Fairbanks trip

This week we got a vacation from the volunteer vacation and headed north to Fairbanks for orientation. Sightseeing began right in Delta Junction with a visit to nearby Clearwater, another state park campground about 10 miles outside town that is next to the Clearwater River. This is a remarkably clear river that would be great fun to kayak or canoe down to the Delta River. I’ll be checking into that possibility.

Next stop, also close to town, was Rika’s Roadhouse. Rika was a single woman in the early 1900s who ran the roadhouse, cultivated hay and potatoes and raised chickens and ducks for eggs for patrons as well as being postmistress for Big Delta.

Continuing north we visited Quartz, Harding, Birch and Salcha Lakes, the other State Parks in this district. All these obviously have lakes with boating and fishing, many more campsites than we do and … more mosquitoes than we have! Confirmation that we have the best volunteer site of all.

Once in Fairbanks we headed to Pioneer Park which is a must for any Alaska travelers. This free park is where Fairbanks history has been transported and the interpretation is wonderful. One of the first things you see is the SS Nehana, a 237-ft paddlewheel boat that was in service from 1933-1954. It went on the Yukon River from the Interior to Nome hauling passengers, the US mail and freight. Inside there is a marvelous miniature representation of the villages that the boat visited along the way. The detail went right down to salmon drying on racks; pictures do not do it justice. Here we also saw several old original and replica log cabins of the early 1900s and went through the air museum which was packed with planes from vintage to home builts.

To finish the day we found the best dinner deal in the state of Alaska I’m sure. A Mexican place has all you can eat beef and pork, tortillas, beans and rice for $5 every 5th of the month and yes, this was the 5th of June so we had our fill of very good food!