Alaska Trip - Day 10

We spent most of the day in or around Fairbanks. Last night, we met a lot of cool people at the hostel as we watched “District 9” out in the living room. Our roommate was from Germany.

This morning we went to church downtown. Afterward, I went down to the soup kitchen to go to the restroom, and accidentally walked in on two guys exchanging something very suspicious. We then explored downtown Fairbanks for a bit. It has some neat little areas.

After a trip to Wal-mart to buy some cheap souvenirs and breakfast, we decided to check out Pioneer Park. It was almost like an amusement park, but it was mostly free. There were all kinds of cool museums with old railroad and mining collections. One area had a room where you could experience what it felt like at -40 degrees, which is a temperature that is reached at least once every winter here in Fairbanks. We decided that experiencing -20 degrees in Nebraska was close enough.

We then took a little side trip up to the White Mountains, just northeast of Fairbanks. We reached all the way to Twelve Mile Peak, which was far north as we will get on this trip, about 134 miles south of the Arctic Circle. It was cold up there.

Then, it was back to Fairbanks to get some Great Alaskan Pizza. It’s basically Domino’s.
After dinner, we said goodbye to Fairbanks and headed toward Delta Junction, but first stopped by the North Pole to visit Santa Claus. I wonder if the kids that live in North Pole, Alaska, believe in Santa Claus or not. Santa’s house was pretty rad.

I did get some good pictures of the Alaska Range near Delta Junction, but, as it has been doing ever since we arrived in Alaska, it was raining off and on during the drive.

Tonight we are camping by some random river along the Alaskan Highway (don’t worry, I saved the GPS coordinates) about 75 miles west of Tok. It’s actually on a dry portion of the river bed, and it is beautiful here. This is definitely a place I will not forget.

I just hope we do not get attacked by a bear tonight.