I finally made it up here to Fairbanks, AK, land of the midnight sun. And you know what? It really is the land of the midnight sun — I got in at 12:30 a.m. and it wasn’t dark, it was more like dusk. Here’s the ever-popular View From Here photo, taken at 10:15 pm, and it’s still broad daylight out there:

I’m not showing you the original View because the view sucked, hard. This is actually my second hotel here in Fairbanks. The first hotel, where I stayed last night, where the view was of a dirt parking lot and the side of a garage 20 feet from my window, was a dump. How bad was it? There were no knobs on the air conditioner! Apparently the “old maintenance guy” took them off in all the rooms at the beginning of winter, and then they hired a new guy … who doesn’t know where the box of knobs is. End result: I had to have the front desk send someone up to turn my AC on with a pair of pliers. When I asked how I was supposed to control the temperature if it got too cold, the advice was …? “Just unplug it.” Nice. So I’m in a new, real hotel tonight.

And now, at 10:40 pm with full daylight outside, I think maybe I’ll go read a book. I may not need to turn on the light…