Rivers, planes and GOLD in them thar hills!

July 1, 2009

Today was the official beginning of our cruisetour. The beautiful weather has continued (it was in the 80s today!) and we are thankful for it. Of course, we are running out of t-shirts to wear, but it’s a small price to pay for all the sunshine.

For our first activity, we boarded an old stern wheel riverboat and cruised down the Chena river for three hours. It was really cool, because every 20 minutes or so, we’d stop for a demonstration of some kind.

The first one was a floatplane demo. We watched the plane taxi in the water alongside us, then rev up the engine and ascend. It was so cool! We could actually see the pilot in the cockpit as he flew right past us.

The next display was at Susan Butcher’s home. She was the first woman to win the Iditarod dog race, then she won it three more times. She died from cancer a couple years ago, but her husband and daughters still run the kennel, and they told us all about the dogs. They brought out some of the puppies, which were solo cute. Then they hooked up the adult dogs to an ATV with its engine removed. As soon as the dogs saw it, they went NUTS! They barked up a storm, running in circles around their dog houses, and jumping up on top of them. They were jumping everywhere, and they all wanted to pull the cart. It’s obvious how much they love to run and pull.

The next stop was at the end of the river, where the Chena meets the…um, other river whose name I now forget. But it was pretty cool to see, because it’s where the freshwater Chena river meets the other river of melted glacial runoff.

Our last stop was a replica of a Native Alaskan village. It was supposed to represent a typical Athabascan village, where the Athabascan people showed off their way of life. We saw them model beautiful fur coats, a salmon fishing wheel, little camping huts, and even reindeer. (My smart friend Edra informed us that reindeer are domesticated caribou – so they’re caribou out in the wild, and reindeer when they’re raised on a farm.)

Reindeer with BIG antlers

Athabaskan house

I thought the drying salmon looked good; Mark did not

Big bear, little boy

They brought the sled dogs over to the village, too, so Mark loved that. He was really excited to pet all the dogs. But those dogs are HYPER, and never stayed in one place for very long, so they were hard to pet.

Then it was back on the river boat for the cruise home. Edra and Mark decided they needed a little snack, so they purchased reindeer hot dogs to eat. Yeah, that’s right, REINDEER hot dogs! They were all right – a little fatty, but not all that different from a regular hot dog.

Now that's a good (reindeer) hot dog!

The narrator told us all about the homes along the river, and he seemed to know everyone who lived in them. Fairbanks is a pretty small town!

The tour ended back at our hotel in time for lunch. Then it was on to our second activity for the day, the El Dorado Gold Mine.

The mine was about 30 minutes outside of town. We drove out of the valley and up into the mountains, and made a short stop before the mine. We stopped to see the Alaska pipeline! The pipeline itself wasn’t that exciting, but it was interesting to learn that it runs the length of the whole state, and pumps out a million gallons of oil a day.

Vic sitting on the Alaskan Pipe Line

Mark, of course, missed it all. He was busy sleeping on the bus.

But he woke up in time for the gold mine. We hopped on a narrow gauge railroad car, and listened to a local guy relive the time he met Johnny Cash. It was certainly a high point in his life, and he relived it all for the next hour, even talking like Johnny Cash, and singing Johnny Cash songs.

The train dipped into a tunnel, then stopped inside the mine. A coal miner (a fake one) explained all about excavating for gold, but to be honest with you, I don’t remember much of it. He also narrated some other spots, telling how the miners lived and how they got the ore out of rocks they mined.

But the exciting part for us was the demo. The two hosts (who owned the mine and are proud Alaskans) were a couple of characters. The first was a woman named Yukon. She wore gold rings and bracelets, and carried around two gold nuggets worth $7000 in her jeans pocket. When the demo started up, she called out, “You hear that? That’s the sound of money!” She certainly seemed to love her job!

I can’t remember her partner’s name, but he was a crusty old character himself. He’s exactly what you’d picture an Alaskan man looks like. Funny hat, big beard, jeans and boots. He dumped a craneful of dirt into a sluice, and ten sent a high-pressure waterfall through it to wash out the dirt. Then he handed over the trapped dirt to his interns, who showed us how to pan for gold.
They panned out about $35 worth in just a few minutes.

Then came the really fun part – WE got to pan for gold! It was hilarious! No one in our group really knew what we were doing. We dumped the little bag of dirt into our pans, then swirled water around the pans waiting for the gold flakes to appear. The interns finally helped us separate the gold flakes out. Edra was hilarious – she had a big pile of gold flakes, $24 worth! But she turned to help Wende, and as she did, she almost tipped her whole pan into the water. Luckily, she’s got good reflexes and saved it.

Here’s the nugget I found – it weighed 19 ounces and clocked in with a value of $40,000:

Eureka!

Just kidding…Wende was the big winner, with $25 worth of gold. I had a whopping $4.50 worth, and Mark panned an even more impressive $3. He mistakenly handed over a little container of rocks he’d saved, so that the guy weighing the containers eyes grew really big (until I explained it was rocks, not gold nuggets).

Our first moose sighting!

Then it was back on the train for the end of the tour. They mine staff all came outside to wave goodbye and wish us well. Some even helped lock the car doors. We waved back at them, and prepared for the journey back. It took all of two minutes, and the staff we’d just left walked right beside the train, unlatching the doors as we arrived. We were really cracking up at that.

We decided on a nice dinner out tonight, and cabbed it over to the Pump House. It was right on the river, with a spectacular view. I also liked the garden outside, which was rich and colorful. The growing season in Alaska is short – only 100 days, but the sun shines 24 hours a day during those days. As a result, enormous flowers and leafy vegetables fill the flower boxes and gardens (cabbage grows to 20 pounds!).

Here’s the garden in front of the Pump House:

By the time we finished, we were full and happy, but not tired. Then someone mentioned it was 9:30, and I gasped. It seriously looked like it was 2 p.m., not almost 10.

I don’t know if I could live in Alaska, with its extreme weather – four hours of sun during winter, and no dark during summer. But it sure is fun to vacation here – you can tour and explore the state until all hours of the night with unlimited energy. Even the mere suggestion of light has kept me awake these past few days. There’s a little sliver that peaks in through a gap in the curtains, and I’ve woken at all hours, amazed to see it’s still sunny. My body loves the endless hours to fill with activities, but it’s starting to mess with my head a little bit.

Raise your hand if you’ve been to the North Pole!

Today was a really exciting day, because at the end of it I got to say, “The North Pole? Santa’s house? Oh yeah, I’ve been there!”

Yeah, THAT North Pole. And THAT Santa!

But let me backtrack a little…

It’s our first full day in Fairbanks, and we rented a mini-van to make the most of it. I picked it up at 9 a.m., and returned it 12 hours later.

During that 12 hours, Amber and her parents (collectively, the Stricklands), Edra, Mark and I piled in and out of that van approximately 372 times. But our first and most exciting journey was to North Pole, Alaska, where it’s Christmas year round.
North Pole was about 20 minutes from Fairbanks. It was a pretty drive, green and loads of trees everywhere. There was almost no traffic on the highway, which in itself was a nice relief from congested California.

We knew we were getting close when we saw the Universal Welding company sign, held up by two 20-foot candy canes. Santa was close!

We exited in North Pole, and followed the signs onto Santa Claus Lane. All the light posts were candy canes, too, as were any kind of pilings or poles sticking out of the ground. We passed the North Pole post office, which receives all the letters to Santa at Christmas. Somehow we took a wrong turn and ended up in a neighborhood, but even that was fun. We turned left on Snowman Ave., and passed Santa’s Senior Center. We also passed a house with Christmas lights and trees in the front yard, which made us laugh.

We finally found a local shuttle driver who pointed us in the right direction. Soon enough we saw a ginormous Santa Claus, next to the Santa Claus House. The passengers in our car were downright giddy with excitement.



We spent the next hour browsing in the shop, and reading the letters decorating the walls -- letters children to Santa. But the highlight was meeting the Jolly Old Elf himself!!

With jingle bells ringing and Christmas carols in the background, Santa made his entrance. He ho ho hoed into the building, and headed straight for Mark. Grasping Mark’s hand in his, he told him very earnestly “Merry Christmas!” and continued on.
It felt like meeting a rock star!

Mark sat on Santa’s lap and talked to him for a bit, then Santa took a picture with all of us. We were laughing the whole morning.

We made a quick detour to see the reindeer out back, and then it was off to our next destination. We stopped for a quick lunch, which we ate outside because it was so nice (70 degrees and sunny!). We couldn’t believe our luck with the weather – everybody had on short-sleeved shirts, and when we ran into the Wawerchaks later, they were wearing flip-flops! In Alaska!

Vicki in flip flops

After lunch, we drove to the museum at the University of Alaska. It was a gorgeous building, and the exhibits inside were amazing. Lots of stuffed arctic animals and hands-on touching stuff. We all dug it a lot.

Plugs to keep car engines from freezing in winter

Mark contemplating Fairbanks

But we weren’t even halfway done with our day. We had a car, and intended to use every minute of it! Our next stop was at the Large Animal Research Station (LARS), which studies musk ox, reindeer and caribou. We could see the animals in the distance. They had huge heads and fur all the way to the ground – they kinda looked like compact little buffalo with ram’s horns drooping down. I was excited to take a tour, but we saw a tour in action and they were nowhere near the animals. Standing in the sun for an hour while the musk ox were still far away didn’t sound like any fun, so we bailed on the tour.

But all was not lost! Amber read about a local place that made homemade ice cream, so we headed over there for our next stop. The ice cream was amazing! They had all sorts of crazy flavors – cinnamon showers, carrot cake, chocolate walnut, kahlua just to name a few. Mark and I ordered the Nanook Nosh, which was vanilla ice cream infused with chocolate, caramel and honey swirls. It was outta this world! It was hot by this time, 84 degrees, so we sat in the sun, eating ice cream and marveling how wonderful Alaska is.

We dropped Edra back at the hotel after that, then headed back out to Pioneer Park (this was not a relaxing day at the beach kinda vacation!). Pioneer Park was funny – half public park with playgrounds and local kids, and half old town with tiny museums and tourists. We wandered the streets, reading about each little cabin. Mark and Amber stopped to play checkers outside one cabin, and then we found the cabin we’d been searching for.

It was a place called 40 Below Fairbanks. For five bucks, we donned giant parkas and entered a small, refrigerated room that was about (you guessed it) 40 degrees BELOW zero. Seriously!!! I’ve never been that cold in all my life. I was wearing cotton pants, and my legs instantly chilled. Next were my ungloved hands, which fumbled clumsily with the camera. The girl working there sent us in with cups of hot water, which we tossed into the chilled air. The water turned into an icy mist before our eyes! That was really cool. There was a banana in there, which you could hammer a nail with, and a thermometer which showed it was actually about 45 degrees below zero.

My eyelashes and nostrils froze quickly. I tried to be brave, but I’ll admit it, I was the first one to run from the building. I could hear Mark shouting, “Party pooper!” as I rushed out of the cold, almost tripping as my glasses fogged up from the sudden temperature change (from 40 below to 84 above zero!). Amber came out next, and after a while, her dad Bill and Mark. Mark apparently wanted to stay in even longer, but Bill was done.

Here’s us inside in our parkas:

45 degrees BELOW zero! And we paid for this!

Mark throwing boiling water into the air -- and watching it turn to an icy mist!

In the 80 degree weather afterwards

We perused Pioneer Park for a bit, looking in the museums. Then we wandered over to the Salmon Bake, which had been very highly reviewed.

It was a bit of a bust – very touristy, and the salmon wasn’t all that great. The halibut was good, but fried. They also had fried cod (the halibut was better) and prime rib (Mark said just okay). It was pricey and touristy, and we vowed not to make that mistake again.

It was nearing time to take the car back, and we were all pretty tired. After one last stop at the local Safeway, I dropped the crew off at the hotel and then returned the car. Amber had sent the hotel shuttle after me, and as we drove back, I marveled at how light it still was. If I’d returned from any other vacation day at 9 p.m., it would’ve been dark, and I would feel exhausted. But the sunshine messes with you here – your body says it’s tired, but your brain says it’s till daylight. And you can’t decide whether to go to bed or keep playing!

It’s now 11 p.m., and still light as it was at noon. But I’m going to bed anyway – got another big day tomorrow, sunny night or not!

Along the fair banks of Fairbanks

Well, we made it to Alaska and our big Alaskan adventure!

Our trip was long, with many delays. I can safely say that, barring our return flight from D.C. after the Inauguration, this was the strangest flight ever.

It started in L.A. We sat on the tarmac for a while, and then finally pushed back toward the runway. But then instead of turning onto the runway, the plane looped around and passed the runaway again. Then it headed back to the terminal, as the pilot informed us a flight attendant was sick and needed to de-plane.

Paramedics and airline employees rushed onto the plane, and escorted the flight attendant off. They completed all the paperwork, and finally pushed back from the terminal again. Again, they drove the plane toward the runway, and again, they looped back around. I looked up to see we were heading back to the terminal AGAIN! This time the pilot informed us there was a battery in the plane that needed to go below, in the luggage compartment. So we had to wait for all that and its accompanying paperwork to finish before we could leave, now 90 minutes late.

“This is why I don’t get excited until I get there,” Edra said. I had to agree she was right.

But we finally got into the air, and were treated to some pretty spectacular views. We flew past Mt. Shasta covered in snow. Four and a half hours later, we reached Alaska, and I was disappointed to see only clouds below us. But the clouds parted, and I saw the most tremendous sights below. Giant mountains just covered in snow, followed by enormous valleys blanketed in snow. I even saw a few glaciers, blue-white just like in the books, melting into tiny rivers running down to the ocean. I thought I was gonna cry!

“Oh my God!” Edra exclaimed. “I already know I have to come back here, it’s too big to see all in one trip!” We were cracking up at her – the girl who wasn’t excited until just the very minute was already planning her return trip – before she’d even landed!

We landed in Anchorage, where were supposed to add more passengers and then continue on to Fairbanks. Instead, we had to change planes. Which was fine, until it headed for the runway and then stopped. I was almost panicked – by this time, we’d been up for 11 hours, and travelling for 7. I just wanted to get off the plane! But the pilot announced that there was a dog running around on the runway, and they’d had to catch it. Sick flight attendants, batteries and now runaway dogs—this was some kinda flight!

But we arrived safely. We got to our hotel, and were treated to rooms along the river—what a view! We also saw Amber and her parents outside and ran to greet them. We were all starving and headed to a restaurant close by.

Everyone was wearing long-sleeved shirts, pants and light sweatshirts or coats. But it was gorgeous and sunny outside – so sunny, in fact, that by the time we sat down, we started sweating! It got downright hot during dinner, and every one of us was overdressed for it.

Cute little bench outside our hotel

The little cabins on our way to dinner

We sampled some Alaska Ales and fish and chips made from local halibut, which were amazing. I could’ve stayed there all night, exhausted as I was, but Mark had other plans. It was only 8:30 Alaska time, which was really 9:30 California time, and he’d been up since 4:45 a.m. He was so tired that after whining a bit, he simply picked up his stuff and headed home. “I want to go to bed!” he cried when I caught up to him, and he was dead asleep less than 15 minutes later.

Mark by the Chena River

I watched out the room window a bit, because I couldn’t believe how sunny it was. I’d heard all the stories about how it’s light for 21 hours a day, but until you’ve experienced it, you can’t really grasp that. It really is as light at midnight as it is at noon. The curtains in our room let in a tiny sliver of light, and I woke up a few times during the night – that sliver never disappeared. If it really did get dark at some point, I didn’t see it!

View outside my room at midnight

So that’s my story for our first vacation day. Overall, the travel was tough, but the glaciers and mountains made up for that. The people are wonderful here – very friendly and helpful. The food is good, and the state itself is lush and green. And surprisingly sunny and warm! Without mosquitoes!

I think this really is gonna be the trip of a lifetime…

No wonder he's not impressed

I was researching things to do in Fairbanks during our upcoming Alaska trip, and came across this gem:

Santa Claus House
101 St. Nicholas Drive, North Pole, AK 99705
Unique theme shop w/gifts, apparel, ornaments & Original Letter from Santa!

Turns out the North Pole is a scant 20 minutes away from downtown Fairbanks -- we can actually visit the Jolly Old Elf himself at home!

Oh my goodness, I was beside myself with joy. A chance to visit Santa at the North Pole -- what could be better than that?

I shared the exciting news with Mark as soon as I got home. I knew he wouldn't be outwardly excited, because 9-year-olds do not believe in Santa. (Not when their friends are around, anyway -- but ask any kid right before bedtime on Christmas Eve if they believe, and you'll get a positive response. Even 9-year-olds are smart enough to believe the night before!!)

But Mark's response surprised me. He simply shrugged his shoulders and said casually, "I've already been there."

This stopped me in my tracks! "What do you mean?" I asked. "You've already been to the North Pole?"

He nodded. "My parents took me there when I was a baby."

I could sense a good story coming on. I prodded him for more info.

"Really?" I asked. "What was it like?"

"It had a big red and white striped pole," he answered. "And there was snow everywhere."

"What else?" I asked.

"You know, lots of elves," he said. "And some reindeer."

"So cool!" I exclaimed. "What were they like?"

"I don't remember," he said. "I was just a little baby!"

"Huh," I said, scratching my head. "Well, then you can show me around, because I've never been there. I've only seen the North Pole on T.V."

But he was tired of this story already. "I told you, I was just a little baby!" he said. "I probably won't remember any of it!"

And so, in just a few short weeks, I will be visiting Santa and the North Pole for the first time in my life. And Mark will be returning for his second triumphant visit.

I wonder if Santa will remember him? ;-)