July 5, 2014 Fairbanks - Free Day

So what do you do in North Pole, Alaska on your free day?

You visit Santa's house. 

Who would have known that Santa takes Tuesdays off.

 

Then we were off to the most wonderful place ever, Chena Hot Springs

If you watch the travel channel you know this place as the ice hotel

 

 

There is more to the Aurora Ice Museum than the hotel

 

 

The Chena Hot Springs also uses their geothermal power to grow their vegetables

in a hydroponic green house

 

 

And if all this is not impressive

 

 

They have a dog sled team!!

 

How cool is this place?  It is so fantastic that we will fly back in the winter time.

We would love to see the ice carvings in Fairbanks.

 

 

 

July 5, 2014 Fairbanks, Alaska

The road to Fairbanks was very nice.  The town is beautiful and there is so much to see, do and eat!!

 

This is our first view of the Alyeska Pipeline

 

 

 

 We took a tour of another dredge.  This one

was near the pipeline. 

 

We got to pan for gold again!

 

 

Up close to the pipeline

 

 

 

This shows the pipeline and where it runs

underground in the clearing up the hill.

 

 

 

 The best part about the Ice Museum

was seeing a photograph of Matt Coopers ice carving.

It was also fun to see carvers that we know in the video he

shows.  Other than that, the ice was OK at best.

 

 

 

 On this tour we visit a lot of museums and visitors centers.

The museum in Fairbanks was my favorite. 

It is located on the University of Alaska campus.

We had two hours there and I could have used another hour.

 

 

We also took a ride on a paddle wheel boat. 

 We got to see Susan Butchers dog sled team

 

He was stuffed

 

Pelts at the Chena village home to the
Athabascan people

 

One of the many homes on the Chena river

I have done two pages for Fairbanks because it was

that much fun!

July 4, 2014 Tok, Alaska

Tok is a great little town. 

I am not sure why I don't have more photos.

 

 

 

July 3, 2014 Chicken, Alaska

What a drive this was. 

 

First we had to bring the RV and car over the Yukon Riveron a ferry.  After  the crossing we were on The Top of the World Highway!


 



 

The car in with the big rigs

Yep this is the Top of  The World Highway
Then we began the LONG and DUSTY drive to Chicken, Alaska.
Buy long drive I mean 6 hours to drive a little over 100 miles.

 The sights were beautiful

 And the roads were slow going


We finally made it to ALASKA!!
And the road got even worse once we crossed the very remote boarder.

We arrived at Chicken

The town has about 20 seasonal residents and 3 that stay year around, to keep the post office open.

 This is the group we are traveling with

The owners of the campground gave us a tour of their dredge.  It was almost like the
workers left and didn't know they would not return the next day.

 

We also got to get our hands wet panning for gold.  The gold here is a tiny flake, but it is there.

 

 

 

 

Even though the roads were rough, this was one part of the adventure
we will never forget.