River's Edge RV Park - Fairbanks, AK

Ice Palace

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Frozen flowers in ice

Our plan (we always have a plan...we are so type "A") is to go for a short hike around Chena (with a long "e" like arena), then the a guided tour of the Ice Palace (only because people will ask if we went)...then back to Fairbanks for grocery shopping and getting ready for Denali.

Well to start off with, it's raining...not really great weather for a hike...especially one that essentially goes to the end of the runway and back.  So we ditch the walk, and move up the tour of the Ice Palace to 11:00.  This is a huge refrigerated room where absolutely everything is made of ice.  We all got to wear XXXL parkas to keep warm.  There are rooms made totally  of ice where you can spend the night for $600 (no plumbing! Just a deer skin and a sleeping bag)  There was even an ice xylophone with a full octave (except that the fa missing) and frozen globes with flowers inside.  Part of the tour is sitting at the ice bar drinking an "appletini (vodka and apple juice in a glass made of ice).  Vodka at 11:00 in the morning? We'll pass!

Making ice glasses

So we left Chena Hot Springs wondering why.  Why a DC-6, why a geothermal power plant, why an ice palace, why a herd of reindeer and a hundred chickens, why 20 broken down bulldozers, why tons of hydroponically grown vegetables, the list just kept growing.  Without any answers, we returned to Fairbanks...did our grocery shopping and prepared for the days ahead!

Chena Hot Springs Resort - Fairbanks, AK

View from Angels Rock

Chena Hot Springs is 60 miles north of Fairbanks.  It's the farthest north that we will go on this trip.  When we lived in California, we had planned a trip here to see the Northern Lights about twelve years ago, it never panned out because we could not carve the time out of our busy schedule.

On the way here, we stopped for a hike to Angels Rock...a spire of rock...with scenic views of the valley below.  All in all, it was a 3.5 mile hike with a 1,000 ft elevation...spectacular views.

DC-6 

At the end of the road, we arrived at Chena Hot Springs...an eclectic resort, to say the least.  They have an RV Park off in the woods, but an easy walk to the resort itself.  We had to drive under the tail of the DC-6 that is parked at the end of the runway (I doubt that it will ever fly again...)











They had a free tour of Geothermal Power Plant that powers the entire resort from the hot springs, followed by a tour of the green houses where they grow all the vegetables for the dining room.  Of course, we also saw the reindeer herd that is being raised to provide reindeer meat, and the chickens, and goats.  Everything is grown with hydroponics...

After the tour, we went to the bar, where I had a double hop beer from Alaska, called Hopothermia. Followed by dinner in the dining room.  I had Alaskan Scallops and Deb had Alaskan Halibut.

Tomorrow, the Ice Palace (but we may skip the appletini at the ice bar).  Then back to Fairbanks to get ready for Denali.

River's Edge RV Park - Fairbanks, AK (Day 2)

Deb's up at the crack of dawn (not really...dawn sorta cracks at about 2:00 AM) and off to the laundry to get a jump on the crowd.  With laundry done, we head to the Georgeson Botanical Gardens.  These are experimental gardens that are part of the University of Alaska. How do you maximize the growing season that has 22 hour days in the summer and 3 hour days in the winter.  Where the soil temperature is only 50 degrees ten inches under the surface.  Then there are the peonies with a shortened growing season that bloom from July to September, when in the lower 48 states, they bloom May to June, so there is an opportunity to ship cut flowers to the rest of the country.

We went to the museum at the University of Alaska, which had quite a bit of the history of Alaska. We have been listening to James Michener's Alaska on audio-book (we are 20 hours into it and have made it to 1862).  It was fascinating to see artifacts, and drawings of what we have been listening to.

University of Alaska Museum

We ate lunch on the River Walk, then grocery shopping, a trip to the post office and back for cocktails.  It's Friday night and that means Date Night.  There is A fairly highly rated Thai restaurant very close....not that anything in Fairbanks is far away.  We drove and even though it was after 6:00PM, it was still in the high 80's so we had to leave Drex in the RV with the air conditioner running (remember 2 nights ago it was 40 degrees for a high!).

River's Edge RV Park - Fairbanks, AK

Well today is the day...we are both on edge with keen excitement.  Today is the day that we either finish the Alaska Highway (a bucket list item since forever) or we flame out somewhere in the last 100 miles.  Yes, we made it to Delta Junction, the end of the Alaska Highway...right there in the parking lot of the visitor's center just east of town.  With a couple of high fives, and maybe a hip bump...we move on...the last hundred miles to Fairbanks.  Guided by our trusty 2017 copy of Milepost  we find a scenic vista for lunch and push on.  There are tall mountains to the south, but we are getting slightly numbed to them.  There are several wildfires that are making all the views a little hazy.

This is the first time that we have ever had to refill our propane tank on a trip...partially because it is a long trip, but mostly because we have had to run the heater so often.  With the tank topped off we head for the RV Park.  It's commercial, with tight sites, but it's close to the city and there is a wonderful restaurant next door.  Alaska salmon for me with maple-mustard glaze and Chicken Kiev for Deb...all on the terrace overlooking the Chena River.

Tomorrow we explore Fairbanks.

Tok River Rec Area - Tok, AK

Yeah, we finally made it to Alaska.  We are a few miles from Tok (sounds like poke). Apparently, back when the Alaska Highway was being built, this was a large staging area called Tokyo Junction. Once the war broke out, the name was shortened to Tok, to be politically correct.

Pickhandle Lake, lunch spot

Deb and I have found that it is best to get to campgrounds that are "first come first serve" before 3:00 to insure that you can find a nice spot.  Normally, you put your ticket on a post by your site and everyone knows that it is taken.  There are no posts here, and since we were coming from Canada, we got rid of our fruit and vegetables (and also our wine & beer).  So we put out the folding chairs, Deb and Drex held the site against all on-comers, while I went into town in search of our essentials.  It all worked well...she was still there when I returned.

The trip here was wonderful.  We had sunny sky's the entire way, with majestic mountains rising all around us.  We even had lunch at a small roadside rest area, with a lake... ducks, and even trumpeter swans.

Tomorrow we actually finish the Alaska Highway in Delta Junction and then drive the last hundred miles to Fairbanks!

Congdon Creek - Destruction Bay, YT

Destruction Bay

It's another rainy day...we have stopped a few times to see points of interest along the way, but the clouds are very low and we can only see a few hundred feet from the road.  Deb suggests lunch in a restaurant in Haines Junction...a Reuben and a bacon cheeseburger.  Back on the road again, we get close to our destination and there is a nice hike to see the foot of a glacier.  The man at the info center says that the rain will end and tomorrow will be showers.  I'm not sure I can discern the difference.

Again, we dedicate the afternoon to cooking while the rain continues, but about ten o'clock at night, the sun finally came out and clouds lifted.  We could finally see the mountains.  By midnight, we could see all of the snow caps (yes, the sun never sets in the summer).

Before leaving, we finally got to take a short hike along the lake.  Then off to find some internet.

Fireweed

Hi Country RV Park - Whitehorse, YT

Another day crossing the Yukon.  The roads are pretty flat, the only grades are going down to bridges that cross huge rivers.  We found our internet spot in a rest-area overlooking Teslin and the Nisutlin River.  By the time we had finished with our internet fix it was time for lunch.  The temperature hovered around 4-8 Celsius which is Yukon shorts weather, but cold enough to keep us inside.  Plus the fact that it has been raining for three days...it's kinda what I always thought the Yukon would be like.

We finished the day in a commercial RV park...got to do a little maintenance.  Some laundry, fixed (hopefully) a nagging rattle in the microwave, filled our fresh water and gas tanks, and, of course, reloaded our Keurig rack.

We are off to Destruction Bay.