This message is from: Jean Ernest <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Mary,
It's -33 F here this morning in Fairbanks, clear and no wind, with some ice fog in town. Going to get up to -25 degrees today, Hooray! :-) but we're gaining daylight at the rate of 5 minutes per day now! Total day length of 4:22 hours (between actual sunrise and sunset, but it gets light long before sunrise, etc.) At least we don't have the wind! That makes it a lot easier! I also have the advantage of being able to watch my fuzzy Fjords as they run around and play and chase each other: The upper corral fence is only about 50 feet from the house and I watch from my living room window. I joined the Fairbanks Athletic club this year and go there to work out, swim, spend time in the jacuzzi, sit in the steam bath, dry off in the sauna and if I wanted could tan in the tanning beds. Quite a facility. Even has a small restaurant overlooking the Olympic size swimming pool. Trouble is when it is really cold (like -40 and below) I won't want to get the car out to drive in there in to the "icefog" that accumulates downtown. Icefog, for those of you who don't know, is a thick form of fog caused by frozen moisture and other stuff from car exhausts and furnaces, woodstoves, etc. Your headlights bounce right back off the impenetrable wall of fog ahead of you when you are behind another vehicle. I usually stay home when it is really bad, and when there is extreme cold, it can be -50 down in town and up to 30 to 40 degrees warmer up on the hills. Yesterday it was -26 in town and zero in higher locations around town! (but they get the wind.) The inversions cause a lot of air pollution to accumulate down in the Fairbanks "bowl". Needless to say, when there is a stretch of -40 to -50 and I stay home for a few days, I get "cabin Fever". When the weather breaks and it warms up to -20 and the icefog dissipates, Everybody will be out in and about in town. It is hard to believe, but then -20 seems MILD! Naturally this is the time of year I dream of moving to somewhere warmer. But then I can't take the long periods of 90+ degree weather that so many places "down there" have. So I guess it's a trade off. But Hey! Come up here in March and see how sunny and beautiful it is, enjoy the dog sled races, winter carnival and the world ice carving championships. Try our cross country skiing (worlds best) and go out and enjoy our several Hot springs, one just 50 miles out my paved road. Swim in the hot springs pool after you ski or snow machine around the surrounding hills. (The Fairbanks visitors Bureau should pay me!) Hope this makes you feel better, Mary! LOL At 10:50 AM 1/7/99 -0600, you wrote: >This message is from: "Jon A. Ofjord" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Hi List: I Have been stuck in the house for the last three days. I had a >four day break from work and I was hoping I could get out and work the >horses. But NO, its been in the minus 20's below zero, with predicted wind >chills in the minus 50's. Its times like these I start looking for a place >warmer to live. From the other postings of folks from Minnesota, it sounds >like we are all sitting in the deep freeze. Then I hear Lisa from CA going >to work in shorts and hoping the ice in her drinks won't melt too fast. >Its even 30 degrees In Colorado! And sunny in Oregon! Well, another month >and a half and it will start warming up here again. Hey, Jean in >Fairbanks, how's your temps up there? Maybe you'll make me feel better if >I know somewhere it's colder than here. > >Crabby Mary O. from Northern MN with a bad case of cabin fever. > > > ****************************************************************** Jean Ernest Fairbanks, Alaska [EMAIL PROTECTED]
