I’m in the North! Really north!! In fact, I was so far north today I was in North Pole! North Pole, Alaska! It is a quirky year-round Christmas themed town and it is actually 15 miles south(!) of Fairbanks where I am staying.

I put North Pole on my list as, when my parents visited here, mum went to Santa Claus House while Dad went fishing. Mum met Santa. I wanted to meet Santa! Guess what? Santa doesn’t work on a Monday! Or a Tuesday! He does work a Sunday, so I could have gone yesterday, but buses don’t run in Fairbanks on a Sunday, and the green line (to North Pole), doesn’t run on a Saturday either! Fairbanks is not handy if you don’t have transport!

Getting off the bus in front of the (apparently) tallest Santa in the world got me just a little exciting. He is 42 feet tall! On getting closer, I did get a little worried by his facial expression – I don’t think I’d want him struggling to get down the chimney – I’m pretty sure he would get stuck!

At Santa Claus House you can visit and feed the reindeer – so I did!

Although I say I am doing this travel solo, I do have a couple of wee companions. My mother-in-law bought Fudge for me back in 2005 (I think) and Baby Budge mum got for me in 2011 when Keith & I were living in Upstate New York and she came to visit. If you sit with Baby Budge (or BB, or Beebs) he will tell you how his “Grammi” left him in her drawer and he had to get to Rochester via airmail. Anyway, these two, well, three of us were so excited to see Santa today, I can’t tell you how disappointed we all were. We took some photos and made the best of it!