so far!).The last part of our tour was North Lights viewing - they had a dark room full of chairs with a large window from where you could watch for the lights, in the warmth.Luckily we saw a really good display that night.They started to appear at midnight, in a big arc from one horizon to the other, and then it gradually moved across the sky changing in thickness and intensity - then it suddenly started 'rippling' and several streams of light came off the main arc in spiral-type shapes, all rippling a lot. It seemed to take up most of the sky, so it was pretty amazing :o).

Since we got back from Chena at about 4am, we had a very lazy day on Wednesday.

On Thursday we went dog mushing. We had booked a 5 mile round trip in a dog sled pulled by 8 Alaskan huskies and driven by Elise their owner. We started off with a safety talk and had to sign forms saying that if we got injured by a moose or flung from the sled that we wouldn't sue. She told us that the temperature outside was -23C, however when factoring in wind chill, it would feel more like -33C. She gave us more appropriate boots to wear and a pair of mittens. After our talk we got chance to say hello to the dogs, all of which were friendly. In the meantime, Elise was connecting the dogs up to the sled. She explained their different roles - the ones who pull most of the weight, the ones who help turn, and the ones who guide at the front. She told us how the dog's personality, age and training meant which position they were better suited to. When they were all joined up, we got into the sled, pulled up our blanket and she let off the breaks. They were a boisterous bunch and ready to go. It was such an exhilarating ride and we passed by some amazing scenery. It was a bit bumpy in places and our toes felt like they were going to drop off, but it was a fantastic experience. We thought we would take lots of photos on the trip, but we only managed the one because we had to take our gloves off. When we got back we had a hot drink and warmed up quite quickly. Elise told us about life in Alaska and how the climate is getting warmer. Apparently when she was young it wasn't out of the ordinary for it to be -50C. At this temperature nothing works and plastic is brittle. When warm water was thrown up in the air, it would drop as ice. She said that -50C isn't that common now. She also said how the warm season for growing crops had gone from 3 months to 5 months a year in her lifetime and that Alaskans are able to grow a much wider range of fruit and veg now. Maybe there is something to this climate change after all! At the end she gave us our dog mushing certificates and said how brave we were.

We're going to have a couple of lazy days for our last days in Alaska.

D & C

P.S. We're not going to be putting many more photos on this STA site. You can see all our photos on our Flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveandshil/