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You know what one day I am going to start remembering? A camera!! Who goes to Alaska without a camera? So here we go, a cell phone picture tour of my journey into the Arctic Region last night from Fairbanks, AK. Not sure this road was entirely designed however to cruise in a Chevy HHR. Check out this crazy mobile.

Directly from the book “Adventure Guide to the Alaska Highway”:

HIGHWAY TIP: Most people will tell you there’s no way to drive the Dalton without flattening at least one tire, or even two. The road isin terrible condition, it swallows cars whole; the truck drivers are crazed and dangerous, the tour bus drivers are even worse. And the stories, if taken with a grain of salt, are largely true. The road is hard on tires, and there are few places to get repairs. Any mechanical breakdown on the Haul Road can be serious. Employees of Alyeska, the company in charge of the pipeline and trucks, aren’t going to stop and help, not even in an emergency. Other traffic is sparse. Travelers need to be informed and prepared for this remote road. Drive with your lights on at all times and carry along basic survival gear. Always keep the heavy truck traffic in mind and watch for bears and caribou in the road.

Well, clearly the writer of that little passage has never made the trip across Cambodia and Laos on “National Highway 6″ where we seriously nearly lost one cow and a small Toyota pickup truck in a POTHOLE forever! Haha, anyway, this definitely sounded like my kind of trip. So, after work yesterday it was to the Arctic Circle with me! Some beautiful views like this one of the moonrise over the Tundra were my reward.

The Dalton Highway connects Fairbanks, Alaska with Prudhoe Bay on the coast of the Arctic Ocean where heavy oil drilling is done. It follows the Alaska Pipeline up which carries 20% of all the oil drilled in the US from Prudhoe Bay to the port in Valdez for dissemination to the rest of the US. Here is shot of the 4 foot diameter pipeline that hauls the oil. The Highway was developed to support the pipeline and haul drilling supplies to Prudhoe Bay (and therefore is affectionately known as Haul Road).

It is approximately 500 miles from Fairbanks to Prudhoe bay, but only 210 from Fairbanks to the Arctic Circle, and the Arctic Circle was where I wanted to make it. I have never officially been in the Arctic (north of the circle). 210 miles doesn’t sound too bad but on a rough road it makes for a long “after work” trip. Me and my Chevy HHR rental did make it successfully, without a single blown tire. I got off work at about 4:30 and made the Arctic Circle by about 9:15 (still in daylight at that time of course). Here is me my super cool ride at the circle.

Here is another shot about 10 minutes North of the circle… The Arctic Zone! Not too bad however, at 9:15 at night the Arctic Zone was 62 degrees, haha.

I took off back south and made it back the motel at about 1:30 in the morning. On the way back down I caught a nice bit of twilight off the bridge over the Yukon River (which is damn big river I discovered). Not an amazing night for wildlife but I did spot one black bear off the road a ways (my $1000 Swarovski binoculars were of course at home with my camera).

It is a nice drive for the slightly more adventurous types. Next time I think it is on to Prudhoe Bay and the shores of the Arctic Ocean! (but not in an HHR…)

While yet another airline fiasco (this time with Northwest, same airline that left my bags in Memphis, TN while I flew to Port Elizabeth, South Africa) resulted in me getting into Fairbanks Alaska last night at almost 2 AM, I am really excited to be back in the great north. Now if I can just figure out how to get out of working tomorrow and Thursday and go fish instead it will be perfect!

2 AM last night and it was pitch dark out, so it must have been earlier in the year last time I was year and it didn’t get too much darker than twilight. I got a super goofy looking car ( a Chevy HHR) to cruise Fairbanks in but my spot to crash was only 2 miles from airport and a mile from the client so I guess it really doesn’t matter. Got up for a BEAUTIFUL run this morning and have now run twice as many miles as I have driven since I got here anyway. It was about 55 out this morning on my run, not bad for the coldest time of day just 1.7 degrees of latitude below the arctic circle.

Staying at a CRAPPY little bed and breakfast type place again tonight and then in the interest of saving a bit of client money (and getting me away from the wierd lady that works here), I’m moving over to a motel tomorrow night. I have stayed over 250 nights in Marriott properties the last three years. Not only does Alaska make me think of my dad, but everytime I go to back to staying in the Super 8 Motel, Best Western, or the Econolodge I especially think of my dad. Yes dad I know, the Super 8 will probably be more comfortable than one of those overpriced hotels anyway. “All you need is a place to throw down your suitcase and have a shower”.

Looking forward to getting a little fish tonight, hopefully they have a tasty halibut joint somewhere in Fairbanks. Also, I have never been as far north as the Arctic Circle, which is only about 150 miles from here. Kind of debating if I have time to roll the HHR up there so I can say I have officially been to the Arctic. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

The abortion question is a big one still in America. And I have always stood by saying we make too big a deal out of it and should work toward a middle ground solution (no abortion aloud after the detection of a heartbeat). While I think this still the best practical solution for a variety of reasons I am not going to go through right now, I am struggling with a question of dichotomy.

If a man batters a pregnant woman badly and the woman miscarriages the baby as a result, should you be able charge the man with murder, manslaughter, or similar charge? If so, how is it logically consistent to allow abortion?

Take it a step further… If a doctor’s negligence leads to a miscarriage, isn’t it fair that the person is able file (and win) a malpractice suit against the doctor for their loss? If so, aren’t we assigning a rather high value to the life of the unborn in this case?

And I secretly like to watch.

According to this MAD Jim Cramer clip (a poor reference to his CNBC show Jim Cramer’s Mad Money) 14 million people took mortgages in the last three years and seven million of those took teaser rates or piggyback rates and if the Fed doesn’t cut the discount rate, those people are going to lose their home. AND, more importantly, his friends at the big banks (he mentions Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs) are going to lose their jobs. Therefore, we have Armageddon in the fixed income markets.

HELLO?! I was nothing but a stupid college kid 3 years ago and said over and over that all of these were going to fold and the banks were going to lose their shirts. That is what happens to lenders with a short-term outlook that make loans there is NO CHANCE will get paid back. So who cares? I HOPE they all go out of business and lose their jobs. Their abusive lending and short-term outlook set them up for it.

And the home buyers. Sorry, but as much as I hate the bankers for this problem, you have to look out for your own. If you don’t have the financial sense to realize that when you get down to a $1500 payment on a $400,000 loan, something is wrong and more financial education is necessary before taking such massive debt.

So, it almost disgusts me, but I get a secret little pleasure from watching the fixed income markets collapse in on itself as a result of sub-prime home lending. It is about time the investment banks took one on the nose.

So last night… Melissa Etheridge confronted Hillary Clinton about her husband’s gay rights record, accusing Bill Clinton of throwing gay and lesbian supporters “under the bus” by pushing for the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and the Defense of Marriage Act.

The Democrats’ top three candidates, including Mrs. Clinton, pledged support for gay rights at last night’s first-ever nationally televised same-sex issues presidential forum - but they and other Democratic candidates attending refused to back gay and lesbian marriages.

Facing successive 15-minute interviews by gay rights advocates in Los Angeles last night, Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards all vowed to battle for gay, lesbian and transgender rights. But they stopped short of endorsing gay marriage - a super touchy culture-war issue that could alienate millions of independents and religious conservatives.

Bad news for gay and lesbian voters… their own party won’t even stand-up for them. Sorry GLBT folks, I guess you have no one to get behind (maybe Kucinich, but good luck… getting behind a guy like him is like getting behind a guy whose is basically Libertarian, no chance of winning. I feel your pain).

When it comes to saying those bad words (”I support gay marriage” in this case), politicians just can’t do it for fear of alienating large voting blocks. It reminds me of the voting debacle in support of going to war in Iraq. Listen to them now, not a democrat alive will be caught supporting the war these days. Such high morals they all have… wanting to bring home America’s youth before more die. It is worth noting though that there is only one single individual presidential candidate that foresaw the disaster in Iraq and voted against the war resolution.

Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama, and Mr. Edwards were all war supporters (just like Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Thompson, and Mr. McCain on the other side). Most claim they were voting based on faulty information from their president and I guess that has some validity but where were these big ethical and moral convictions against war at the time? Smells funny to me… like they were pleasing voting blocks then just like they’re pleasing voting blocks now.

One interesting thing though… that one Presidential candidate that voted against the war, he is a Republican (kind of). So, thanks for the moral lessons democrats but it won’t be you convince that you have any conviction or backbone. That one republican… you guessed it, Ron Paul.