Dawson City Music Festival

Rain, music, mud, fun and ferries on the Yukon River sums up last weekend. Beck and I along with our friends Brook and Andrea took a four day road trip to Dawson City in the Yukon to get away and listen to some live music. Being the dirt bags that we are we pitched a tent down by the river in the government campground (not under a bridge). One of the unique things about Dawson, besides being a gold rush town isolated in the Canadian arctic, is that instead of using a bridge to span the river to connect the Top of the World Highway there is a free ferry that runs nonstop back and fourth. Our routine was to wake up, eat, ride the ferry to town, listen to music, ride the ferry back to the campground for lunch, ride the ferry back to town for music, walk around town, ride the ferry back again to sleep in a soggy tent. Oh yeah, and it rained the whole time we were there.

July 4th in Ester, AK

July 4th in Ester, AK. Ester is a small community not far from Fairbanks as the road takes you (only a few miles) but way off the beaten path when it comes to liberal political views. Ester's parade is open entry to all and fairly unpredictable. This year the line up started with kids racing down the road on their bikes with training wheels throwing candy to the masses followed by Uncle Sam waving the U.S. and Alaska flag. Then the fun started. We saw every thing from Calypso Farm's goat drawn cart to the Bad White Dog kennel (bad white dog imprisoned inside waging his tail). And of course it would not have been an Ester parade without some of the paraders depicting corrupt government officials and the Veco scandal. Did I mention is was the warmest, sunniest day of the year so far.