Tok to Fairbanks

Tuesday, June 22 - This morning we left Tok and headed to Fairbanks, with stops along the way.  We are back in beautiful mountain scenery again, roaring rivers and creeks.  It wasn't raining, but there were low clouds in the mountain valleys. 

We crossed the Richardson River, which is what Alaska calls a braided river -- very spread out with numerous channels, usually runs gray in color due to the glacier water that feeds them.  This river still had ice on it.

We had a pretty easy drive today, with just a few stretches of road construction.  Shortly before Delta Junction, we stopped at Delta Meat & Sausage Co., a meat packing company featuring Alaska meats.  They had samples of sausages with elk, yak, reindeer, and buffalo.  We all bought a little bit of meat, then took a loop road through some barley fields that brought us into Delta Junction, where the Al-Can Highway ends.  Joe and I had stopped here on our 2004 trip to Alaska, but we stopped again.  They had added two mosquitoes to their outside decor.

If you look closely, you can see that the mosquito stinger is going into Joe's arm.  They had a rocket on display  in the visitor center made by Boeing, so we thought Jeff would be interested in that.

We thought this milestone deserved a group picture.

There is a herd of bison in this area, but we never saw any.  We did see some fields of cattle that were owned by the meat packing place we stopped at.  Dave had told us there was a place in Delta Junction had served wonderful buffalo burgers, so we stopped there for lunch, but would you believe, they were out of buffalo burgers that day!  The waitress said that was the only thing they were out of.  We told her we had driven 4000 miles just for buffalo burgers, but she didn't offer to go out and slaughter one, so we had burgers and fish.  However, they did have lilacs blooming right beside the building, so it wasn't a total loss.  Of course, I helped myself to one for the road.

After leaving Delta Junction, we had our first glimpse of the Alaska pipeline.  We will eventually see lots of miles of this, but it was exciting to see it again for the first time on this trip.

Our next stop was at the Knotty Shop, an interesting gift shop featuring a lot of stuff made out of knotted wood.  It also had a nice wildlife museum, and very good ice cream.  Bridgette's uncle had recommended their ice cream, so we had to give that a try.  They had wooden animals in the front made out of the knotted wood.  We thought this caribou was the best one.

We intended to stop next at the North Pole, but it was getting late in the day, so we headed on into Fairbanks.  We intend to drive back down to it in the next few days, because Kaylee wants me to talk to Santa for her.  We passed Eielson Air Force Base just outside of town and got to see a couple fighter jets take off.

We are staying at the River's Edge RV Resort, near the airport in Fairbanks.  It is a pretty nice campground, right on the Chena River, but they have the campers crowded pretty close together, and the sites are not very big.  We will be here for at least 6 days, so it would have been nice to have a little more room, but it is pretty full.  Marilyn and I took at walk down by the river.  Here's a picture taken at 10:15 at night.  Notice the sun shining through the trees.

There are only a few minutes between sunset and sunrise right now, but none of us have been able to stay up late enough to watch.  Marilyn and I saw a beaver (we think) swimming in the river, but a boat came by and it went under before we got to check it out further.

We didn't know if it was a beaver or an otter, but the staff at the visitors center said it was most likely a beaver.  Here's another picture of the river, it was probably 10:30 p.m. when I took this shot.  Joe and I bought some material today to try to block the light from the bedroom windows in the RV so we can get to sleep. 

We haven't seen much wildlife since we crossed into Alaska.  In fact, other than that beaver, the only thing we have seen is this squirrel, which was right outside the RV.

 I'm really hoping we see something a little larger in the next few days!