Bam! Gold!

Bam! Two ounces of pure gold. And that was just the start of the conversation.After touring the Siberian stretches of downtown Fairbanks, I found myself in the Midnight Mine. The subterranean bar featured a working cavern waterfall and p/manties strewn across the trophy case.The crazy old miner at the end of the bar was showing off his latest “nookie nugget,” the gold piece he used to entice the girls. “The older I get, the bigger the nookie nugget gets.” He then pulled out another 10 ounces of gold flakes he had yet to melt down. Altogether, he was walking around with ~$12,000 worth of gold. “I don’t know why anyone would work when they could just go mine gold.”Bam! Unbeknownst to me, I was sitting directly under a bell. The person who rang it just bought a round for the eight people sitting at the bar. As the drinks flowed, so too did the conversation. Before long, we got talking land rights, with the crazy old miner praising Ammon Bundy. Things were really starting to flow now. “If you don’t watch out, your daughters and granddaughters will be wearing a burqa. We have to act now, before it’s too late.”Bam! Another bell.A few girls walked in. He tried to impress them with his nookie nugget. They also worked in the mining industry. Six-figures. “Why get a real job?” They were unimpressed with the nookie nugget.As another bell rang, I was headed out the door for my 11:30pm flight. Through the hazy smiles of a Fairbanks weekend, I looked out the plane window and watched the Northern Lights wave goodbye. They stretched out across Alaska, close enough to touch, yet with the distance of an impossible dream.I wasn’t ready to be back in Seattle. I wanted to be somewhere else.