Fairbanks/North Pole

We are really busy here in Fairbanks, four days, three of which are pretty much non-stop fun.  This is the farthest north that this trip will take us. Today we traveled here from Denali.  Still didn't see that elusive mountain due to the dense cloud cover. Rain off and on but beautiful drive. I told our guests that this drive was very similar to Top of the World Highway last year.  All treetops and mountains but better roads.  LOL. No fog like TOTW. We got here to Riverview RV Park, right on the Chena River, in the early afternoon. At 5:15 we board the bus to the Alaska Salmon Bake. The name is a misnomer because, first of all, it is all you can eat and the main entrees are salmon, cod and prime rib. Then, everything you can imagine to go with including the "extra" crab clusters and dessert. We then walked around the corner to the Pioneer Village for a little shopping before the Palace Theater production started. The show started at 8:30 and was very well done. So funny. All our guests really enjoyed it.

The next day we boarded the sternwheeler, Riverboat Discovery, after leaving the campground at 8:00am. It is a wonderful trip up the Chena River where lots of activity happens. A float plane will do touch and goes right next to our sternwheeler and talk to us by microphone to us. We will stop and watch an Athabasan girl show us the processing of salmon for the sled dogs and will visit a replica Athabascan village.  Very interesting showing of clothing and housing as well as furs and boats. We stop by Susan Boucher's dog sled farm where her daughter tells us all about the training of the dogs and runs a team though the woods nearby.  All this is done while we are on the boat and they talk by microphone, except for the village where we got off and walked to the different venues. They even had a herd of caribou that we saw from the river and in the village. We went to the Cookie Jar for lunch. It was so good that we went back for dinner the next day. After lunch we went to the University of Alaska Museum. Another very interesting place. 

Oh, finally, we got a free day, laundry was piling up ! !   LOL.  

The next day, Tuesday, August 1st we boarded another early morning bus to the Gold Dredge #8. This was a very different tour in that we had a speaker tell us all about the old days and tell us about the Aleska Pipeline that we were standing under. He told us about how protected the pipeline is against the environment and how protected the environment is against the pipeline. Very impressive talk. Then we boarded a train to take us back to the actual dredge and all along someone talked about mining with the dredge. We then went into a building where we could pan for gold. Ken and I got about $12.00 worth, not as much as last year. Some of our guests got as much as $35. Kinda fun day there too. 

We didn't get any pictures of this stay.  Got lots last year so gotta go back to that book and look..  LOL...  darn it, hate when we forget the camera on a whole day trip. ! !   LOL

Part of the Fantasy tour was the Auto Museum. We were so happy that it was added to the tour. The difference of this museum is that it features clothing of the day of the cars so it is a fun place for both men and women.