Fairbanks, by way of the North Pole

admin — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:24:55 +0000

We’re headed for Fairbanks, Alaska today, a 205 mile trip by motor coach. As we are riding along, viewing the beautiful Mentasta mountain range, the first thing that was pointed out was the Robertson river. The Robertson river is one of many braided rivers across Alaska. It is called a braided river because it is very shallow and the water. In fact it is iced over about 8.5 months out of the year. The water that is still running will find or create another path down the river which results in braided paths all along the river as you look upon it.
Our first stop is at Rika’s Roadhouse, Delta Junction, Alaska, where we had the opportunity to purchase food like bearclaws, cinnamon rolls, pies, soups and sandwiches – what I had tasted like it was homemade! They also had a great selection of furs and gifts.
We saw the Tanana Suspension bridge that was built the take the Trans Alaskan Pipeline across the Tanana River. On this bridge, the pipeline sits on pads and is free to move left to right and expand and contract as it needs to.
We had the opportunity to see three moose along this trip.
We saw a F16 land on one of the two parallel landing strips at Eielson Air Force Base. Eielson Air Force Base is home of the 354th Fighter Wing. It is also an alternate landing site for the space shuttle. We also stopped in North Pole, Alaska and visited Santa Claus House, where you could contract to have a letter from Santa sent out around Christmas time. There was also a ‘live’ Santa and plenty of Christmas oriented gifts for purchase.
Upon our arrival in Fairbanks, we had an old fashion lunch like the miners had at the site of Gold Dredge #8. It was an excellent meal. After a tour of Dredge #8, we went to the Eldorado Gold Mine where we took a short train ride through the mine and had the chance to pan for gold. Our panning resulted in $18.00 worth of gold dust. We also had the chance to see a 19 ounce gold nugget worth about $40,000.00.
One of the most interesting things I learned about Fairbanks weather was that they had 22 straight days of -20 to -40 degrees this past winter, but it was 81 degrees while we were there. This range of temperature is common for Fairbanks. I bet you thought it was cold all the time!

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Fairbanks, by way of the North Pole