June 18th

THE DETAILS:

THE WEATHER: It started out cloudy today and 54. Gary was able to get his first TV station and watched the weather last night. It’s suppose to be showers today. But instead we ended up with partly sunny skies and a high of 72 degrees!

THE DISTANCE: We left the campground in the North Pole at noon! Yeah, you got that right, and only drove 15 miles to Fairbanks. We are currently staying at Riverview Campgrounds.


Well, it was a slow start today. I think the last time zone caught up to us. We were in bed for 10:00 pm and didn’t wake up until 8 am!! We put tin foil on the roof vent and that gave us the added darkness we needed. So now that we are refreshed we’ll hit the town of North Pole. It was interesting to drive around and the whole town gets into the festivities. The hardware store had 2 huge candy canes that supported their sign and a dental office called North Pole Dental, looked very Bavarian. There were stores called Polar Espresso and the Santa Claus House. We spent some time at the Santa Claus House because it is a Christmas shop. Gary sent his grandkids each a postcard that will be stamped from the North Pole! We did find our Christmas ornament.

From there we moved on to Fairbanks which we realized was only 15 miles away! Ha! Big miles today! Now we see signs like Mt. McKinley Bank, Klondike Korner, and Kodiak Jack‘s Saloon. We didn’t realize we were going to be here for the weekend of Summer Solstice! They celebrate the longest day of the year which is June 21st!! They close off 3 blocks and have a huge block party festival and we could even take in the 105th annual softball game played… you guessed it…. Under the midnight sun from 10pm till midnight! We were told about the University of Alaska’s amazing museum so we took the scooter out for a ride to check it out. Well, it was interesting but not as spectacular as everyone made it out to be. There was an interesting documentary about the Aurora Borealis. Of course I don’t know how much a small town like this can offer. I am really surprised that these “cities” you hear about ie; Fairbanks and Anchorage are really just big towns. I would say Fairbanks isn’t much bigger than Manchester’s west side. From the University we drove to Brewster’s for dinner where I once again got the halibut fingers. They are delicious. From there we went for a ride over to Pioneer Park where they have a walk through a Gold Rush Town, a narrow, winding street of authentic old buildings that once graced downtown Fairbanks. The houses now are set up to be used by local shops selling food and crafts. We got there after the shops were closed but could walk through the town and read about the houses. Gary was very interested in the structure, I was interested in the history of the building. We took a ride through town after that and got “home” around 10 pm. The picture that will be posted of the sun setting over a river is just a few steps out of our door and the sun setting is at 10:30 pm. As you can see it still has a way to go.

So we have settled down at our site in RV City once again. Summer has certainly begun up here. Everything is crowded. At least we were able to get a corner lot facing the river. Not bad!


PS: Tim: stop your wineing. Gerry & Gayle: it’s good to have you aboard, if you can find room you are welcome to stay but that webcam has GOT TO GO!! If you heard the conversation about ME actually catching all those fish yesterday it’s a lie!! Really! One more condition on you staying is: you cannot heckle the fishermen or women. BTW, when we run low on Bolivia’s Best, are you up to taking a trip out west?? Dan: TMI