Fairbanks, Part 3

6/9/14

Monday morning started at 0630 with Joe taking the truck to the local Ford Dealer for it's regular oil change and check up.  Just regular stuff and they called at noon saying the truck was done and they would send their driver out to pick us up, sure enough he was here 15 min later.  So now we had a half day, perfect for going out to the Alaskan Pipe Line, just a few miles out of town.

One of the big negatives of the pipeline was that it would affect the Caribou.  Well after many studies, they Caribou have flourished in their own habitat as they are very adaptive creatures and learned that it is ok to cross the pipeline. And , for some reason the caribou in the National Parks & Forests have not produced as many babies as the ones around the pipeline.  One reason could be that there is a wide path around the pipeline that has less brush and lots of grasses.

The Pipe Line is sometimes underground, mostly above ground because of the perma frost.

It's a good thing I wasn't in charge, I would never had thought to put "Pigs" in the Pipeline.

I love the Birch Trees in Alaska

Back at our campground, that spot on the front window is just a reflection.  We are in a really nice very large wooded spot.  Notice we are all sparkly clean.    

We have the nicest Camp Hosts you would ever want to meet, they will even let you borrow a "Blue Boy" and take it to the dump for you.  This is Jim

End of another beautiful day in Fairbanks, thanks for stopping by.

Nancy

Fairbanks - Part 2

6/8/14

Sunday started off with spice pancakes (instead of Waffle Sunday) and sausage with real maple syrup.  Yumm, they were good.  Then off we went to the University of Alaska.  They have a very large campus overlooking the Fairbanks area; we visited the newly refurbished Museum of the north.

Looking the opposite way.  As you can see they have a large greenhouse, in the picture is only about 1/4 of the greenhouse.

Boy isn't he a cutie, just look at the smile (the bear).

The Ptarmigan, white in the winter and brown and white in summer.  This is what the town of Chicken wanted to be named after but they couldn't agree on how to spell Ptarmigan so that is why they called the town Chicken.

This is a table with Elk leggs, Mountain sheep horns and Muskox skirting.  It's kind of eerie to me.

 There were several skeletal remains of pre-historic animals.  One, they named Blue Babe who died about 36,000 years ago.  This was just an interesting chart to show how Blue Babe's age was determined

Look at the size of these gold nuggets.

Made of Beaver and Moose skin.  It also had a pole for a sail.

Cute little Artic Fox

In the Art Room was this "out house"



















Later in the day we had dinner at The Alaska Salmon Bake.  All you could eat, grilled salmon over an open pit, prime rib and cod, along with crispy fresh salad & veggies and beans.  We skipped the beans and went for the salads and Salmon.  The salmon was obviously fresh right out of the Copper River.  You could not ask for any better salmon.

They just kept cooking the salmon on these grates, very similar to the ones we have at home for the Potlatch.

After dinner was a show at The Palace Theatre.

This was sort of a vaudeville show that had a story of living in Alaska from the late 1800's to about the 1940's

Funny as hell, had us laughing the entire time, they must have changed costumes 30 times during the show.

This is one of the men in the show

For those of you coming this way I would highly recommend this show.  The theater is at the Pioneer Village, about a 10 min walk from the Salmon Dinner.

Looking out our door at 11:30 at night.
















That's it for this day, thanks for stopping by.

Nancy

Fairbanks, here we are (finally)

6/6 - 6/7/14
Fort Wainwright, Fairbanks, AK
FamCamp on Base
Skeeters are getting bigger but not too bad

A beautiful wooded campground along with the welcoming committee, just 50 feet from our site.  She is a young one probably last year's baby.

We drove around town and over to the Ford dealer to get an appt.,  time for an oil change and a general check after some of the rough roads we have been on.  Have a 7 am appt Monday morning.


6/7/14
Saturday time to explore, first stop was the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitor Center.  Once again we are amazed of the quality of this museum within the visitor center and no charge. Very nice exhibits about the people, their land and their culture of the interior of Alaska

Nothing special about these two photos they just look so real.

I had to split this kayak up into three pictures, right, middle and left so you could see the detail

A memorial to all Eskimo People

Chena River downtown Fairbanks

This little river is the one that flooded so bad in about 1967.   The entire downtown and out to the base was flooded, very devastating.  Joe was stationed here during that time, his entire basement and out on the flight line was flooded.

Arch of antlers,  many were donated from families In Memory of Someone.
Very impressive, a bit different from the antler arches in Jackson Hole.










We also came across a fund raiser car wash.  We were so thrilled to get the truck washed I forgot to find out what the fund raiser is all about.  They had a generator and a power washer, and this gal really knew how to us it.  aah it's so nice to feel clean again.

That's it for this day, thanks for stopping by

Nancy