Friday 5-16-2014
Healy – Fairbanks
A bit overcast. A breakfast at motel's restaurant – not great but
not bad either. Gasoline – almost 4 dollars. Drive to Fairbanks.
Sun was out on and off. Vast landscape with birch and pine woods.
Again, we could see signs of spring. Road construction. Moose seen
along the road. Healy had bunch of motels and places to stay. Buses
of different cruise companies. Advertisements for shuttle services.
Tourists. Not the nicest picture. Several stops along the way but
that was pretty much all. Small town of Nenana http://www.nenana.org/
that is famous for its yearly guessing competition about the ice
break date (money involved). River. Some sad buildings. Road.
Railroad. Cultural center (sad one) with two cruise buses. I do not
know … One of the guys in the center said that Fairbanks is really
ugly. It was hard to imagine what he sees as ugly as we looked around
at sad surroundings of the cultural center. More driving and then
Fairbanks. Sprawl. University campus. Airport way (one of the main
roads) with stores, motels, and other stuff – not nice but
completely ugly. The visitor center – not very helpful – great
display of history, Native people, and life. Waterfowl refuge next to
the busy road. Maybe 30 birds on mostly gray field. It used to be
farm. Parked. Walked the trail that actually went into the wetlands
and was really lovely. There were no animals but it was so peaceful
and pretty. Very enjoyable. Close by was antique car museum –
within strange resort complex – closed. Their summer season was
starting on Sunday. Small walk in downtown – antique store –
otherwise few stores and restaurants. Empty and sad. On the way to
the motel we stopped by Pioneer Park which is some type of Alaska
themed historical amusement park. Big part of the park was under
construction. Big wooden statue of salmon. Historical homes and
cabins (real ones, actually moved here from different sites). Nothing
else really. Motel. Quite sad area. We went to Fred Meyer store
(really close) and were extremely surprise because the store was
packed. It was hard to imagine from where so many people came.
Strange.
Saturday 5-17-2014
Fairbanks
Slow morning. Really overcast. J. did not sleep well. Coffee.
Breakfast. Short drive to University of Alaska campus. Museum of
North in relatively large and new building overlooking the town and
whole valley. We were among the first visitors as they open. Large
collection of paintings. Extremely large collection of Alaskan
artifacts. More sad stories about Native people – their
mistreatment etc. Second story had contemporary art exhibit – also
quite interesting. That was really good visit. We crossed the town on
the way to the Chena State park. One way road ending with Chena hot
springs. J. did not hear great things about it so we were not
planning to visit it. On the way we made small detour to see a
pipeline but it was not really good view either (even they advertise
it as one of the “must see”). Almost 50 miles drive. 20 miles had
houses around the road. The rest was nice nature with the river
running along the road. Angel Rock hike – 4.5 miles, go up to the
rocks with impressive views and then down. It was really nice and
surprisingly there was quite a few people. It took longer than we
thought. Slow drive back. Close to Fairbanks we got about 5 minutes
of really heavy rain. Yesterday, in the Pioneer Park we saw “Salmon
Bake” restaurant (all you can eat in season for 31 dollars, J. saw
poster there that it was special for 17). Parked, checked it – it
was their opening week and the special was a single serving with
buffet of sides, salads, and desert. Why not? It was quite large and
quite good meal. End of the day.
