June 16 North Pole into Fairbanks

Sunday, June 16

We are now on the Richardson Highway and before long the Alaskan Range came into view to the west.  Gorgeous towering snow covered peaks. This picture shows Mt. Hayes (13,823 )  Mt Hess (12,000) and Mt Deborah (12,339).

We stopped at Rita’s Roadhouse.  One of the remaining of a series of Roadhouses that serviced travelers along this route.  Complete with gardens, windmill and other outbuildings.

Our first view of the Alaskan Pipeline was next. This is another example of an incredible group of workers accomplishing what many thought was impossible.  We will see the terminus at Valdez later in the trip.  Can't tell from this picture, but it is 48" in diameter.

Next stop, North Pole, Alaska.  Founders of the city hoped to lure a toy manufacturer to town, but this never developed.  However  it is the city “Where its Christmas every day”, and they have appropriate decorations.  We spent a little time at the Santa Claus House and found an ornament with a moose for our collection.

Next stop Fairbanks and the River Side RV Park, located next to the Chena River near the western edge of town.  Nice facilities and we hit the showers pretty quickly. Found a few of our other North to Alaska group here and got caught up.  Nice folks from Washington state next to us.

Dumped the tanks (yeah, the repaired hose worked!) and did laundry and grocery shopping.  Fred Meyers is the local chain , affiliated with Kroger, and was a beautiful big store with lots of fresh fruits (bing cherries, my favorite) and pretty much anything you could want. 

We drove around town a bit, around the University of Alaska which is quite large and modern.  Some of their buildings were interesting, like the Bird Virology building, the Arctic Health Research Center, and the Syun-ichi-Aroyaka building.  They do a lot of research on arctic life, climatology, and animal and plant life, with pastures and green houses, a botanical garden and more.

Happy Father’s Day.  Talked with Mom.  Temps in the 80s today!  We sat by the river, near our campsite, and watched a lot of boats, canoes, rafts, jet ski’s pass by.  Nice breeze, no bugs. J Daylight never ends – well maybe sort of for an hour or two!

fuzzy face

chena river, view from our campsite

Greg won the stone skipping contest with 6