We made the most of a lie-in before the last leg of our
train ride – we had certainly had some early starts & full days. At 3.45pm we were back on the Denali Star
heading to Fairbanks to “meet the family”!
We had dinner on the train, another great meal, & pulled into the
train depot around 7.45pm. By the time
our bags were unloaded the cousins had arrived – Ann & Jennie. We were staying with Ann, her husband Dave,
and their son John but Jennie had come up for a few days from San Francisco
where she lives, & her son Brian was visiting too, so it was quite a
reunion. We were made very welcome &
spent some great times over the next few days visiting Fairbanks, &
catching up with Aunt Magdalen, who is the only surviving sibling of my
father. We talked a lot about the
Clohertys, and looked at some great old photos, including one of my father as a
small child, which I had never seen. Ann
& I made a special trip to Walmart (not as scary as I had thought!) to get
a copy made. It was fantastic to make
the family connection again after almost 40 years, & we are very much
looking forward to them visiting us downunder in the future.
It was very interesting to hear about life in Fairbanks,
especially in the winter months. I think
we were glad to be there in the summer, even though it really didn’t get dark –
the sun drops just below the horizon for a couple of hours in the middle of the
night, but it’s not dark. It’s quite
disconcerting to go to bed at 11pm with the sun still shining through the
window and to wake up to sun again & not have any idea of what time it
might be, or how long you’ve been asleep.
Ann very kindly got up at 5am on Sunday morning to take us
to Fairbanks airport for our 6.25am flight to Seattle, then to Vancouver and
finally Melbourne via Auckland. We have
nothing but praise for Air New Zealand’s Premium Economy class, great food
& service & lots more space than in Economy. We were also very pleased with the results of
taking Melatonin for jetlag, we tried it in both directions & didn’t really
suffer any effects from travelling.
