One of the best things about being in Alaska is, well, Being in Alaska! That’s why this entry is titled the way it is. I’ve just been fartin around, and loving it! Some examples:
On the way back to Fairbanks from Cheena, I stopped at Gold Dredge 8. It’s a tourist attraction, but a fun and interesting one. Gold dredges were used extensively to collect and process placer gold deposits, and were pretty high tech for their day.
A little railroad takes you out to the dredge, which is sitting right where it was when it shut down back in the 50s, after processing uncounted tons of gravel and sluicing the gold out.
You can go right inside and snoop around, which I did, of course. Man, this place needs a good dusting! Check out the control room with it’s daunting array of operating levers! definitely pre-OSHA.
As part of your visit, everyone gets a little bag of dirt, and you have a chance to pan for gold. It’s harder than it looks, but after a lot of sloshing, it looks like I struck it semi-rich! I now have a little container of gold bits worth maybe $10. Not enough to buy a cabin and move up here, but what the Hell, it was fun!
The rest of the place is standard tourist fare: t-shirts, souvenirs, jewelry, etc. However, the place is very well executed, fun, and worth a visit. Everybody comes out and waves as the train departs, See y’all!
Right nearby, you can get up close to the Alaska oil pipeline. Built in the 70s by a private company, it’s still pushing oil out to Valdez. It has withstood fires, earthquakes, and wildly fluctuating oil prices. The display is complete with some of the “pigs” that they send through the pipe to clean and inspect it. As I said before, the whole thing is an engineering masterpiece!
Just down the road, you can visit Santa at the North Pole! North Pole, Alaska, that is. The Santa Clause house is a must see, and overwhelms you with Christmas in July. Every detail is there, Christmas cookies, Hot Chocolate, fudge, and a real Santa for the kiddies.
And a billion Christmas decorations!
Some of which puzzle poor olde me…. I guess the Halloween stuff is sort of a Nightmare Before Christmas tribute, but I just can’t internally resolve the deep religious questions posed by this sculpture of Santa and baby Jesus. <smile> Love the kids letters to Santa, tho!
Whew! OK, I need something non-Christmassy to reset my brain. How about Chinese? Dozens of people have told me about this great Chinese restaurant in North Pole, and they were all right on the money. The place is called “Pagoda”, it’s right next to the Safeway in town, and you simply must eat there! Outstanding, authentic, and my dinner was enough to make 3 large meals out of it! Yum!
*Burp* OK, now what? It’s pushing 90 degrees in Fairbanks, too hot for me, so I roll South, hoping to find someplace cooler. Yes, it does get hot in Alaska, in selected areas. Looks like a cooling shower is up ahead. I find a nice spot to park, next to a river, and put my feet up. Ahhh this is the life. It’s not like you have to be busy doing things every day. Sometimes, the best bits are the ones where you can just sit and watch the world go by.
Did you sit on Santa's lap like I did?
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