June 26, 2018

New Up North Record

This is our last day to be heading north. We don’t have far to go to reach our destination of Fairbanks so spend some time looking at the mountains and depleting the coffee supply of our B&B.  Breakfast is an egg stuffed pastry with a couple slices of bacon, again prepared well in advance.  Our little server’s patter is to announce the breakfast and you either want it or you don’t.  Some of the other guests are hanging out and chatting but zero interaction with owners/hosts.  We have not seen anyone who might be in authority since Bubbly Dawn at check-in.  Some people have the hospitality gene and others own a B&B in Healy.  We always say you don’t have a B&B experience if you aren’t hugging at departure.  We pack and leave with no check-out and no hug.

It is about a 2-hour drive to Fairbanks.  As we go north we are moving away from the Alaska Range and work our way down through foothills until we reach a fairly level treed plain.  It reminds Mary of the drive between Brainerd and Walker back home without the lakes. About an hour in the road starts to rise and we find ourselves riding a ridge among deep wide valleys in both directions.  The mountains are still in the background and we have some nice views from the side of the road.

Fairbanks is the second largest city in Alaska with a population of 32,500.  The last 500 is important because Juneau (the capital) is 32,200.  We ran into some folks in Anchorage who recommended the “Cookie Jar” restaurant which is our destination for lunch.  This is our second day in Alaska since arriving 2 weeks ago that the temp has reached 70-degrees.  This time of year, as you go north into the interior the temperature goes up.  The sun is shining, and we get a nice table on the patio.  Mary has a great chicken salad sandwich on home baked bread and John gets a Prime Rib Cheese Steak sandwich in which chunks of prime rib are tossed with bacon and three types of cheese, all melted together.  It isn’t a Philly but it is very good.  The service is outstanding which is a rare treat for us.

After lunch we take a drive further north to Fox for a pipeline viewing.  This is of course the Alaskan Pipeline that runs 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay in the north to Valdez in the south.  It is capable of moving millions of gallons of crude oil a day and is kept moving by 8 huge pumping stations.  It runs above ground in some places and below ground in others depending on soil conditions, animal migration routes and permafrost considerations.  Quite the engineering feat.

Just to say we did, we drive another ten miles north on the Dalton Highway, the rough ice road we all see on TV moving people and supplies to the oil fields 400 miles further north.  It is paved here so it isn’t much of an adventure, but we wanted to have bragging rights (who will care?) and we wanted to reach the 65th parallel north.  This is our northern record and 47-degrees south (Slope Point, New Zealand) is our southern record, neither of which will ever be broken by us.

We return to the Visitor Center in downtown Fairbanks.  It is a joint venture by the state and city tourism people and is very well done.  We surprisingly spend an hour wandering among the displays of the history of the native Athabascan people.  We have been constantly fed this type of info since the day we landed and through repetition it is slowly being beaten into our brains.  We have a deeper understanding of the history of this part of the world.  It is after 4:00 which means we have earned the right to check into our Best Western Hotel and take a nap.

After our big lunches we opt for bar food tonight and Yelp tells us that the Oasis has the best pub food and is 5 minutes away from our hotel. The high tables are full so we grab a couple seats at the bar where we are soon joined by Cheyenne, Brian, Luke and bartender Aron.  We share stories, drinks and food for a couple hours and we know everything there is to know about Fairbanks, Alaska, the Army Band, jewelry, secret defense installations and European trips.  In fact we are now within one degree of separation from knowing everyone in Fairbanks according to all of our new friends who feel, between the four of them, they know everyone.  Mary has a turkey melt and John has ribs but the real nourishment is our fun conversation.

It is pushing 10:00 when we get back to the hotel and ready for bed.  There are thunderstorms roaming around the area and it feels more like a midwestern summer to us.  Oh, except the sun is still high in the sky.

Todays new bit of knowledge:  We now know almost everyone in Fairbanks.