THURSDAY, SEPT 5

THURSDAY, SEPT 5:

     Our last morning here on the outskirts of Fairbanks.  Last morning to hear the plaintive whistle of the train a ways away. 

     Foggy this morning – can hardly see the river across from us.  Too bad we didn’t have better weather while we were here – it would have been a perfect place to launch the kayaks and paddle the river for a while.  

 

 

     People sneer at Fairbanks, and say there’s nothing to do or see there.  We don’t feel that way at all.  Found lots of things that we enjoyed doing.  And while nothing spectacular, to be sure, we easily filled a relaxing week here, and could have seen more if we’d wanted to stay longer.  But home beckons!  And we’re meeting our friends Loretta & Steve at Banff/Jasper in mid-Sept.    

     Just a few miles out of Fairbanks is the town of North Pole.  Honestly.  It was founded in the 1930’s & 40’s when a new wave of enterprising homesteaders found Fairbanks too crowded and didn’t mind living in this low-lying basin where the severe winter temperatures warranted the nickname.  And it stuck & became official.  Today, the residents get as much mileage as they can from the name.

 

 

 

(The tiny Post Office here does receive hundreds of thousands of letters addressed to Santa every December.)

 

 

       We intentionally took the long way from Fairbanks to Tok.  Instead of taking the direct highway from Delta Junction to Tok (about 110 miles), we drove south on the Richardson Hwy to the junction of the Glenn Hwy (or Tok Cutoff), and from there to Tok.   This added about 150 miles, but  both of these roads were designated as scenic, so that’s what drove our choice.  It was so worth it!! The drive was simply gorgeous almost all of the way.  Even with partly cloudy skies, we had mountain views most of the time – first of the Alaskan Range surrounding us, and then of the Wrangell Range south & east of us.  We’re guessing that at least some of the snow on the peaks we saw is freshly fallen.  Lucky us!! 

 

 

 

But on others, where it’s so massive, most likely has been accumulating season after season without melting. 

 

.  Had some good roadside views of the pipeline.

 

 

      And the fall colors were just stunning.  Not only the hillsides with their golden aspens & birches and other low-lying flora, but the tundra itself - we never imagined that the tundra could be so beautiful.  How many times can you say, “Wow!” around every curve.   It was really just a spectacularly beautiful drive.  Such a lavish farewell from our 49^th. 

 

 

                                                                     

 

   The last snow-capped mountains we saw were those in the Wrangells in the western side of  Wrangell-St. Elias Nat’l Park.  How fitting, since we came to love that Park that we’d never even heard of a year ago.

 Got into Tok about 7:00, and went to the same exceptionally nice RV park we stayed at about  6 or 7 weeks ago.  Had some simple leftovers for dinner.  Bill was very tired and crashed soon after dinner.