Fairbanks sucks you in

There’s a saying around here: Fairbanks never really grows on you, it just makes you unfit to live anyplace else.

The truer I realize this to be, the more nervous I get about each day that passes with me still living 15 miles north of North Pole. There are things about Fairbanks that I just *love*. Anyone in Fairbanks can be anywhere in Fairbanks, dressed however they want, feel like or can afford, at any time, and no one cares. I am received just as warmly at the nicest restaurant in town whether I go in clean clothes or just after hiking. I can stink to high heaven AND have spit up on my shoulder and no one notices. I love that you can be raising chickens and growing your own food and still live, for the most part, in town. You might be 10 minutes out, but nearly everyone lives out by you, so you're not even out of the way. Fairabanksians keep their purchases local (mostly because they're skeptical of outsiders) and the result is sustainable local businesses and really fantastic food during the summer.

Am I going to find all this in our next location? Am I going to be able to live in the hustle and bustle and still get my eggs and chicken from a friend? How am I going to get cheap moose meat when I'm living in a city? Who's going to hit or shoot the moose and need someone to split it with? Am I going to have to go back to showering every day? I quite enjoy the fact that showers are entirely optional here. It's absolutely laughable, but it's fun too. If you get a phone call from a friend about an unexpected event, you just go as you are - no matter how stinky. A great number of people here live in cabins without running water so they shower when (if) they get around to it. When they happen to be in town. And remember quarters. And it's convenient. Or they don't. The local culture here is so emphatically and enthusiastically local. People want to to buy locally made/grown/produced. They want to eat at their neighbor's restaurant or buy food from the farmer they know or wear clothes that were made by someone in town.

Oh Fairbanks, what are you doing to me?