I am still in rainy London, studying away. All it takes is being in a chaotic city like London to realize how special Alaska is. I just wanted to come back here and share a photo that particularly makes me nostalgic for the Arctic.

I snapped this shot on a solo hike up past Atigun Pass. Despite hitchhiking 7 miles in the cold morning rain/snow before snagging a ride ~100 miles South back to Coldfoot, it was a wonderful hike. That area is so beautiful and it really made an impact on me.

I am still deciding what to do this summer. Exciting things are happening with LiberalArtsColleges.com and EngineeringColleges.com so I might flock to San Francisco and Silicon Valley or maybe even Silicon Alley (New York City). We shall see.

I flew to Barrow yesterday, the northernmost city in North America.  Barrow is only accessible by plane and an ice road. Our maintenance director once drove a tour company van to Barrow via the ice road. He said it was a pretty scary experience. Our flight was very cloudy.

Pilot John Sharkey and I went to Pepe’s North of the Border for a ridiculously overpriced Mexican meal in Barrow. It’s amazing that there is a REAL Mexican restaurant in the the northernmost city in North America with Mexican employees! There is also at least one Japanese restaurant with Japanese employees!

Sharkey and I opted not to pay the 100-some-odd dollars for the tour and instead gave ourselves our tour through Barrow. We took the essential picture under the whale bones by the Arctic Ocean.

Sharkey took it a step further and decided to dive into the water.

Here is a video of his crazy antics:

[click to play]

Barrow as a whole is very much a shanty town with an odd social structure. A majority of the native population in Barrow doesn’t work and receives large subsidies from the government, while most of the workers are either from different countries or researchers. The houses are dilapidated and people pay exorbitant amounts to import vehicles into Barrow to drive around on the ~2 miles of road.

Time is flying by here in Alaska. Four coworkers have already left for the season. Two are on their way to Antarctica for work. Cory and Caroline both leave within the next 2 weeks.

The nights are getting darker and it’s only a matter of time before the aurora becomes visible. It is still relatively warm here but coldness is nearing.

In non-Alaska news, a friend and I have made progress in our efforts to raise funds for our LiberalArtsColleges.com project. We are one of roughly 300 companies vying for ten (10) $25,000 grants from the Pepsi Refresh Project. You may have seen commercials for the project. It’s a pretty big deal! Several thousand apply to be contenders each month and we were fortunate enough to get in. Public voting will decide who receives the money, which means YOU can help us. Voting begins September 1st and you can vote through text message or via the web. I will provide the link and phone number when it comes time. If you’d like to know more about our project, join our Facebook group.

How can you help?

• Join our Facebook group via the link above to stay updated
• Invite your friends to the group. The bigger the group, the better! Facebook doesn’t have an “invite all” feature but here are some instructions to invite all of your friends to the group (might vary depending on your browser):1. Go to invite people to join page: http://www.facebook.com/groups/edit.php?members&gid=138213516188796
  2. Select one friend (should appear checked and highlighted blue)
  3. Clear your address bar and paste in the following line of code:

  javascript:elms=document.getElementById(‘friends’).getElementsByTagName(‘li’);for(var fid in elms){if(typeof elms[fid] === ‘object’){fs.click(elms[fid]);}}

  4. Hit enter and all of your friends should be selected.
  5. Proceed to send invitations.

• Spread the word through e-mail: send along a message to coworkers and friends
• Vote daily!

Your help means a lot to us.

I have neglected my blogging responsibilities of late, to say the least. However, it’s never too late to redeem myself and return to good standing in the blogosphere.

For the 4th of July, I road 15 miles up to Wiseman for their annual Independence Day celebration. It was a very rainy ride. Consequently, the turnout was very weak. I ditched the bike and found a ride back to Coldfoot as soon as I could.

Kevin, Cory, Caroline, and I headed to Denali National State Park on the 21st. We flew from Coldfoot to Fairbanks and then rented a car in Fairbanks. We rented a wreck (Chevy Impala) from Rent A Wreck. The name of the company didn’t really instill confidence in me. Regardless, we took our Impala down to Denali where we drove 30 miles into the park to the Teklanika Campground, where we tented out for 3 days. Normally, park visitors aren’t allowed to drive into the park with private vehicles but we had a pass that allowed us to drive to our campground. From there, there were buses that regularly shuttled park patrons to the end of the park road. We took the bus down to Wonder Lake. On the way, we saw an incredible amount of wildlife; bears playing, herds of caribou, wolves, moose, dall sheep and the occasional ground squirrel.

(Blake Turley)
We were very fortunate to have seen these two grizzly bears playing just a matter of yards away from a herd of caribou. On the other side of the road, we could see a herd of dall sheep. It was really a spectacular sight.

(Blake Turley)
We saw wolves on a couple of occasions. This wolf in this picture was wearing a collar. There’s controversial research going on in the park to track the alpha male in each pack.

It was a rainy stay in Teklanika but we kept dry enough to enjoy the park. It was surprising to me how many blueblocker-wielding old couples occupied the park with their annoyingly large RVs. On the bus tour, these same couples regularly alerted the bus driver of wildlife or what they thought to be wildlife. All of a sudden we would hear a loud STOP THE BUS!, ” I think I might see a moose.” More times than not, it turned out to be a rock in the distance. These stops extended the bus tour into a 10 hour voyage.

(Blake Turley)
Only 1/3 of visitors to Denali National Park are fortunate enough to get a view of Mt. McKinley. This was our view of the mountain.

After 5 days of “vacation” from Coldfoot, we returned to more accommodating tents with beds and pillows and floors! This last week, I have been hard at work trying to finish my VISA application. I flew down to Fairbanks and then took an ERA flight from there to Anchorage where I had an appointment at the US Immigration Office. The appointment consisted of a photo and fingerprints and lasted about 10 minutes. I flew back to Fairbanks where I hung out with a Couchsurfer (http://couchsurfing.org). He had a little cabin party with other locals. It just so happens that he is also heading to the UK in the fall to the University of Lancaster.

I put all my VISA docs together and had everything sent down to Fairbanks with a guide who was kind enough to drop everything of at UPS for me. It’s finally out of my hands! Now, it’s just the waiting game.

I finished up my spring semester at Wheaton on May 15th, a Saturday.  Needless to say, it was a thrilling way to spend the final Saturday of the semester.  The following day, I drove from Wheaton to JFK Airport where I flew to Nice, France via Barcelona.  I took a bus from Nice to Cannes.  I went to experience the madness that accompanied the second week of the Cannes Film Festival.  Upon arriving at the Cannes bus station, I walked what seemed miles with luggage along The Promenade de la Croisette, the main road in Cannes.  La Croisette was bustling with paparazzis, film crews, and tourists.  I arrived at the flat I would be staying with and met with friends who had already been there a week.

Our terrace at Le Romance on la Croisette

We were on the 6th floor, the Penthouse and the view was incredible.  We spent most of  the week at the clubs in Cannes.  We saw David Guetta and Akon perform at Le Baoli at his F*** Me I’m Famous event.  We saw Mary J. Blige and Jesus Luz (Madonna’s ex-boyfriend) at VIP Room.  During the day, we  usually hung out Nikki Beach.  VIP Room was probably my favorite club.  Luckily, there’s also one in Paris!

I left France back to JFK via Madrid on Wednesday the 26th.  I picked up my car at a friend’s in Westchester and drove to my buddy Sean’s in Fairfield, Connecticut.  I stayed there a night and drove back to Maine in the morning.

I took a slight sabbatical from travel in Maine for a week and a half.  On June 9th, I flew to Nashville to stay with my roommate, Devon, for a week.  Little did I know, Bonnaroo and the CMA Music Festival were taking place the week that I arrived.  Nashville was chaos!  It was in the 90s and very humid the whole week.

Devon and I went to the CMA Festival on Thursday and Sunday.  Country music is not really my thing but it was an interesting experience.   We saw Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, Alan Jackson, Jason Aldean, Carrie Underwood, Trace Adkins, and some others that I had never heard of.  Actually,  I really had never heard of half the artists I mentioned and consequently,  I received a lot blank stares when I was the only one in the audience not singing the lyrics word for word.  Carrie Underwood performed a cover of “Paradise City” which I admit was pretty decent.

CMA Music Festival at LP Field

I flew straight from Nashville to Fairbanks via Minneapolis and Anchorage.  The journey here took half the amount of flights that it took to get here last summer.  I arrived in Fairbanks at midnight and a couchsurfer (http://couchsurfing.org) was nice enough to pick me up at the airport and bring me to pick up some last minute supplies (shampoo, bike pump, notebook, aka the essentials).  She then brought me to the Northern Alaskan Tour Company office.  I waited there until 5am.  At 5, I hopped on a tour van that was going up to Coldfoot.  The tour took about 9 or 10 hours.  There were a couple of Mainers on the tour as well as a woman from London who was traveling solo.  I arrived in Coldfoot at around 3pm.  It was really nice to see everyone! Cory has been here for a month already. Caroline, our good friend from high school made here way up here a week and a half ago. I had no idea she was coming as she started out in Yellowstone at the beginning of the summer. It was quite a surprise!

I had my first Coldfoot dinner of the summer and it was quite good, as expected.  Shortly after, I settled into my tent, popped in a DVD (Tommy Boy), and fell asleep by 7pm.  I slept 15 hours after not having slept for 36 hours!

Now, I’m just waiting for my bike to arrive so I can start training on the Dalton.  It’s supposed to be here on Tuesday but I’m not counting on it.  Also, waiting for my boots from LL Bean!  On my way to Boston, a week back, I stopped at LL Bean to return my boots to get a higher cut.  They needed a driver’s license to grant the return and unfortunately, I didn’t have it with me.   I did have my passport with me, however, but  they didn’t accept it!  I figured that a passport would be official enough for them but apparently not.  I called and complained and they suggested that I mail the boots to them so I did exactly that.

It’s great to be back in Alaska.  The weather has not been the most welcoming but I guess the rain has been much needed with all of the fires.