Going to Fairbanks! What I'm Going to and What I'm Leaving

On Thursday night or Fri morning, I'm catching a ride up to Anchorage, and from there, up to Fairbanks, another 400 miles further north and more. I'll be there for two weeks, to attend the Writers' Workshop that is part of the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival! I got a scholarship to attend that through some great good fortune and, naturally, am very excited indeed. I've never been to Fairbanks before, and I've never been to a creative writing workshop of that extent and duration. 

Naturally too, I'm quite nervous. Not so much about the writers' workshop itself as about logistics, getting here and there, conserving my energy, getting along with people and taking care of myself. Alaska is expensive and Fairbanks, being way 'in the Interior' is going to be even more so than here. When traveling alone, I have a tendency to get 'sticker shock' and go without, go hungry, etc. I have some fairly hair-raising travel stories like that in my past, and right now my body just isn't equal to that kind of hardship and I really want to be my best for the workshop.

What I'm Leaving Behind

In this asymmetrically-seasoned climate, being gone in the second half of July is to be gone for the busiest part of the garden season. Summer is short and so intense. I could work from now until I leave just on weeding/harvesting/replanting. And since it's been so rainy (yes, it started raining again after yesterday's sun!) I'm starting to see the dreaded slugs, even in our raised beds!! There's radishes to harvest, arugula going to seed (on purpose - I'm hoping to save home-raised seeds), some spinach ditto, a decent early crop of cilantro…  

Maca grows at 14,000ft in the Andes, but seems to be having a hard time here with all the rain and late cold this year. I'm so excited to be trying to grow it, and it's so pretty. But the little root on this one that I pulled out by mistake looks kind of exiguous.

I'll miss my salads from our garden, but may take with me at least a bunch of our herbs and maybe a few other things. I'll be leaving behind my kefir grains (will probably refrigerate in new coconut cream so they can just work slowly), kombucha cultures, sauerkrauts, jars of sprouts.

And then, it's the height of the fishing season also, and Phil has now gone twice to dip-net for red salmon. I'm feeling some guilt over my lack of enthusiasm to participate in this but trying to focus more on how glad I am to be doing what I'm doing instead.

Phil got most of the muslin up on the ceiling and even got most of the edges quite stylishly tacked down, but we still have a ladder in the middle of the floor and my workspace had to be pulled apart again. So, probably that won't be a done deal when I leave either.

That's the southeast corner of our ceiling, from an odd angle. You can just see the highup window that we have to climb on the counter to open and close, and on the left you can just see the ladder we ascend to our sleeping loft!

Most of all, I'm going to be leaving behind Phil. Here he is, taking a nap this rainy afternoon.

This will be the longest time we've been apart in two years and almost the longest we've ever been apart since being in a relationship. In my experience of relationships, extended separations, especially when I'm off doing something I'm excited by, aren't always good for the relationship. And then we have three different groups of friends coming up in succession right when I get back, so making time together will be important. I will miss him.

[Updated Wednesday - I'm in the Safeway and uploaded those photos with no trouble at all! A relief after the grinding tumbling-browser fiasco at the library yesterday!]

What I'm Going To

At this point, the plan is that I'm going to crash on the very-generously-offered floor of one of the Fairbanks faculty, which is a couple miles away from the university campus where the festival takes place. Fairbanks is flat, and I'm very much hoping I'll get there in time to rent a bike for the duration.

I know that I'll be crashing in a cabin with no plumbing, like ours, and I don't know how many folks besides me will be also crashing. So, I'm not expecting to be able to do any food-prep to speak of there. I'm also, through long experience, not expecting to be able to pick up food 'on the fly' wherever I end up going. So I'm taking a cooler up with me and brainstorming on what are the best 'easy' things to take. I've made two batches of 'bark' already, with coconut oil and protein powder. I'm soaking a bunch of nuts

[Photo to come]

that I'll then dehydrate and bring with me. I soak them with some peroxide in the water - it makes such a huge difference to how palatable and how much less tannic they are afterwards, especially walnuts! 

I expect I'll take coconut oil, flaxseed, spirulina and chlorella (I hope my new chlorella arrives in time!), shaker-ball bottle, and some protein powder - probably the 'Shake and Go' from Averie's giveaway (I figure a bit of cacao in this situation mightn't be a bad idea) and some other also. I'll probably take some sea veggies - wakame, hijiki, that I can just add water to. And then all my myriad supplements and aids-to-normal-functioning… 

I'm really hoping that it isn't going to be all about that - that I can maintain blood sugar to fuel my body and brain, not have to spend too much time outside class looking for/fixing food, that I can get along with and socialize with and make friends with people graciously without my lack of participation in coffee-and-pastry rituals being a detriment.

Ack - and now I get online and discover that my ride up to Fairbanks has fallen through - more logisticking to do, pages failing to load everywhere, craigslist uncooperative - keep hat on to avoid tearing hair out...