Left Ontario, Oregon at “sparrow”, as we say in the bush. Drove clear through Idaho as they say round these parts and landed in Jackson Hole Wyoming as they no doubt say somewhere else.

If time flies when you’re having fun. We must be having a ball.

Craters of the Moon National Park – nine out of ten.

Grand Teton National Park – nine out of ten.

Yellowstone Nation Park – ten out of ten.

My Fractured Tooth National Park – nothing out of ten.

Dentist at Cody 10 AM tomorrow! Stop laughing it’s not funny! Really!

Craters of the Moon

Jack Rabbit

Lava Tube

The Devils Orchard

Grand Teton

Beavers been busy

Beaver Dam

Jen Beavering away with Image Box

More Tetons

Critter

Yellowstone

Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon

Jen Bison Watching

Typical Yellowstone

More Typical Yellowstone

Another Critter

We are sleeping in Ontario tonight. Ontario, Oregon that is.

Ontario is the Onion capital of the world, if you can believe the publicity. Ontario exports over a billion pounds of onions each year. That’s nearly half a billion kilos of onions, a number that to me, means absolutely nothing. I mean it’s just a stupid number. Any more than a truck load is clearly more than you can ever eat so lets just say they export several truck loads each year.

Ontario, Oregon by the way is as close to Idaho as you can get without falling of the edge and into that big sack of potatoes called Idaho. I look forward to seeing how many pounds of potatoes Idaho exports each season!

We just need Steak.

In Oregon the name John Day is legendary.

We associated John Day with Fossils.  John Day Fossil Fields, John Day River, John Day Highway and John Day the town, even Dayville.

This John Day, Oh Boy what a man, what a pioneer, what a palaeontologist! We couldn’t wait to see what earth shattering break through “Big John”, as I was beginning to think of him had come up with. Alas, it was all for nought. John Day is Oregon’s greatest Hero who did nothing. Well, when I say nothing, he did do something, a story Jen pointed out at the Painted Hills Fossil Site (just out of John Day the town).

It seems that in 1810 John and a bunch of his friends were heading to the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon to set up a Trading Post. The group became scattered leaving John and his new best friend, Ramsey Crooks, on their own. Near the junction of the Mah-Hah River John and Ramsey were “set upon” by a party of Native Americans who helped themselves to all there possessions. When I say all, I mean all. The two hapless, would be entrepreneurs, were left naked and lost.

You really have to admire the natives for their generosity, no staking out in the sun, no ant hill torture, no trial by combat…. just “give us your stuff”.

John and Ramsey were rescued and taken to Astoria Oregon arriving in 1812 two years after they left to make their fortunes. I suspect Beethoven made more out of his overture, of the same year, than John made from his Trading Post.

Getting back to the naming so many areas in Oregon after John Day. It seems that the locals began calling the spot where John and Ramsey were robbed and rescued, “John Day”. The name stuck and Oregonians (if I can call them that) ended up with a string of places named after a rather inept and naked fur trader. One Day, but not today John.

The real credit for the fossil fields belongs to Thomas Condon. Tom by the way was a minister of the cloth and follower of Darwin’s theory of evolution. This was a brave minister.

“The man” Thomas Condon.

Painted Hills with Jen on the left.

Painted Hills

Dayville Locals. On their way to shoot stuff.

Technical Fossil Business

Glass case of bone stuff.

Another glass case of bone stuff.

Just a great photo!

Fossil Hound

It’s cold enough in Alaska that you don’t sweat. In fact in winter I suspect that the body loses the ability to sweat altogether. I base this theory on the events of yesterday when after a whole day of moderate activity my clothes were both clean and dry.

Fast forward a month or two to the depths of the Alaskan winter, when it’s so cold that temperatures are measured with complicated scientific instruments that only a select few can comprehend and I suspect the body begins to reabsorb previously shed sweat. If the above is true then Alaskans that wear clean dry clothes are at serious risk. In the absence of sweat molecules it is entirely likely that the body may start to absorb other molecules in close proximity to the skin such as nylon, acrylic, polypropylene, and the dreaded spandex.

This is no doubt why Alaskans never ever wash in the winter.

The onset of reverse osmosis

A little north of normal is how Alaskans like to describe themselves. We are apparently becoming a little more Alaskan as we stay here. Today we decided to forgo the cultural side of “The Golden Heart” and explore the more “Northern’ aspects of Fairbanks.

After a hearty breakfast of all the usual culinary delights on offer in your average US hotel including waffles, maple syrup, bagels, 3 types of toast, biscuits, muffins, eggs, sausage, oatmeal, fruit, yogurt, various juices, 3 types of brown liquid (generally categorised as coffee), tea, jams, peanut butter and other spreads, we were of to face our first challenge…

A trip to North Pole and Santa’s Workshop. North Pole, a short drive from Fairbanks, is a Christmas themed tourist town with giant candy cane street lights, street names like “Santa Claus Way” and “Saint Nicholas Drive”. North Pole also sports the worlds biggest Santa (naturally) at 50 ft. tall and weighing in at a lightweight 900 lbs. (do your own conversion if your inclined).

Stand in (sit in) Santa

World’s Biggest Santa

The Workshop at No.101 Saint Nicholas Way North Pole

Challenge number two, “Grizzli’ s Italian Pizza and Pasta Restaurant”,  James went for the chilli bean soup followed by the lasagna, he is still “enjoying” it eight hours later.

Chow Down!

Challenge number three, the Ice Museum and its indoor ice slide.

The Slippery Slope

Ice Bar

Challenge number Four “Indoor Glow Golf”

Putt Putt, Glow Glow

Extra activities included the 50’s diner and another visit to Walmart.

Malt Bar

DC Comics may have a case here.

Maximum photos minimum waffle . So breathe easy and take in the sights……

Moose Boy gone wild.

Reindeer 4X100 metre relay at the Alaskan Olympics

Home Delivery Table. Awesome!

The one on the left is the real stuffed bear.

The Alaskan Stature of Liberty

Bec’s Favorite

Reindeer Rodeo

Moving House

Facial Mask.

I’ve been everywhere man, breath the Alaskan air man, I’ve been everywhere. I’ve been to ………………….

Hey Yeowie! (ex. partner Bill Yeo)

Rudolph’s Last Ride

The Last Round Up in the Last Frontier

Mt. McKinley 1919 by Sydney Lawrence

Tusk ,Tusk.

No Aurora tonight, too cloudy.

The Girls are Back, the Girls are Back in Town.

You would think that since the Boston Tea Party and the substitution of Coffee for traditional English tea as the drink of choice, that America would have nailed the coffee business.

Try to order a flat white and the barista (for want of a better word) will more than likely give you a look of total confusion and ask….”is that something like a Latte”.

 So you order your Latte and discover that it is possible to produce a coffee based drink that not only has a head like a glass of beer but also tastes remarkably like one.

 But perhaps I’m too harsh this was in Seattle after all, not New York or Boston where coffee I am assured has reached a higher level of evolution. Judging from the Starbucks ads we now need the “Pumpkin Spice Infusion Latte on Soy” to be able to face the trials of the day.

God help me, I’m a simple soul I just want a coffee.

 Then again I would like a nice Arabica extracted just right with proper milk not too hot and served in a glass with a napkin. I am perhaps becoming a “coffee snob”.

It could be worse. I could go to a Bar and order a glass of Cabernet and they might bring it out in a whisky glass…. Oh wait they did that already. Does that mean I’m a “wine snob” as well?

Fancy Seattle Underground Coffee Machine Display. From Seattle’s early coffee drinking era.

The Seattle Underground was a product of the 1860’s and the rapid development of the United States associated with the push to develop the west and the Yukon gold rush.

Seattle Above Ground seems to be the product of the 1960’s. The Seattle Space Needle, the Monorail, pictures of Elvis and JFK at the Armoury (part of the 1962 World Fair site) add to that feeling. That’s not a bad thing in fact Seattle is a great city full of interesting things to do.

The EMP museum, currently running a special exhibit on Jimi Hendrix (another product of the 60’s) was great. Other exhibits including the history of Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Movies were equally fascinating.

Jimi Live

The Guitar Tree

Space Armaments

Full Wooden Dalek

Captain James T Kirk’s Chair

Monorail and Commuter

Our dining spot for the evening. Read the neon.

The Chihuly Glass Sculpture gardens next to the space needle were special and one could purchase scaled down versions of the art on display for as little as $6500 for a dinner plate sized version.

The Space Needle through the glass.

The Glass Ceiling

Defies Description

Reflective ball.

Reflective ball 2.

The Flame Garden.

The Space Needle 2

Pike St. Market the oldest continually running Community Market in the USA was also great with everything from fishmongers to a steam-powered microbrewery.

Seattle Backblocks

Fishmonger

Who Knows?

Previous Sled Dog Trader

Steam Brewery

It sometimes rains in Seattle

My Favourite Seattle story is the guy who made a fortune out of the sled dog business. During the gold rush years in Alaska sled dogs could not be had at any price. Our man, who had the finest and best-trained sled dogs in Seattle, would sell his dogs to the highest bidder and because he cared about them so much he would always go to the dock to watch them sail off to Alaska. Once the ship was far enough off shore not to turn back but not too far for the dogs to swim he would just whistle the dogs up and they would jump over the side and swim back for lunch. The next day, and the day after, and the day after…………. they were back on the market.