Once people had settled in to the hotel it was time to find food. The FT DO had split into two groups at FAI and some came to Nome a day earlier to avoid the 06:00 flight shocker and that group was ready for breakfast.
So too were the crowd from the ANC flight and at the recommendation of one of the locals we headed out to Airport Pizza. The menu we were presented with has to be one of the most comprehensive I had seen in a long time. It just went on and on.
Some people ordered Pizza for breakfast and some had more traditional fare. I opted for a Mexican skillet that was quite nice and extremely generous in serving size. After a leisurely breakfast our hosts allowed us to pay for our meals separately which was great. Although anyone waiting to settle their bill might not have been too keen on waiting on 18 or so FTers paying individually.
As it was the Summer Solstice there had been some celebrations planned for the day. We missed the parade down the main street but were able to catch the bank robbery that took place at midday.
After this I checked into my hotel for the night. The main part of the FT gang were all staying at the Aurora Inn but it was full and I had to settle for the Nugget Inn. Lets just say it was Alaska rustic.
After I settled in it was time to meet up again for the next event in the Nome solstice calendar, the Polar Bear Swim. Quite a crowd of locals a 3 of our group decided they were insane enough to go for a dip in the Bering sea.
After they had frozen their ging gang goolie off and collected their certificate we all piled into our two 15 seat vans and took off for a scenic drive.
The chosen destination for this trip was Teller, around 70 miles from Nome along an unmade road through the tundra. The road trip was quite scenic although Teller was not that interesting. It was all about the journey. After turning the conveniences at the local store into a public loo (the less said about this facility the better), we turned around and headed back to Nome.
We had dinner reservations for 20:00 and had plenty of time so van number two decided to stop for a bit of a walk out onto the tundra and some local ice fields.
Getting out of the van and onto the ground was a revelation in itself. The tundra looks quite barren and bare when driving along but on closer inspection is filled with various small wild flowers.
After spending around 40 minutes in the fresh air we got back in the van to head back into Nome. We joked along the way that the occupants of van number one must already be having their pre-dinner drinks back in Nome.
But no, on coming over a hill we saw van number 1 parked up ahead. We pulled up past them and could see they had the rear wheel off. We got and to see what was up. It seems they had a puncture and the spare wheel didn’t fit over the hub of the wheel. We decided to try our spare but no dice, the same problem. One of the van number 1 crew had hitched a ride into Nome with the one car that passed by earlier. We decided to abandon the van and offloaded our surplus into the other van and crammed 16 people in our 15 seat van and gingerly made our way back to Nome. Around 20 miles out we were flagged down by a car coming the other way. It was the rental company representative and our other FTer who had hitched into Nome. After some deliberation we ended up leaving the rental man to go check on the van and we somehow made room for a 17th person in our van. The van now had a configuration of 3,4,3,3,4 in 5 rows.
Just as we approached the outskirts of Nome we saw group of musk oxen and that was it for wildlife on this leg of the trip.
We pulled up outside of the restaurant only 15 minutes late, which was some sort of miracle. It must have been quite a sight for the locals to see 17 people all pile out of the one van.
The Husky was our dinner place for this evening and had a menu of Japanese favourites along with more western tastes such as burgers and the like. I went with some Gyoza and Beef Teriyaki both of which were quite nice. I washed it down with a few Alaskan Ambers whilst chatting with the gang about our adventurous day on the tundra.
After dinner a few of use went down to the Board of Trade a local pub that had live music. On entering one was greeted with an overwhelming smell of disinfectant. I stayed for one beer and listened to a couple of songs before feeling the need for sleep.
I made my way back to my digs and had a restless night. I woke quite early and was able to use the free, dreadfully slow, wifi to find that the gang were all planning on meeting in the Aurora lobby at 08:00 for the shuttle back to the airport.
I had a shower and checked out before wandering the streets taking some pictures before landing at the Aurora.
Lots More Photos