A few questions and answers…
1) Where is Chena Hot Springs Resort? It’s about 60 miles northeast of Fairbanks. It’s at the end of a long desolate road with little traffic except to and from the resort.
2) Why am I at Chena Hot Springs Resort? Quick answer: because it’s here! Here as in a great location to see the Aurora Borealis, here as in my 50th state to visit, and here as in a friend stayed at the resort last year and highly recommended it. 🙂
3) Why am I here for five days? When I was in Iceland for a week, I didn’t see the lights. This time, I wanted to give myself the best opportunity to see the lights. The recommendation is three nights and I initially thought about seven nights, so I compromised on five nights. Little did I know that I would see the Aurora on nights #1 and #2! The next two nights were too cloudy. On my fifth night, I thought for sure I wouldn’t see them. The day had been very cloudy with low predictions of Aurora sightings for that evening. I sat in the Activity Center, which has relatively good WiFi, to work on my blog. While sitting there, someone ran in and told me the lights were visible. I grabbed my camera and tripod and snapped away! The photo at the top of this post is from night #5.
4) How have I spent my days? In addition to trying to learn Spanish on DuoLingo, reading The Candy House by Jennifer Egan, and chatting with lots of amazing and diverse people, I’ve enjoyed many of the activities at the resort. These include the hot springs pool (AT LEAST ONCE EVERY DAY!), a magnificent massage, the Ice House with appletini in an ice glass, dogsled ride, and snowshoeing. Yes, ten months after snowshoeing in Bulgaria, I strapped on shoes and once again trudged through snow!
Hot Springs Pool
Those who felt comfortable bringing their phones into the pool would take photos of others and text the pictures to their new “friends.”
Strands of frozen hair.
Looking into the pool.
Ice House
Appletini in an ice glass.
The tradition is to break one’s ice glass while making a wish! (Click on the photo for an eight second video.)
Ice sculpture.
Dog Kennel
Petting the dogs after the dogsled ride.
Snowshoeing
Wearing army surplus gloves from the resort – they worked well at keeping my fingers warm!
Moose tracks on the trail.
Caribou tracks.
Monument Creek.
A tunnel of snow-covered trees.
Mottled sky!
