Our tour pamphlet announced that our accommodations at the Arctic Caribou Inn were "only those needed to support the oil field operations and though clean and warm are of a basic nature." Oh boy.

Mountains tower along the Dalton Highway between Prudhoe Bay and Fairbanks

The brochure did not mention the food, so the quality of our tasty buffet dinner came as a nice surprise. We had our choice of caribou stew, onion soup, chicken marsala with wild mushrooms, halibut with shrimp sauce, a complete salad bar, chocolate mousse cake, key lime pie, creme brulee or Snickers pie. So much for roughing it at the dining table.

Of all the things we learned at Prudhoe Bay, several stand out. Some folks do "swim" in the Arctic Ocean, though surely their sanity should be questioned. It's OK to run when you meet a bear as long as you're with someone who is slower than you are. And during the long, cold (56 days without sunlight) winter, spit freezes before it hits the ground.

After a hearty breakfast and a stop at the general store to buy postcards, we boarded our motor coach. During our trip south, we traveled the northern half of the historic 414-mile (662-km), unpaved Dalton Highway, a road totally devoid of services, as it was designed only to be a halt road for the pipeline. No problem. We had extra fuel, a lavatory and box lunches!

Best of all, we had John Bennetto, our eloquent driver, who entertained us with wildlife sightings, history, personal reminiscences, legends, facts and poetry. John stopped often to clean the windows so we didn't miss a speck of scenery. He made us laugh, and he made us cry. And that nine-hour drive almost seemed like a mere jaunt across town ... almost.