The next day we headed toward Fairbanks. Fairbanks was a nice town. The people were really friendly. Our first stop was the laundromat which also had showers. It was perfect. We hung out there for a bit and Adam made a new friend. Some guy wanted to check out his van. It seems everyone is always commenting on either his van or bike. I get asked a lot of questions also, especially when I’m the only one around. Take today for instance. I was putting something in the van, the door was open. This guy pulls in, half parks on the curb and jumps out of his own Astro van. He immediately walks over and starts talking to me.
“Hey, so I noticed your van. Did you put a lift on that?” -Guy.
“Uh, yep.” -Me.
“Is it an Overland Van’s Lift?” -Guy.
Blank stare -Me.
Two days ago at the grocery store I was putting the groceries in the fridge with the sliding van door open.
“Hey, yeah can I take a look at your van?” -Stranger.
“Um, sure.” -Me, backwards in van, face in fridge.
“Yeah, is this lifted?” -Stranger.
“Yes” (I’m pretty good with this answer).
“Blah blah blah,” -Stranger continues to ask van questions without reading my lack of interest in this conversation. Adam comes outside eventually to rescue me/fill his own lack of van conversation void.
Anyway, back to Fairbanks. Adam hung out with his new friend for awhile who also lived in his van. This guy was a surveyor of some kind and talked to us about some camping sites in the area. We drove around Fairbanks for a bit, had lunch at Sourdough Sam’s (which is EXACTLY like Breakfast King in Denver—same menu, same food, same old booths, and ‘50s style uniforms), took the muddy van to the van wash, went to an internet cafe, and stopped at the liquor store.
As we were sitting in the van looking up places to go, a guy name Roger wandered by. We talked to him for way too long and he said if it was the weekend he would have invited us to hang out with him and camp in his backyard. We were crushed it was only Wednesday.
We weren’t sure what to do in Fairbanks. We had met some nice people but decided to keep driving. We were headed toward the North Pole! We eventually needed to look for camping and started following gravel roads that led off the highway in different directions. Most of them took us to people’s houses, some to creepy hidden spots, and others took us nowhere. We found one that was a power line service road. It led back a ways off the highway and the service road branched to the right and up a sharp hill. It was covered in overgrown grass and wildflowers. Twigs and trees were scratching both sides of the van as we inched up this steep narrow hill.
There was a small clearing at the top, and it looked like the perfect place to park. We turned on some music, made a drink, and found some rocks to make a fire pit. Our eyes were always focused on the woods in search of wolves or bears, but saw nothing.
After awhile it started raining, around midnight, in the summer light. The clouds were dark yet vibrant on one side of us and the other side was forming two bright rainbows, making the perfect backdrop. We took too many pictures of the midnight rainbows and eventually headed to bed.