Artic Circle or bust

8/18/10, 8/19/10 & 8/20/10

   On the 18th we made a trip to Chena Hot Springs. We had heard of the hot springs and an ice hotel; missing our hot tub we decided to drive there and look around. On the way we saw moose  by the side of the road. The hot springs was outstanding! The water is 165* before they cool it to put it in the outside pool. It is hot and all those aches and pains drift away. Problem is you still have to drive home. We had a great lunch there and headed home. We stopped at a gravel pit (again) with a small lake to let the dogs run a bit and happened on another moose.

grazing in the pond

Yukon river bridge

   On the 19th we made a trip of a different kind. A marathon drive to the Artic Circle : loaded up the dogs, packed a lunch and set off. It was a trip of 425 miles over a road that was a bit of everything from smooth pavement to greasy mud. We wanted to see the tundra and to be able to say we made it. WE MADE IT! Along the way we stopped at a visitor center at the Yukon River bridge; quite and engineering feat. It was built to carry traffic and the pipeline over the river in less than ideal conditions. Lunch was at Hot Spot just down the road and then off to the Circle.

Pipeline stretching into the distance

Pond in the perma-frost

Artic Circle! We made it!

The trip to the Artic Circle was hard on us so we decided to spend another day in Fairbanks recovering and doing chores like the laundry (again). Bosco had the oil changed in the truck; but first he had to wash it as it was covered in mud. People looked at the truck and said "been to the Artic Circle; have you?". He had quite a job finding a place to get the oil changed as with our oil and filter some places wanted $100 to change the oil. He found various prices like $45 but finally at a friendly Chevron station they charged $25 and he had it done. When our chores were done we decided to take a little bike ride; riding the Farmer's loop road trail. Wow!, 18.5 miles door to door. Over dinner later Bosco said "Gee, if we'd just gone a mile and a half more we'd have made another 20 miles!". Time to leave Fairbanks, we know our way around here too well. Which translates we found the ice cream store, Hot Licks. Ice cream is expensive here. Headed to find a little lake to do some fishing for grayling and Northern Pike.