Chena Hot Springs

Last Thursday, Tracy, Tom, Bo, Sam and I drove up to Chena Hot Springs for the afternoon. It was really cold (8 degrees) but a beautiful sunny day.

It's a weird time of year as far as tourist activities are concerned because it's definitely not summer and there's not enough snow yet for snow adventures so we basically just toured the Ice Museum and had lunch.

The Museum used to be called an Ice Hotel but the Borough Fire Department shut it down because it didn't have fire alarms and a sprinkler system. Hello. Stupid! If there ever was a fire the whole damn thing would be a sprinkler system and you sure wouldn't have to worry about finding the closest emergency exit; the fire would do that for you.

So now they call it an Ice Museum and thanks to their lawyers finding a loop hole, you can now rent out an "Art Gallery Room" for $600/night instead of a "Hotel Room." But Museum or Hotel, it is still freakin cold in there and not a place I would ever want to spend the night. That's just crazy!

Ice Harvested for Ice Sculptures

Carved Ice Martini Glasses

Inside the Ice Museum

Ice Potty

Cheers! Appletini anyone?

In Front of the "Fire Place"

Bo Feeding Bert or Ernie

Sam Watching From His Cocoon

Warming Up In The Lodge

Playing Outside

It snowed all day today so after dinner we decided to bundle up and go play outside. It was 9 degrees when we went out so it required some layers.

Poor Tracy (16 wks pregnant) was worn out after only putting on her ski pants and boots. There's a reason she lives in Texas.

Wes and Bo plowed the driveway while Tracy, Tom, Sam & I played. We first tried sledding in the yard but that didn't really work so we ended up sledding down the driveway and into the street.

It was fun to get out but the sledding wasn't great. We need a bigger and better hill. Hopefully we can hit the hills up at UAF on Friday and do some serious sledding.