Traveling the USA

Beautiful sunny morning in Fairbanks. The RVer across the lane, who has been here for 3 weeks while working in the area, told us that it has rained every single day for the last 3 weeks.

We start the day by checking out the campground's "Klontinental Breakfast". Danish and coffee. Not great, but more than any other campground has offered on the trip. Then we do some reading before lunch and watch a few float planes take off.

After lunch we head over for an afternoon sternwheeler ride on the Discovery. We board the boat with several hundred other tourists, including 10 tour buses, but the sternwheeler is four stories with lots of seats. Even before we leave the dock the announcer gives us info about the boat and the area. He will continue to give great info throughout the 3+ hour trip.

The boat ride is a little pricey (we're in Alaska, everything is $$$) but worth the money. We travel down the Chena River and our first stop is at the late Susan Butcher's dogsledding camp. I had seen Susan on TV over the years when they had stories about the Iditarod dogsled race. She won the Iditarod 4 times (late 80s/early 90s I think). Susan died last August from leukemia, but her husband David Monson, who is also a dog musher, continues to train dogs (along with taking care of their 2 daughters).

He gives a WONDERFUL program about the sled dogs. He has a 3-day old puppy that he is holding for much of the time (they hold the newborns for most of the waking hours for their first 5 days of birth to build trust), and the other dogs are full of energy! They hook 12 dogs up to a 4-wheeler (without an engine) and they drag it over stones on a course they have around their camp. Really fun and interesting to watch.

The next stop is at an Athabascan indian village. A woman demonstrates how her ancestors filleted and dried salmon.

Then we get off the boat and they have 4 different programs to watch. Three are related to the native Athabascans and the other is about the Alaskan huskies used in dogmushing. The tour guides are descendants of various Alaskan native tribes. Very interesting programs.

After the programs, David Monson is signing a children's book that he and Susan had started before her death. It's a children's book about Granite, their Alaskan husky that was the lead dog for Susan when she won the Iditarod. It was released about 3 weeks ago, so I buy one as a souvenir of the trip. It is signed "To Joe" but Joe is embarassed because it's a children's book. I tell him he can read it to his children when he grows up and tell them about his trip to Alaska :-)

I'm touched by some of the people who are getting books signed by David. They offer heartfelt condolences to him about Susan's death and talk to him about how they had followed her career over the years. David graciously accepts their condolences and says that it's been a long year but they're doing fine.

On the boatride back to Fairbanks the skies get very dark and we get some rain again, but it's over quickly and we enjoy the rest of the boat ride.

We then spend the evening making phonecalls and relaxing.

We're having breakfast and we notice a lot of cars in the Pioneer Park parking lot. After I finish my cereal I walk over to see what's going on at the park and realize there's a charity run today. It's starting in 30 minutes and cars are quickly filling up the parking lot! If we don't leave very soon, we will be parked in til after the run. So I hurry back to the RV and we pack up the RV faster than we ever have! We're quickly getting parked in and we leave the parking lot with no time to spare. That was a little crazy.

We get some prescriptions refilled at Wal-Mart and then head out to the Chena Marina RV Park. We have reservations for six nights at this highly recommended RV park. It's a small RV park on the edge of a float plane pond. The staff is extremely friendly and we like our campsite across the pond from several float planes. A float plane takes off soon after we arrive -- they are very loud! We start wondering how early they start taking off in the morning.

After we're done setting up and checking out the park we take off to downtown Fairbanks to check out the visitors center. We look at the fountain, read some of the info boards, and pick up some flyers about the area.

Then back to the RV park for dinner and to relax watching a video about RVing in Alaska. The RV park has a large video library with free rentals.

We're eating breakfast and we see Mrs. Claus come out of the campground office, and a few minutes later, we see Santa Claus. They live in the travel trailer right across the lane from us!

This is a unique RV park but we need to leave since a 23-unit caravan is checking in later today and is taking over much of the park. We pack up and make a quick stop at the North Pole gift shop to take a picture for our 2007 Christmas letter:

Since we couldn't stay at SantaLand, we decide to 'camp' in the parking lot of Pioneer Village in Fairbanks. For $12 we can dry camp in the parking lot and they give us coupons for their salmon bake and miniature golf. So the camping is free if you use the coupons.

After setting up in the parking lot we walk around Pioneer Village. They have some old cabins that are now gift shops plus some small museums.

While we're in the one museum, it starts to hail so we stay in the museum til it's over. It storms off and on for the next several hours so we go back to the RV to wait out the storms. We had planned to go to the salmon bake tonight, but we're not sure what to do with all of the rain. Around 7:00 the rain finally stops so we go over to the salmon bake. It's an all-you-can-eat grilled salmon, fried halibut, fried cod, and prime rib. Except for the salmon, the food is very good. The salmon is dry and tasteless. I love salmon, so I'm disappointed with the meal. However, the halibut is delicious!

It is very, very cold and windy here today at Fielding Lake, so despite the beautiful surroundings we decide to move on. Jere says "Let's go to the north pole....it's probably warmer there"

The scenery is gorgeous for the first part of the drive back north on the Richardson Highway. We make a few stops again to gawk at the scenery. Then, it starts to rain again. Oh well.

We also make another stop at the Pipeline:

And we stop at a gift shop, The Knotty Place. They have several sculptures made out knotty pieces of wood (funny) and an interesting porch made out of knotty pieces of wood.

We drive to North Pole, Alaska and stop at the Santaland RV Park. Jere was right - it is warmer here :-) We had planned to stay here two nights, but they're full the second night. So we'll need to find a different campground tomorrow. The campground is entirely Christmas themed, with everything from alternating red and green picnic tables to Christmas wallpaper in the bathrooms to Reindeer names for the streets.

We have a snack and then walk over to the North Pole gift shop. No way that Joe is talking or even making eye contact with Santa, but we spend time looking at all of the North Pole souvenirs. We take lots of pictures and then head back for dinner.

After dinner it's laundry time again. And who walks in the laundromat in bright red knit shorts/boxers and a tight white sleeveless undershirt and a long white beard - SANTA CLAUS! This is a view of Santa Claus that no one really wants to see :-) Jere and I look at each other and smile--"that guy really looks like Santa Claus".

Beautiful sunny morning as we take off to drive the Denali Highway. The Denali Highway starts about 10 miles south of our campground and we make several stops before reaching the Denali Highway.

Our first stop is for another informational sign about the Alaska Pipeline and then we stop at a beautiful lake to take some pictures and enjoy the reflection of the sky and mountain on the lake.

After several more stops we finally get to the start of Denali Highway. The first 20 miles are paved, but the next 65 miles that we drive today are dirt.

The scenery is nice, but we’re also hoping to see some wildlife. We end up seeing 4 moose, including a mama moose and her calf, 3 bald eagles, 3 porcupines and lots of squirrels.

The skies have clouded up and we don’t think we have any chance of seeing Mt. McKinley, so we decide to turn around and head back after having a snack at The Gracious House.

More Denali Highway scenery on the way back:

Joe again has a wonderful time playing with the floating ice on the creek behind the trailer. The ice is coming off Fielding Lake, which yesterday was almost completely ice covered and today has a large portion without any ice. Later we take a walk around the campground and do some bird-watching. Lots of different birds here, including trumpeter swans and arctic terns.

Joe’s feet finally get cold from being in the water, so we return to trailer and watch a History Channel video on the Alaska Pipeline.