7/9 through 7/15
We were off to Anchorage the morning of July 9th to a steady rain. We stopped for breakfast/brunch at a place recommended by the camp host called Rikas Roadhouse. It is actually a very well know small state park with a concessionaire running a very nice and reasonably priced restaurant with also nicely priced Alaska items. We bought ourselves some Alaska jackets and several gift items. Then we toured the Roadhouse and its environs. It is a beautifully reconstructed roadhouse stop used by pioneers. We went into the gift shop and Pat found a really beautiful Alaskan native basket, Happy Birthday my love! It is a hand-woven vase with lid made from smoked grass enhanced with a bone carved bear head, caribou and beaver fur and recycled glass and bone beads. Just after leaving the roadhouse we got to see the Alaska Pipeline for the first time. PHOTO 24a
On toward Fairbanks on Highway 2. A quick look at an Alaska roadmap reveals that there are only about 7 or 8 significant highways in the entire state and they only cover probably 5% of the state! We stopped by Eilson Air Force Base outside Fairbanks and hit the commissary store and PX to stock up on groceries and check on the RV park there. No room at the RV park but we got lots of food and again more gift items. Need more space to store the gifts!
Went on toward Fairbanks and stopped at Fort Wainright Army Base just at the edge of the city. We found a space there for the night and the next day got a more permanent site at the base for the next 6 nights. The rain started and came down hard much of the night.
Sunday the 10th we just did maintenance items around the RV and relocated it to the longer term site. We did take a ride out to North Pole, Alaska and to Sam’s club and Wal-Mart where Dick bought items to make up a high pressure air hose system to run off the RV’s air compressor system that operates the air suspension system on the RV. He wants it to use to blow the dirt and dust off the engine and inside the Toad (Saturn) and some of the RV as well. It will also serve to pump up a tire should the need arise.
Monday we took a riverboat cruise on the Discovery III. It was a great ride and well worth it. The folks who own and run it as a family business really know their customers and do everything right to ensure a good time and offer very reasonable prices for any extras in addition to having free coffee and donuts for everyone. Watched float plane take off and land next to the riverboat. Visited Susan Butcher’s and her famous sled dogs along the river bank. Susan won the Iditerod Dog Sled Race four times and her dogs are amazing. See PHOTOS 24b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j. Also saw a native Athabascan village where we disembarked and were given tours of four various parts of native life. a) clothing and fur making, b) sled dogs, c) family house demonstration, and d) reindeer raising and birch bark canoe making. Also at another spot along the river we watched an Athabascan woman filet a salmon and demonstrate a fish wheel that they use still to catch salmon running in the rivers. The salmon are starting to run now and will for the next month or so. Dick is anxious to try Salmon fishing! We then went to the Museum of The North at the University of Alaska campus. Another great place to visit and learn more about this wonderful land we call Alaska!
Tuesday we visited the Eldorado Gold Mine tour. This is run by the same folks that run the Discovery III and is run is the same very professional and pleasant way. We watched them do a professional sluice where they actually separate out gold from tons of dirt. We again panned for gold and in our bags of dirt, which are a sample of actual paydirt they are mining; we found flakes weighing up to a total of .20 grams. Some folks found more and a couple found small nuggets. They have one nugget that is in the top 25 nuggets ever found. Then we visited Pioneer Park, a collection of original log buildings from round Anchorage assembled in one are to preserve them and to use them to offer related handicrafts and pioneer period items. 
Wednesday it was off to the Artic Circle on a Fly/Drive tour. We left Anchorage at 1 PM on an 8-passenger plane to fly to Coldfoot, AK, a tiny spot a few miles north of the Artic Circle along the Alaskan Pipeline. The flight was fun and the pilot tried to locate wildlife and showed us from the air the vast amount of forest that has been burned in recent years and we saw several pumping stations from the air. We saw two small fires still burning. Fires are allowed to burn unless they threaten dwellings or special places. Coldfoot consists of the airstrip, a gas station with a snack bar and some gas pumps and about a half dozen trailers made into a “motel” for drivers on the Alaska Pipeline Highway.
We then took an eleven-hour drive back down the dirt highway in a small bus. Everyone had a window seat and we followed the pipeline on the road that had been used by those who built the pipeline. When we got to the point where the Artic Circle was, we stopped and the driver, a nice young female college student, set out a carpet with a stripe on it and we each crossed over the Circle and took photos.
We ate dinner about 8 pm at a restaurant by the only bridge in Alaska that crosses the Yukon River. A few Grizzly Bears had broken into the restaurant during the previous winter and one was killed in there by natives who found him using the clothes and souvenir t-shirts for a den. The owner showed us a photo book of the place the bears had been using and of the bear that was killed there. We didn’t get back to Fairbanks until 1:30 in the morning but it was still light out since sunset had occurred at 12:04 that morning!
Thursday we got actual mail forwarded by DJ. The system of using General Delivery works well if you know where you will be. Dick washed and waxed the front of the RV once he got all the bugs off. Messed around trying to make a wi-fi connection and had to buy a new PC card as the base wi-fi uses the WAP system. Someday we will get all this computer stuff straightened out! Friday the 15th we just took it easy at the RV doing some cleaning etc. We met some very nice folks, Jim & Pam, in a site near ours. They had also just retired in May and were off on a trip similar to ours. They have two white poodles that travel with them. Stayed up quite late chatting with them in their RV. Perhaps we will see them again in our travels.
We were off to Anchorage the morning of July 9th to a steady rain. We stopped for breakfast/brunch at a place recommended by the camp host called Rikas Roadhouse. It is actually a very well know small state park with a concessionaire running a very nice and reasonably priced restaurant with also nicely priced Alaska items. We bought ourselves some Alaska jackets and several gift items. Then we toured the Roadhouse and its environs. It is a beautifully reconstructed roadhouse stop used by pioneers. We went into the gift shop and Pat found a really beautiful Alaskan native basket, Happy Birthday my love! It is a hand-woven vase with lid made from smoked grass enhanced with a bone carved bear head, caribou and beaver fur and recycled glass and bone beads. Just after leaving the roadhouse we got to see the Alaska Pipeline for the first time. PHOTO 24a
On toward Fairbanks on Highway 2. A quick look at an Alaska roadmap reveals that there are only about 7 or 8 significant highways in the entire state and they only cover probably 5% of the state! We stopped by Eilson Air Force Base outside Fairbanks and hit the commissary store and PX to stock up on groceries and check on the RV park there. No room at the RV park but we got lots of food and again more gift items. Need more space to store the gifts!
Went on toward Fairbanks and stopped at Fort Wainright Army Base just at the edge of the city. We found a space there for the night and the next day got a more permanent site at the base for the next 6 nights. The rain started and came down hard much of the night.
Sunday the 10th we just did maintenance items around the RV and relocated it to the longer term site. We did take a ride out to North Pole, Alaska and to Sam’s club and Wal-Mart where Dick bought items to make up a high pressure air hose system to run off the RV’s air compressor system that operates the air suspension system on the RV. He wants it to use to blow the dirt and dust off the engine and inside the Toad (Saturn) and some of the RV as well. It will also serve to pump up a tire should the need arise.
Monday we took a riverboat cruise on the Discovery III. It was a great ride and well worth it. The folks who own and run it as a family business really know their customers and do everything right to ensure a good time and offer very reasonable prices for any extras in addition to having free coffee and donuts for everyone. Watched float plane take off and land next to the riverboat. Visited Susan Butcher’s and her famous sled dogs along the river bank. Susan won the Iditerod Dog Sled Race four times and her dogs are amazing. See PHOTOS 24b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j. Also saw a native Athabascan village where we disembarked and were given tours of four various parts of native life. a) clothing and fur making, b) sled dogs, c) family house demonstration, and d) reindeer raising and birch bark canoe making. Also at another spot along the river we watched an Athabascan woman filet a salmon and demonstrate a fish wheel that they use still to catch salmon running in the rivers. The salmon are starting to run now and will for the next month or so. Dick is anxious to try Salmon fishing! We then went to the Museum of The North at the University of Alaska campus. Another great place to visit and learn more about this wonderful land we call Alaska!
Tuesday we visited the Eldorado Gold Mine tour. This is run by the same folks that run the Discovery III and is run is the same very professional and pleasant way. We watched them do a professional sluice where they actually separate out gold from tons of dirt. We again panned for gold and in our bags of dirt, which are a sample of actual paydirt they are mining; we found flakes weighing up to a total of .20 grams. Some folks found more and a couple found small nuggets. They have one nugget that is in the top 25 nuggets ever found. Then we visited Pioneer Park, a collection of original log buildings from round Anchorage assembled in one are to preserve them and to use them to offer related handicrafts and pioneer period items. 
Wednesday it was off to the Artic Circle on a Fly/Drive tour. We left Anchorage at 1 PM on an 8-passenger plane to fly to Coldfoot, AK, a tiny spot a few miles north of the Artic Circle along the Alaskan Pipeline. The flight was fun and the pilot tried to locate wildlife and showed us from the air the vast amount of forest that has been burned in recent years and we saw several pumping stations from the air. We saw two small fires still burning. Fires are allowed to burn unless they threaten dwellings or special places. Coldfoot consists of the airstrip, a gas station with a snack bar and some gas pumps and about a half dozen trailers made into a “motel” for drivers on the Alaska Pipeline Highway.
We then took an eleven-hour drive back down the dirt highway in a small bus. Everyone had a window seat and we followed the pipeline on the road that had been used by those who built the pipeline. When we got to the point where the Artic Circle was, we stopped and the driver, a nice young female college student, set out a carpet with a stripe on it and we each crossed over the Circle and took photos.
We ate dinner about 8 pm at a restaurant by the only bridge in Alaska that crosses the Yukon River. A few Grizzly Bears had broken into the restaurant during the previous winter and one was killed in there by natives who found him using the clothes and souvenir t-shirts for a den. The owner showed us a photo book of the place the bears had been using and of the bear that was killed there. We didn’t get back to Fairbanks until 1:30 in the morning but it was still light out since sunset had occurred at 12:04 that morning!
Thursday we got actual mail forwarded by DJ. The system of using General Delivery works well if you know where you will be. Dick washed and waxed the front of the RV once he got all the bugs off. Messed around trying to make a wi-fi connection and had to buy a new PC card as the base wi-fi uses the WAP system. Someday we will get all this computer stuff straightened out! Friday the 15th we just took it easy at the RV doing some cleaning etc. We met some very nice folks, Jim & Pam, in a site near ours. They had also just retired in May and were off on a trip similar to ours. They have two white poodles that travel with them. Stayed up quite late chatting with them in their RV. Perhaps we will see them again in our travels.
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