We made it!

We are officially homeless in Fairbanks now! Alaska is incredible. INCREDIBLE. Imagine Michigan's Upper Peninsula but with beautiful, snow-covered mountains sticking up over the trees. I feel completely and utterly at home, and am even forgiving the mosquitos that are EVERYWHERE. They're good motivation to find a home.

Yesterday, we thought we saw a bag of trash on the side of the road, and went to drive around it when it moved! It turned out to be the biggest porcupine either of us had ever seen! We were so shocked that we didn't even try to get the camera out and we missed that picture, but we did finally get a picture of a moose!

Our final wildlife totals:

• Caribou - Too many to count
• Elk - Too many to count
• Moose - 4-5
• Porcupine - 1
• Bear - 7 (including a mama and two cubs lined up patiently waiting to cross the road)
• Bighorn Sheep - 10-12
• Bison - Too many to count
• Coyotes hunting - 1 pack
• Cows
• Deer

Final odometer reading: 3,550



Cost of gas: $862 (though I need to dig out my notes to verify this)
Cost of lodging: $523 (ouch! Over budget, but we couldn't cancel the hotel rooms to accommodate the new traveling dates and we needed internet for work, so we ended up staying in hostels for the extra nights)

Fun/weird sites we saw:

• World's largest weathervane
• (Possibly) Canada's largest beaver statue
• Ghost town
• Worst maintained roads on earth (personal opinion)
• Alaska Pipeline
• Santa Claus's house in North Pole, Alaska
  

Also, just to avoid any confusion for people out there who have not visited Alaska, there are quite a few mosquitoes here in the summer. We were a bit confused when we came up here because the City of Fairbanks official website says this in their FAQ section:

Are the mosquitoes bad in Fairbanks?
No. We have some of the best mosquitoes in the world in Fairbanks.

Seriously, I am not making that up. Look at the website. They are really trying to mislead people about the mosquitoes.

Also, Sarah has the incredible ability to kill mosquitos with one hand in mid-air. Very "Mr. Miagi". I'm going to give her a pair of chopsticks and see just how talented she really is.

Yesterday, Aaron's bank card started being declined. Turns out, someone (him) had obviously gone on a bit of spending spree (gas and lodging) in another country, and since the bank couldn't get ahold of him to verify the charges, they put a hold on his card. We are currently trying to get ahold of the bank to explain to them what happened.

On to the pictures!