I spent some time up in Alaska recently (Fairbanks, to be exact) and I have to say, it was pretty intersting. I taught the ipv6 workshop and participated in a few other talks at Joint Techs, Summer 2011. I didn’t have a ton of time to spend all around the last frontier, but I did get to do a bit of light hiking and exploring on my last day there (before Delta Airlines botched my return flights).
I think other than the conference (which was really good), the highlights were certainly the food. I had an Elk burger at The Pump House, ate myself stupid at the Alaska Salmon Bake, had a few really good brews and a delicious bison burger at Silver Gulch Brewery, and hung out until the sun went down (wait, it never sets in Fairbanks in July) at The Marlin. (Yelp). All were totally worth while. While Fairbanks was a little smaller of a college town, it’s a big city in Alaska. If I ever make it back there I’d really like to hit up the Chena hot springs. If I had it to do over again, I would have taken my nice DSLR camera and made another trip to Silver Gulch (the northernmost brewery in the United States). Oh, I also saw the northernmost Denny’s, which was proudly displayed on a sign.

I grabbed a few pictures with my iPhone and my point and shoot available here or in this slide show.