Assembling our gear in Fairbanks and test-riding our bikes …
Today was our day in Fairbanks. Since our luggage was delivered on time and we had no problems assembling the bicycles we could spend the entire day sightseeing.
Having our bicycles is soooooo cool. First of all today was sunny and warm. Fairbanks is surprisingly bicycle friendly. They have many miles of well signed bike routes that combine a lot of separated paved bike paths, wide shoulders and sidewalks. The only bummer here is that the pavement is in bad shape probably because of the temperature extremes. Fairbanks is also pretty flat.
We started at the train depot to check on any details regarding taking our bicycles on the train. They want us there 45 minutes early so it's good that we asked. The model railroad guys were there working on their big model railroad (N gauge for any model rail road buffs). They are recreating the Alaska Railroad. One of the guys was from Cal Tech in the 50's as a computer software engineer so Wendell really wanted to talk to him for a long time but I was starving. He'll probably have some to add, he's mad at me for making him leave.
We rode over to historic downtown Fairbanks to a diner and had a noon breakfast.
Wendell made a stop by the Fairbanks Gun Shop.
Fairbanks looks a lot like Sedro Wooley, only with very loud prop planes flying overhead. The prop planes here are like their version of Harleys, they are loud.
We visited the tourist information office and Hobbit sent a bunch of emails out.
A quick stop by Wendell Ave in Fairbank.
Then we rode to Pioneer Park, or as it's formerly known as; Alaskaland. It's been called the Disneyland of Alaska but I'm pretty sure that whoever calls it that hasn't been to Disneyland. The only *rides* it has are a narrow gage railroad and a carousel. It more of a glorified park and if you think of it that way it is pretty cool. You know, picnic areas, canoe rentals, putt-putt. Wendell did point out that it is a bit of living history because it is what 'amusement parks' in the 40'2 were like. Then Disney came along and built Disneyland and changed all of that.
The train car that President Harding used when he visited Alaska.
I wanted to go to the Large Animal research Station for their 3.30 tour so we headed out on our bicycles. It wasn't that far but it was up probably the only hill in Fairbanks, so we were a little late. I didn’t realize it before but Musk ox are pretty small, about the size of a small cow. They are also really cute. Though they are not domesticated, the cows (females) are fairly manageable as long as they don’t have a calf with them. You groom them once a year to get the under fur which is softer than alpaca and warmer than wool. During our tour the tour guide kept asking if anybody had any questions. I had to sit on my hands to keep from boring the rest of the tour participants, but once the tour was over I started in with the questions. This poor kid got hit with more obscure questions he had no idea the answers to than he ever has. Questions like: can you house them with domesticated animals like goats and sheep? Do you have to trim their hooves? What is the fiber diameter? Are they more susceptible to modern livestock diseases? Guess where I was going with these questions? Yep, that’s right. I want a musk ox. The research station occasionally sells musk ox to people that are seriously able to take care of them. Since we already have 'exotic herd animals' we fall into that category. They are 3,000.00. Did I mention that they are really cute? Did Wendell send out an email about when the cops came to our house because the llama, alpaca, sheep and goat had been busting out of their pasture, going up to the UPD on the hill with it's million dollar homes and manicured lawns and eating? Can you imagine what they'd do if there was a musk ox included in that herd? After the Large animal research station we went to grab food and head back to the hotel. In our absence the hotel has been overrun by Cruisetour-people suitcases. I don't see the people, just the suitcases. There's a lot of suitcases. On the cruise chat board I read a discussion about how many bags people take with them on cruises. It's pretty normal for most people to have 2 large and 1 small suitcase for a 7 day cruise. Some people are in bag counts of 12 suitcases for 2 people on a 7 day cruise. The carts of suitcases just kept coming in, one after the other, after the other. The hotel is awash in suitcases. All day we have been hearing that the bears are particularly aggressive this year. Tomorrow we are taking the train to Denali to camp and cycle the park. Wendell brought us bear spray to carry on our handlebars, one each to use in emergency. Here's hoping we have no bad encounters with bears. If you don't hear from us in a while, you know there might be problems.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next