Greetings from Manley, Alaska, where the sun rose today at 11 a.m. and set at 2:48 p.m., and where it was 20 below as I went to the bathroom in an outhouse. If I were to make a list of things I don’t like, outhouses and freakishly cold temperatures would both be on it. To have them combined, as they were this morning, was indescribably cruel.

This is my first trip to “the great state of Alaska!”, as Sarah Palin is fond of saying. (Incidentally, people here are very protective of her.) I came to Alaska to spend time with mushers, including Alaska’s second-most famous citizen, Lance Mackey, who has won three straight Iditarod races but will have to do it this year without his top dog, Larry, who is retiring. Mackey will also be without the wacky tobaccy. 

Macky is mentoring Newton Marshall, an earnest, hard-working member of the Jamaican Dogsled Team. Newton likes making people listen to Jamaican music on his iPod, and we bonded over our shared dumbfoundment that anyplace on earth could be this cold.   

Check back in the next day or two as I write about the best parts of my Alaska trip—playing with sled dogs (lots of pictures!), finding the only Vietnamese restaurant in Fairbanks, and leaving the outhouse for the comfort of the Fox Creek B&B.