We have been so busy! They don't let you sit down too long on this land part of the cruise. I am trying to remember where we left off. I think we were lazing around the Denali lodge, waiting to take off for Fairbanks. And I am now answering to Fanny...so annoying. Jeez!
It was a two and half hour trip to Fairbanks. We had a fantastic tour guy who told us story after story. It was a great bus trip. We managed to get the very front seat behind the bus driver, who didn't look old enough to be unsupervised let alone driving a giant bus. But he did a great job. The first thing we saw was a cow moose running beside the road. They are so gangly and stupid! A lot of them die on the highway, poor things. A lot of what we saw, and what we saw was amazing and interesting, I will talk about when we drive down to Healy day after tomorrow. Healy is the town where Christopher McCandless hiked down a road and off on a trail, into the wild Alaska until he came across an abandoned bus and settled in to live there. "Into The Wild" was such an interesting story and film, and we will be seeing exactly where it all started and ended.
We got into Fairbanks to a magnificent lodge on the Chenna River right in town. We were starving so we went directly to one of their restaurants and had scallops in blueberry sauce, seafood mac and cheese, halibut. Homemade Huckleberry Ice cream for dessert. Into bed early.
Today was crazy busy and so much fun, except for most of the people. This trip has been long and when you are having to put your luggage out at six a.m. each morning, climb in and out of buses, keep a lot of details straight in your head, well, some of these oldsters are getting a little cranky and whiny. They should have come straight up here, done the physically harder part of the trip and relaxed on the cruise ship back to Vancouver. But I wasn't tired, didn't need a bathroom every five minutes, knew all the right times and bus numbers, could hop in and out of buses so I had a good day!
First thing we did was go for a three hour paddle wheeler ride up the river...with 200 close and personal friends (by now we know EVERYBODY). The set up along the river was fantastic. We would pull up to a particular interesting site, someone on shore would have a radio/mic and our tour person on the boat could talk to that person and they would demonstrate whatever it was they were there for Eg: The iditerod ...Have you heard of Susan Butcher? Well she was that famous lady that won the iditerod (dog race) several times and she is one of Alaska's heros. She died a number of years ago at the age of 51 from leukaemia. But her husband still runs the kennels and trains dogs. So he was out on his riverfront and showed us dogs and gave us history. We met him later at another stop.
We had a number of encounters like that. We stopped at a native village. We actually got off the boat for that. I loved that. We learned so much and I got some awesome pics of pelts, and trapper's cabins, old boat motors etc...
After that we went back to where we got on and they had a huge hall laid out with trestle tables and a fantastic stew lunch. Mmmmmmm. We boarded the buses again and took a one hour drive to a dredge mining (gold) site. We all boarded a train and we were taken through the site with all the info one could want about that type of mining. Then we got to pan for our own gold!!! When they weighed mine I got 19 bucks worth of gold and Bill got 6. I had a pendant made out of it (and thats where the gold is for them hahahaha) Then they served free cookies and drinks and we moved around the giant gift store and visited with peeps and actively avoided some others. Tomorrow or the next day, when I don't have to look 'em in the eye anymore I will blog about some of the characters we have become all too close to in the last couple of weeks. Boy there have been some doozies!!!
And let me tell you, I know waaaaaaaaaaay too much about old men's bad bathroom habits. What is it about them that they have this need to tell you EVERYTHING about the troubles they are having in the plumbing department! You have no idea how many of them wear depends. I caught myself even having a long in depth conversation with one old dude about the pros and cons of depends versus Kirkland brand. When I realized, I was horrified!
Anyway, it was a long and wonderful day. We sat on the big sunny pretty deck here on the river and drank beer and blueberry mojitos, had some dinner and now to bed. (and thats hard because the sun shines at one in the morning). I can't wait for tomorrow. We get our rental car early and then we have a whole day to do what we want. I have us booked into a hotel here (not a nice one like this though) here in Fairbanks. I think we are going to take a run up to a little town called the North Pole. Its still 150 miles to the actual pole, but this town is a Christmas town and apparently worth a visit. We are also going to go find the Carlisle Ice Truckers and the air base with all the F1's. TTYL
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