Leaving Alaska

9/2/10
I'm sure some of you have wondered about the end of our last post. Well, we have tried 3 times to upload a short video of sled dogs pulling a water skier on the Chena River in Fairbanks. The upload doesn't look like it is going to happen. Maybe when we get into the lower 48 we can do it.
Today we head into Canada, so our internet will be limited. This means that we will not post as often. Going down the Cassiar Hwy toward Vancouver as we have never been there.

Refrigerator woes :(

9/1/10

Birch Lake in Autumn
Richardson Highway between Fairbanks and Delta Junction

Wow, the first of September! Well, the refrigerator news is not good....it's toast. We drove to Fairbanks Monday and found Alaska RV Repair. They were quite busy and told us with the preliminary work Bosco had done that the only simple fix was that the circut board. They gave us a new one and Bosco installed it and their mechanic inspected his work and all was right except it didn't work. They even told us to wait over night as often it can take up to 8 hours to kick in. It didn't. Our choices then were limited; replace the coil, replace the refrigerator or use ice chests. Shop rates in Alaska $100/ an hour; replacing the coil a 4 hour job, the coil costing about $1000 mostly because of the shipping. So we headed to Fred Meyer and bought a plastic tub that will fit on the shelf in our refrigerator and made it a cool box for salad dressings, ketchup and the like and a ice chest for the items that must be kept really cold. Thank heaven for the freezer. So we spent another night in Fairbanks, made our purchases and came back to Delta Junction for the night and we're headed to Tok today.

As we set up camp in Fairbanks, same site as before right next to the river, we saw Alaskans enteraining themselves as only they can do!

Fall is here!

8/28/10

Glacier made lakes, Denali Hwy

Rainy day today. Bosco checked the weather forecast for the area and it looks like rain for the next 5 days. Again?! We were just getting dried out and thinking life is good without all that rain. Did a little shopping earlier today and then we took a drive that one of the fellows Bosco met suggested. Drove the Richardson Highway to Paxton and then the Denali Highway almost to Tangle Lakes. What beautiful country!

Summer flowers and Fall foliage!

Kept our eyes peeled for wildlife but didn't seen any. Ate a late lunch at Paxton Lodge, Restaurant and Saloon--population 9. Round trip total mileage 188 miles, and got 27 miles to the gallon. The downside news is that our refrigerator in the trailer is not working. When we packed up this am there was standing water in the freezer.
We cleaned it up and fiddled with it changing it from auto back to gas as it had worked well at Quartz Lake. Don't really know who we can get to look into it out here in the middle of nowhere.

Fall in Alaska-- Follow the yellow lined road!

Quartz Lake

8/27/10

Quartz Lake

Quartz Lake is a small lake somewhere south of Harding Lake and a mite north of Delta Junction, AK. We stayed there for 4 nights. This is a State of Alaska campground with no hookups of any kind, so we had to run the generator periodically to keep the freezer cold and the trailer warm. The price was right though at $10 a night. The temp during the day 50's and 60's and down to the high 40's at night. The weather was wonderful; a scatter of rain some nights and the last day but sunshine a lot.

Bosco on the Quartz Lake hike

Lunch break on the Quartz Lake hike

We hiked the trails; making a 3 1/2 mile loop one day, along the lake, up a hill and along side Little Lost Lake and Lost Lake campground and back to Quartz Lake campground. We took the big dog but not Maggie, her long hike days are done.

We got to fish! Quartz lake has landlocked Silver salmon. The first day that we fished we didn't keep any. We really didn't have the hang of it but the second day we did, winding up with 9 Silvers. A very kind lady gave us bait to use and it was terrific. The little Sea Eagle boat worked well except in the wind and it is so light the wind took us for a ride, drifting us off our fishing hole. As we didn't bring an anchor with us, Bosco improvised by using the stinger off the truck and it worked superbly.

Bosco's fishing buddy!!!!
Who is this woman??????

Leaving Fairbanks

8/21/10
Left Fairbanks, sad to leave our site at River's Edge, headed sort of south, to the grand town of North Pole, AK. We stopped a bit to say hi to the old guy and get some bells and then headed down the road to Harding Lake State Recreation Area. We're in campsite 74, although we have no hookups, we are nestled in the woods and it is quiet and peaceful here.  We are staying 2 nights and then down the road a piece to find a fishing lake.

Here we are at Santa's House in North Pole, AK

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.

Fairbanks; the golden heart of Alaska!

8/18/10

Plaza at old visitor center

Biked to the Fairbanks Visitors Center

We're in sunny Fairbanks, although yesterday was overcast and a walloping rainstorm started as we were getting ready to go square dancing. It's overcast and drizzling today. BUT we had 4 glorious days of sun shine. They set a record high for one of those days hitting 91*. We've been biking; trips of 10, 6 and 4.5 miles, went to a Vaudeville show at Pioneer Park, danced with the Santa Squares (mainstream), and the Prospector Squares (plus), rode the Riverboat Discovery III up the Chena river to the confluence with the Tanana River.

Palace theater, Pioneer Park

The talented crew at the Palace

• Bush pilot landing on Chena River

Hanna modeling traditional Athabascan
winter parka with sunshine hood

Athabaskcan cabin, traditional dress

Chena Village stop Riverboat Trip