I want to see a MOOSE!

My family came into town at the beginning of July (I know, we are way behind). They landed on my birthday and took us to Simon & Seaforts for dinner! While I finished up my work week, Rebekah took them around to Thunderbird Falls, Shopping on 4th Avenue, the Anchorage Museum, and Potter's Marsh to see the Arctic Terns (part of #86) my dad had read about.

We would spend the next 9 days traveling around the state doing everything from glacial trekking to halibut fishing.

Early Saturday morning we got up to drive the Richardson Highway north to Fairbanks. While the weather wasn't great (it was raining), it cleared up long enough for us to stop at the Matanuska Glacier.


For those that don't remember from a very early blog, it is the largest glacier accessible by car in the United States and Rebekah and I had visited it on one of our first trips around the state. The access is privately controlled, so you have to pay an entrance fee. But, you can actually hike out onto the glacier which is a very interesting experience.

Last time we had just walked a short way onto the glacier, but this time we were more adventurous (after hearing stories from friends) and hiked down to a cool glacial lake on top of the glacier itself.


The lake sat at the face of a cliff of ice around 100 feet tall.

When we left the glacier we continued driving the Richardson Highway viewing the Trans Alaska Pipeline along the way. However, the beautiful scenery, pipeline, and walking on a glacier apparently wasn't enough. Everyone kept saying that they wanted to see a moose, why wasn't there a moose, where are all the moose?

So, after looking and looking I finally found a moose drinking in a small pond just off the road. I thought this would end it there, but soon found out that this moose wasn't good enough as it didn't have a big enough rack (apparently my family has gotten shallow since I left).


Almost 12 hours after we left that morning we made it to North Pole, Alaska and the Santa Claus House. We looked around the gift shop and of course took a picture with Santa!

Next, we finished the final 10 miles to Fairbanks and immediately headed to our favorite restaurant this far north, the Silver Gulch.

The longest driving day of the trip was complete, so we headed to the Sophie Station Hotel for a restful night's sleep!


Steven

A Long Drive North

On Thursday we decided to take a trip to Fairbanks (#68 on the list). So, we booked our hotel and left early Saturday morning. The drive was long through the mountains, snow, fog, and clouds. After 6 hours we arrived and immediately headed towards the World Ice Art Championships (new item #99 on the list) since it was over 32 degrees and we were worried about the sculptures melting.


This is several international ice sculpting competitions, all displayed in one location. The sculptures were very intricate and detailed, and were quite amazing to view.

(Octopus - one of the gold medal winners)

Seeing that the sculptures were mostly intact and being told that they were even cooler at night when colored lights illuminate the sculptures, we decided to come back later that night.

(our hotel room)

We next headed over to the University of Alaska Museum of the North (new item #100 on the list).

They have great exhibits on Alaskan and Native history and artwork. It is broken down into several sections of Alaska with historical presentations on each region.

We were ready for dinner after the museum so we drove up to Fox (just north of Fairbanks) and on the way we stopped at the Pipeline Visitor Center (part of #71). This was the first we had seen of the Pipeline and it was very cool. We had read much about the pipeline (it can be seen from space, the oil has to be heated to move through the pipeline so they have to raise it above the frozen tundra so the land isn't damaged, and although animal experts were worried about the effect on Caribou the animals seem attracted to the warmth and the Caribou heard is growing) and enjoyed seeing it up close and personal.

The Silver Gulch restaurant was recommended to us and it went above and beyond what we had heard. They brew their own beer, the food and service was excellent, and it was a very interesting place to eat (even though it looked like a dive from the outside).

After dinner we drove back to Fairbanks and had some time to kill as the sun was setting so we walked around downtown. We encountered some Fairbanksians (some Native, some not - all in the process of getting drunk) who were quite friendly. One, who said his name was Peter Alaska, insisted that I take his picture and told us how he was from Dawson Creek, British Columbia (which you can see from the sign beside him is 1486 miles from Fairbanks). And you can see the Chena River which runs through downtown Fairbanks in the background.

Finally the sun set and we headed back over to the World Ice Art Championships and below are some of our favorites.

(Roman God and Archer)

(Drew Brees - New Orleans Saints)

(Ice Maze)

(Plant Cell)

(Goat)

(Dragon)

(Phoenix)

(Anaconda Eating an Alligator)

(Underwater Scene - Gold Medal Winner and My Personal Favorite)

(Ganesh, a Hindu Deity)

Exhausted and with another big day ahead of us we decided to go to the hotel and go to bed. However, in doing so we missed out on an amazing opportunity. We had talked to some people we know in Fairbanks who told us no one had seen the Northern Lights all winter and the Geophysical Institute has the Aurora Forecast as a 2 (on a scale of 0 through 9), so we didn't think the Northern Lights would be out. We found out the next day we were wrong, and now we have to try and see them another time.

Stay tuned for the rest of our trip to Fairbanks!


Steven