Day 4: Fairbanks to Denali Princess Lodge

Not much happening today. Woke up early to make sure we got some breakfast at the Springfield Gardens. Waited around for the shuttle bus at 12:00. Got to the airport and checked in with Princess Cruise. Waited around again till 3:00 and finally boarded the bus for Princess Lodge at the edge of Denali national park.

Trip was uneventful...aspens starting to a change color.    Big highlight of the trip was passing Skinny Dicks Halfway Inn which was half way between Fairbanks and Denali. Girls thought it was hilarious. Sadly, I was too slow with the camera to get a picture.

Stopped for a pee break at Nenana, population 402. SALUTE! Nenana is at the confluence of the Nenana and Tenana rivers.  

FACT: Nenana is the site of the first presidential visit to the Alaska whe Warren G Harding visited in 1923 to drive in the golden spike for the completion of the Trans Alaska railroad. At this very railroad station. 

FACT2: Nenana is the site from which in 1925 dogsled teams departed to run diphtheria serum up to Nome Alaska, an event which has since been celebrated by the Iditarod dogsled race from Anchorage to Nome.

FACT3: in 2012 Harry and Paul stopped to have a beer at the Moocher Bar and Grill.

The Moocher Bar and Grill has a ship's bell which is only rung when someone buys the entire bar a round. Since Harry and Paul were the only ones in the place, and Paul picked up the round, he got to ring the bell.

Nenana is a rough town.  How rough is it?  This guy parked his train here overnight and it got jacked.

 

We continued on over the windy bridge ( it was VERY wind which cause several of our fellow passengers to almost lose their lunch) we arrived at the Princess lodge. We had a few drinks at the bar before going to the Song of Denali dinner theater. The kids sang and acted their hearts out, but suffice it to say, you won't be seeing "Song of Denali" on Broadway anytime soon.

Tomorrow: Excursion to Denali Park and 4-wheeling

Day 3: Fairbanks

On: Insufferable grandparent mode

Happy 8 month Birthday Penny!

Off: Insufferable grandparent mode

 

Started the day with a walk around the city of Fairbanks.  The park across the street commemorates the point where the first settler put ashore after the riverboat he was traveling in got stuck on a sandbar in 1901.  Two gold prospectors in the area convinced him to stay and he opened up a trading post.  Hard to imagine that the second largest city in Alaska was founded by people who's grand kids still live here.  Fairbanks grew during the gold rush (Cripple Creek is just a few miles downstream), then died out and revived with the Trans Alaska railroad comming in, then died and boomed with the Military base at the beginning of WWII, and now thrives on the oil and gas industry.

This is the northern terminus of the northernmost railway in North America.  It really is the end of the line

We spent a good part of the morning roaming the streets, meeting the local characters, and popping in and out of souvenir stores.  I told Sue this was going to be a two week tour of Northern Gift Shops.   Some of the more attractive graffiti in town.

 The crew of 12 getting ready to head out on our first excursion.  One couple is going to join us a few days from now for a total of 14 on the cruise

 Our first outing was a Riverboat Cruise run by a family whose great grandfather started on riverboats in the early 1900s.  2 of his great grandsons were piloting the stern wheeler today.  Even though it was touristy, it was actually quite well done

The 12 of us aboard the Discovery III

 

The trip included a float plane demonstration. The Piper Cubs used by most of the bush pilots here ceased production in the mid 1980s. Many of them like this one are 1950s vintage or older

 

The trip also included a dogsled demo presented by the kennel started by Susan Baker who won the Iditarod 4 times total and 3 times in a row back in the 1980s

FACT: the difference between caribou and reindeer is that reindeer are domesticated. This is a reindeer.

The trip included a stop at a replica Native American fish camp.  Our tour guides were three 100% native American, 100% adorable and 100% American teenage girls.  This is Darcy in a traditional parka.  Oh, and Sue and Micky

Kevin getting his Moose on

 

We are continually surprised by all the flowers in bloom here.  They actually only get 12 inches of precipitation annually, which include just 5 feet of snow.  That makes this a semi-arid climate.  Butthe temperature often gets to -40 degrees Fareineight and occasionally reaches -70. 

  

Once again, a perfect ending to a great day with Dinner at the pump house.  The pump house building used to pump water from the Chena river up and over a local ridge to the gold mining camps along Cripple Creek.  And now it's a pretty good restaurant.

Tomorrow we join up with our tour.  Looking forward to it.  Thanks for tuning in!

Day 2: Seattle to Fairbanks

 The only bad thing about the trip is missing this^^^



But at least we get the occasional good morning text from her mom :)

 Today we started out with a tour of the Boeing plant.  It took us a while to actually find the Boeing plant.  We thought it was at Boeing Field in Seattle, but it was actually in Everett Washington, about a half a hour to the north.  We weren't allowed to take any photos on the tour, but we took an excellent tour of the assembly lines for the 747, 777 and 787.  The Boeing assembly building in Everett is supposedly the worlds largest building by volume.  FACT: a 747 has over 6 million parts AND 3 million fasteners.  We also saw the first 787 Dreamliner built for United about to roll off the assembly line.  A beautiful new plane and I can't wait to fly on one.  By the way, the base sticker price for a 747 is like $350M, without engines and interior.  But it does come with AC and cruise control, standard.  Engines are $20M a pop, times four.  A 787 is a relative bargain starting at $206M

 We drove back to Seattle and went to lunch at a the Seattle Tap House.  160 brews on tap!  too many to choose from, so I had a Big Sky Brewing Moose Drool brown ale.  Sue and Linda shared a sampler and Harry had a.....wait for it.....Kettle one.  Color me surprised.  Highlight of the meal was the appetizer: Bacon wrapped, cream cheese stuffed grilled jalapeno peppers.

 

 

 After lunch we wandered down to Pikes Market again.  Harry and I "hippied out" and took a nap on the grass

Flowers are still in full bloom out here

Original Starbucks at the Pike Market

 

Me and Sue in photo cutouts: I'm an ear of corn and Sue is a....uh...cactus with arms in a dress?  a little creepy.

Safeco Field and CenturyLink Field from the green by the market

Harry said I had to include a picture of the purple El Camino we passed on the way to the airport

And one of about 50 pictures I took of Mount Rainier on the way to the airport.  We hopped an 8:00 flight to Fairbanks and landed at 10:30 (that's 2:30 am on the east coast).  After fighting with my computer for a few hours, I finally produced this blog for your reading pleasure.  So, it's getting very late and I'm running out of sanity.  Big hi to Katelyn Greisser, mom says Thanks for reading the blog! 

Day 1: Seattle

What a great day today.  It was in the 70s and sunny, which I understand is not all that usual for Seattle. 

We drove in to the city today, which is about 15 minutes from our hotel.  We parked by the Space Needle and were in one of the first elevator up to the top.  When you're fresh off the east coast and your body is 3 hours ahead, it's easy to be first on line for a 10:00 opening.  The Space Needle was built for the 1962 Worlds Fair.  The view from the top is quite nice and we had some nice weather to see the sights.  On the horizon we just caught a glimpse of the huge Mt Rainier towering over the buildings.  The Space Needle is the iconic structure of Seattle.  you can buy almost anything with the Space Needle's famous profile on it, and we got a water bottle and pen.

 

After that we went to the Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit next door. Dale Chihuly is a renowned glass artist and he produces large chandeliers and outdoor installations. The indoor exhibits are stunning and the outdoor gardens are gorgeous. I took like 100 photos just of the glass today.

We decided to take the monorail (also built for the 62 Worlds Fair, first large scale monorail in the US) downtown to go to Pikes Market. We walked down to Pikes Market which was packed (oh yea, Saturday on Labor Day Weekend) and watched them throwing fish at the fish mongers.

Then we walked down to Pike Brewing Company and Pub. After lunch, we went on the "Underground Seattle Tour". It seems that before a big fire that burned most of Seattle in 1889, the downtown used to flood with backed up sewerage at high tide. So when they rebuilt the city, they decided to raise the street level by 15 feet. But the merchants were anxious to start rebuilding their buildings so they raised the street in between the new buildings then built new sidewalks over top the old sidewalks down at sea level. Underground Seattle is a tour of the old below-ground sidewalks and old building ground floors, which are now the basements. Fascinating.

 

We walked back along the waterfront and went to find a Sports Bar to watch the Rutgers Football game. Rutgers had a little trouble with Tulane, but in the end won comfortably (GO RU!)

At night, they light up the outside Chihuly Garden which gives another dimension to the georgeous glass garden.  We stopped by on our way back to the car for another look and photo op.  The pictures don't begin to do it justice.

Hope you enjoyed our photos.  I took 120 this first day.  At that rate I should have no problem matching the 2000 we took on our trip to Africa :)  I'll try to avoid giving you a play by play every day so as not to bore you.  Thanks for checking in!