Ellen

Elva and I had a pleasant afternoon today.  Ellen Axmear, who was my math student at English Valleys, gave us a tour of Fairbanks.  She is a speech pathologist in the public elementary schools here.  It is gratifying seeing former students doing well.  She has been here nine years and knows the area quite well.  She could show us where things are and recommend things we should do while here.  For a while we lived about 1/2 mile from her family close to North English, just before she was born.  She has a brother that was in James' class.  We were able to catch up on her family.  It was nice talking with someone we know.  Since we were unable, from Iowa, to see the apartments we were considering she was our scout.  She gave us some good information.

Yesterday we went walking  and found a walking/biking trail just past our apartment.  The trail leads SW to downtown.  Going that way downtown is about a third of a mile away. The trail also goes N but we don't know where it goes.  Sometime we'll check it out.

As we look N of the apartment we can see a JoAnn Fabric store sign.  There are several good fabric stores in the city.  No I haven't checked them out yet.  Safeway grocery store is probably 2 1/2 blocks away.  Today we walked to a Fred Meyer store, about 4-5 blocks away.  From what we hear it is an upscale Walmart.

Some of you have asked about sunrise and sunset times here in Fairbanks.  I have made a little chart showing Fairbanks, Wayland Ia, and Mexico City (just for comparison since it is far south.)  Be sure to remember that one's location relative to time zone boundaries makes a difference in times but not in length of sunup time.  The coming and going of daylight savings time also makes a change.  I would guess by looking at September 21 that Mexico City has DLS time.  In the table "r" is sun rise and "s" is sun set.


                    Fairbanks           Wayland            Mexico City

June 1          r 3:32                  r 5:36                r 6:58
                   s 12:04                 s 8:32               s 8:11

June 21       r 2:57                    r 5:34               r 6:59
                  s 12:47                  s 8:43               s 8:17

Aug 13       r 5:30                    r 6:14               r 7:17
                  s 10:21                  s 8:09               s 8:06

Sept 21      r 7:30                    r 6:53               r 7:21
                  s 7:58                   s 7:07               s 7:34

Oct 31       r 9:34                    r 7:36               r 6:37
                 s 5:35                    s 6:04               s 6:04

Dec 21       r 10:58                 r 7:31                r 7:06
                  s 2:39                   s 4:45               s 6:03

Obviously I don't just know this information.  It was available on a web site.  You can probably find such a chart and find information for places that interest you.  It is different going to bed a 10 pm and it is still light out and then waking around 5:30 - 6 am and it is already light.  Of course we know that will change before long.

The tilt that God gave the earth yields many interesting results.

God's blessings to all of you.

Larry and Elva