Fairbanks, AK (08-10-14)

Posting this in a hurry, since we have decided to trek at least part way up the Haul Road, or Dalton Highway and will have no connection at all.

I freely admit that before I came to Alaska, I knew so little about the state, it’s really sad.  I knew that there are quite a few towns that are only reachable by plane or boat but I had no idea which ones they were- except Juneau.  I knew that one. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought that maybe Fairbanks was one of them (them being: Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka, and Nome, among others). But nope. Fairbanks is in the interior of Alaska.   

The climate here is dryer than many parts of Alaska, and It can get quite warm here in the summer- today was 81 degrees and sunny. I think its the first time Paul wore shorts since we left the lower 48. I’m just glad we won’t be here in the winter, when it can reach –40.

First thing on our agenda was to check out Pioneer Park.  We figured it might be a bit hokey but we could walk to it from the RV park so we figured it would be worth visiting.  Its a free park that has several small museums, a miniature gold rush town, and assorted stores and eateries.

OK, I guess some parts of it are hokey!

One of the museums is housed in S.S. Nenanna, an old riverboat.  It was full of dioramas of the small towns along the route that Nenanna traveled when it was in service.  Most towns in Alaska are situated on rivers, since that was the easiest method of travel before the road system was developed.

After the diorama was finished, a 90 year old woman came in to see the display and realized that this diorama is of her and her father back in 1925.  Her father was one of several mushers to deliver serum to Nome in the 1925 Great Race of Mercy.

One of the other museums had a lot of memorabilia.  I was surprised to see this old typewriter.  I had no idea that the original typewriters had no shift key, so they had keys for both upper and lower case letters.









  After a surprisingly interesting afternoon, we started the trek back home.  The sky in front of us was a pretty blue.










The sky behind us was an ominous gray, with rumbling noises coming from it.  We had a 2 mile walk and ended up jogging most of the last mile. The weather had been so nice, we had left the skylights open.  We did make it back before we got soaked!







The other thing that's been happening is online. Anyone who “does” Facebook  may be familiar with the Ice Bucket Challenge. The challenge was started in Massachusetts by athlete Peter Fretes, who was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. He started the challenge to raise awareness of the disease and at this point, many professional athletes and celebrities have responded.  But it’s also spread like wildfire on Facebook.  The way the challenge works is someone makes a video nominating a few of their friends to take up the challenge within 24 hours, or forfeit and donate $100 to the ALS foundation of their choice.  The person offering up the nomination then completes the challenge themselves by dumping a bucket of ice water over their head.

I don’t usually participate in these types of things on Facebook, but in this case I was happy to do so.  27 years ago my mother lost her battle with ALS and died at the young age of 55 (the same age I am now).  Anything that brings awareness to the disease is worthwhile to me!

On to Fairbanks (08-09-14)

Just because we weren't on a scenic drive anymore doesn't mean the great scenery went away.  The Richardson Highway to Fairbanks is still a scenic road.  It just isn't made of dirt. We followed a tributary of the Copper River most of the way up to Fairbanks.

Salmon lovers may know that Copper River has the reputation of producing some of the best tasting salmon in the world. We were happy to watch a ton of them making their way upstream.  Salmon will swim hundreds of miles to return to the stream where they were born, so they can continue the cycle of life by spawning and thereby creating the next generation.

The salmon turn more red as they reach the end of their life cycle, heading up the river to spawn and die.  And where there are spawning salmon, there are grizzly bears, so we kept a sharp eye out (no luck though).

We stopped overnight in the town of Delta Junction to regroup. The place we stopped to get an ice cream has a sense of humor, with some (slightly) bigger than life size sculptures. I will say though that although the mosquitoes haven’t been as bad as we thought they would be,  the other night there was one in our bedroom that we couldn't catch, and he pretty much kept us awake all night.

I was surprised to realize that it had been 9 days since we’d had electric hookup and 11 since we’d had full hook up. With all the travel down dirt roads, the inside of the camper was overdue for a thorough cleaning, not to mention we had 10 days worth of laundry to do. We accomplished all that in Delta Junction.


  Delta Junction is the terminus for the Al-Can highway, the road that was built during World War II.  We’ll probably be back through this way when we leave Alaska.

Continuing on down the road, we stopped to enjoy the view as we slowly made our way up to Fairbanks.

Although these peaks aren't quite as tall as McKinley, Mt. Hess, Mt. Deborah and Mt. Hayes are pretty impressive in their own right. We still haven't seen a day without haze and clouds, so the pictures aren't as good as I would like.

Talkeetna and Another Shot at Denali (08—8-14)

  After leaving Hatcher Pass, we drove north to the small town of Talkeetna.

Along the way we were teased with some glimpses of Mt. McKinley. Sometimes its hard to tell what’s cloud and what’s mountain. McKinley sits so far above the other mountains in this picture, that it looks like clouds.






Talkeetna is the jumping off point for people who want to climb or fly over Mt. McKinley. Climbers are flown from Talkeetna to a peak close to “the mountain” and they climb from there  The ranger’s station had a display comparing climbing back in the early 1900s and climbing today.

In 1951, climbing Mt. McKinley changed forever when Bradford Washburn successfully landed his plane on a glacier. Since then the time required to climb the mountain has been reduced from months to weeks.

Talkeetna is a small but active town, that in some ways hasn't changed much in the last 70 years or so.  There are quite a few restaurants and shops.  Since we had seen the mountain briefly earlier in the day we decided to take a flight seeing tour to McKinley.  While we waited, we ate lunch in one of the many restaurants.  By the time our flight was set to leave, the clouds had come in and they weren’t sure we’d see the mountain, so we elected not to spend $400 and take the chance.

We spent two days driving across Denali Highway, but don’t be fooled by the word “highway”. Years ago this dirt road was the road used to get to Denali National Park. It has since been replaced with other roads, but Denali Highway is purported to be one of the most scenic drives in Alaska.

      
The road is only 135 miles long but there is so much to see that it takes a long time to drive it.








Mountains and glaciers were everywhere we looked.









Out in the middle of nowhere we came across a tree, all decorated for the Christmas.








When we stopped for the night, this was the view from our window. Although driving down a dirt, scenic road doesn't give me much to blog about, it’s one of our favorite things to do, and its so much more fun to do it in the camper!






 

There were several very small roads that we explored.(although we did have to turn back on this road).  We would never have ventured here while towing.

We've been trying to let Dozer out as much as possible so he doesn't feel cooped up.

He decided he liked the water outside better than the water in his bowl. He tested out All the puddles!



Our next stop will be a brief one in Delta Junction…..