Once we got out of Nome there wasn't much to see but an occasional dog or a snow covered cabin. Soon the wind got stronger and it began to snow harder. It wasn't long before I could not tell the ground from the sky. Everything was just WHITE.

It is tricky, travelling fast through the snow when you cannot tell land from sky. I was not as good at reading the terrain as my companions. Suddenly, my snow machine was airborne. My legs flew our from under me, my one hand slipped off the brake, the other hand grabbed for something to hold on to- and tightened on the throttle. The snow machine hit the ground hard and lurched ahead. "Serious!" said a voice in my head, "Get yourself together!" I got a leg back on the side board. "Stay cool." I lightened up on the gas and got my other hand on the brake. The machine was under control again. Whoah, THAT was crazy. But it was kind of fun, too.

The ride to Solomon held a few more tricks and surprises, but after about an hour we arrived at our destination. There, right in front of me stood the Solomon Roadhouse- one of the places that the characters in my book had visited. I'd read about it, imagined it and now here I was. It looked like the door was open. Maybe I could go inside....

My companions didn't seem interested in the old place. They stood by the snow machines and talked. I walked over to the roadhouse. I stuck my head in the door, looked right, looked left, lifted my foot, climbed the drift and went inside. There was all kinds of stuff inside. Mattresses, paint cans, furniture and boxes. Nothing had been vandalized.

There was a homemade stove for heat and it was still in pretty good condition.

It was plenty spooky in there. I walked through all the rooms downstairs, expecting something to happen at any minute. Then, behind an old style washing machine and a bunch of junk, I saw a stairwell going upstairs. I walked over and stopped short as I saw the way was blocked by a cross, a gravemarker. Why was that here? Dare I cross it?

Sure, I thought, why not- and I started carefully up the stairs.....WHAM! Something blew by me and made a loud noise. I didn't see anything- but something went by me. Now, there's some things you just don't mess with. It could have been something, could have been nothing. But at that point I wasn't interested in finding out the hard way. I eased my way back downstairs, tightened the fastenings on my gloves and left by the back door. When I rejoined the group they asked me if I'd seen anything interesting inside. "Well," I said,"I didn't SEE anything....." I'll never know what happened upstairs in the Solomon Roadhouse, but it will be a long time before I lose the feeling of my visit there.