Sue and Mo at Harris Beach

Sue and Mo at Harris Beach
Sue and Mo at Harris Beach

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Day 15 July 20 Playing in Fairbanks

We woke this morning to gorgeous sunny skies and warm temperatures. I had reserved our tickets for the Discovery the night before online.  One nice thing about the paved parking lot at Pioneer Park was free, fast WiFi! I uploaded lots of photos and caught up on previous blog posts with abandon, and for a minute was even ahead of the game.  Of course, that wouldn’t last for long and I am actually writing this final catch-up post from our rainy camp in Talkeetna.

Day 15 FairbanksOur plans for the morning were to drive the Chena Springs Road and then return to go as far north on the Steese Highway toward the Dalton Highway as we could manage and still make our 2PM boat cruise.  The drive was beautiful, and paid off with a leisurely visit with a young bull moose munching away at a river crossing.

We traveled as far as the Chena Hot Springs resort, checked it out a bit and then returned the same way to the Teese Highway. Along the way we stopped along the river Abby play time.

Once back on the Teese Highway, we marveled at the wonderful views from the ski area north of town and stopped for photos of the Alaska Pipeline.  Day 15 Fairbanks2

boats on a mountain againLater in the evening, after our boat ride on the Discovery (a separate post) we visited the Aurora Ice Museum in downtown Fairbanks for the digital wide screen photo symphony of the northern lights, produced by LeRoy Zimmerman.  Before the show we saw amazing ice sculptures lit by colorful lights and had a few moments to watch an ice sculptor in action.  It was definitely a bit of touristy action but the photos were beautiful and even though they were still images, the transitions gave the feeling of movement and the lights looked very much like what I have seen in the night skies above Edmonton, and even from my hot tub in Rocky Point.  The photos were presented accompanied by lovely classical music.  Try staying awake after a day like ours in a dark theater listening to Leibestraum!

The rest of the photos of our explorations around Fairbanks are linked here

CaptureMiles traveled in the MoHo today: 0

Miles traveled in the Tracker: 102

Road condition: Another great two lane paved highway with joints and an occasional frost heave

2 comments:

  1. Aren't you glad you have your very own "critter" with you to photograph. Cool pictures of the moose!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You finally found your moose. Great pics. Sometimes a little bit of touristy stuff is ok to do.

    ReplyDelete

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