We're Here!

Well, here we are in the last frontier. We've been in this great state 24 hours and have been busy.Just a quick update - The 5 1/2 hour flight went well. There were 2 movies and 2 snack times! All I needed was a little more leg space. Oh well. Flew over the Yukon Mts. which was different from any other topography I've seen. There were no signs of human habitation and rolling hills/mountains as far as the eye could see. The Fairbanks airport was a lot smaller than the Minneapolis/St.Paul airport and there were so many flowers planted everywhere, that you might have thought you were in Florida except for the lack of palm trees!Otherwise it really reminded us of Soudan, Minnesota. The vegetation was very similar as well as the whole feel of the place - more rustic and frontier-like! Almost like being home again...we'll see.

This morning started bright and early. There was no restaurant open so we went to the gift shop which sold Jimmy Dean sandwiches and had one for the road. Then on it was to Riverboat Adventures. This was a huge paddleboat which paddled down the Chena River. We watched a float plane take off and land right next to our boat. Got some really nice pictures. Next was the kennels of Ititarod champion Susan Butcher. She died a few years ago from leukemia but her husband still races dogs and lives there with their 2 small daughters. Other people run the kennels and they gave us a demonstration of the dogs training by pulling a 4-wheeler. The 3 puppies were awfullly cute too! and no, I did not want to bring one home. 8 dogs is enough by anyone's standard!  

  
Next we saw a meeting of two rivers, the Chena and the Tanana. This area is called "Wedding of the Rivers". There were many sandbars and we had to turn around so we wouldn't get stuck. Supposedly the sandbars and the path of the rivers change all the time - sometimes week to week. From there we went (back) to a recreation of an ancient Athabascan Indian culture. This village had some original buildings and there were tour guides who told us all about this culture.

  
There are salmon who come up the Chena river to spawn so we saw equipment Indians used to trap the fish as well as watching a demonstration of cutting and drying the salmon. Oh yes, and we got to taste some on the boat! never mind that the company was trying to sell their canned salmon (which of course, I bought!)

                                              


      That all happened just in the morning! In the afternoon, the same Riverboat Adventures had a tour of the El Dorado gold mine. First we had to take a shuttle (an old school bus). Along the way we passed the Alaskan Pipe Line. Of course I took pics! Once we got to the parking lot, we took an old train to the mine, passing recreated cabins and mining equipment...and once going through a tunnel that showed the permafrost. At the 'mine' there were more demonstrations and then we all got to pan for gold. Jacky found 3 1/2 grams gold in his which was worth about $14. I got  7 grams in mine, so $28! No big celebrations but mine was one of the upper amounts found on our bus. Still, a very time consuming way to make money (ok, what way isn't time consuming?).
That was all for the Riverboat Adventures. I must say we truely enjoyed the day. We had fantastic narraters both times which educated AND entertained! After we got back, we walked to Geraldos - an Italian restaurant. There wasn't a restaurant open at the resort the whole time we were there. Kindof crazy, even though our rooms included full kitchens. We didn't have a car so there was no way to get groceries either! Anyway, the pizza hit the spot. Tomorrow we leave at 7:00 for the train to Denali. Can't wait! I hope I brought  enough batteries for my camera, already changed them twice today!