Masters of RVing Adventures

A beautifully restored 1936 canary yellow Packard

We are still using Fairbanks as our home base for the next few days. I had promised Mark that if he went with me to the Large Animal Research Station associated with University of Alaska to see reindeer and musk ox, then I would go with him to another car museum. On this particular day of sightseeing, after working most of the morning, we set out for these two things to do. Since the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum was closer, we decided to do this stop first.

I am usually not that enthusiastic about antique car museums. I like looking at the shiny chrome and elongated body styles of the 30’s era automobiles and love a great collection of 60’s – 70’s era Muscle Cars. Anything much earlier, while I appreciate the ingenuity and experimentation of the forerunners to the modern automobile, they don’t excite me that much … I have a ‘horseless carriage is a horseless carriage’ kind of mentality. And this outing was going to be the fourth or fifth auto museum we were getting ready to tour on our wonderful RVing adventure. I was just so excited…NOT!

Was I blown away! The first thing I noticed was the ladies’ collection of vintage clothing, complete with shoes, purses, hats, accessories, even undergarments! Whomever came up with the idea to showcase the fashions that accompanied the time period of the particular automobile had incredible marketing foresight. Several men’s and women’s clothing styles were displayed at each beautifully restored car, making me appreciate the car even more. I could just imagine the couple going for an open-air ride to a picnic spot or elegantly dressed for an evening ride to another couple’s richly appointed home for a dinner party.

While Mark could tell you what an incredible collection this was and everything about why this car or that one made the cut to be in the museum, I still wouldn’t be able to tell you if it was a Packard or a Duesenberg or a Model T; but I have to say it was the most enjoyable auto museum I’ve ever been to (and it didn’t smell musty or old or like grease and motor oil)! They also had a section about the first cars in Alaska, which I thought was a great nod to where the museum is located. In each roped off section, they had plaques informing the history of the car or tidbits of information about the manufacturer or even a short story associated with the car.

Needless to say, we never made it to my selected outing of visiting the reindeer and musk ox; but I had such a good time at the ‘threads & treads’ museum, Mark promised we would go another day.

Chena Hot Springs

After our jarring ride to / from the Arctic Circle, we all decided we needed another soak in the warm waters of a hot spring to soothe aching muscles. Mark even made us appointments to have massages! The massage rooms were individual log-framed huts, very warm and cozy. I chose the hot stone massage, while Mark went for the 90-minute deep tissue massage. Then we spent another hour soaking in the warm spring stone pool. The accommodations were quite a bit nicer than the Liard Hot Springs. The owners have developed a resort around the hot springs and offer a number of winter activities. Summer is their slow season, but they stay booked in the winter months.

They also have an Aurora Ice Museum they’ve created that includes a bar, wedding chapel, and four rooms that can be booked for $600 per night! (No thank you!) The temperature inside the Ice Museum is 25^o F!! Of course, they have pre-chilled coats they give you to wear! The front part of the museum contains two workshop rooms where the award-winning ice carvers create amazing ice sculptures. We had to have their signature martini out of an ice glass! We stayed for about 45 minutes on our tour and my toes were frozen!

Afterwards we had a scrumptious meal in the resort hotel dining room and found four barstool covers made from reindeer hides that we bought for Mark’s Speak Easy. We even spotted a moose (cow) that was grazing along the roadside in a marshy area on our way home. Great ending to a fun day!

Denali National Park

Our day in the park began with a 2.5-hour drive in drizzling rain. It was quite chilly at 43^o F (39^o with wind chill) and overcast. Needless to say, we didn’t have great views of Mt. McKinley. Nevertheless, I eagerly anticipated our first stop at the Ranger-guided tour of the Denali National Park Sled Dog Kennels and Canine Ranger teams. Denali boasts to be the only National Park that patrols with dog sled teams instead of snow mobiles or other snow vehicles, especially in the extreme winter. I also didn’t realize it is the only NP to be established to preserve wildlife, specifically to protect Dall sheep. Alas, they were not willing to show themselves for our visit. From its very beginning as a National Park, visitor vehicular traffic is limited to the first 15 miles into the park. After that, you must book one of three bus tours, all of which are a minimum of 4.5 to 5 hours in length. Mark and I were very sorry to not have enough time to experience a bus tour, but our group had made dinner reservations at Alaska Cabin Nite Dinner Theater in the Miners Plaza at Denali Park Village. We may have one more opportunity to visit the park before heading home. I’m including photos, which do a poor job of showing how beautiful and tranquil the park was on the day we visited.

The cabin on the last row, far left is one of the cabins the sled teams use during the winter for overnight stays while out on patrols. The bottom row center photo is the Savage River view at the end of the 15-mile turn around point. The far-right bottom photo contains a cloud-covered view of Mt. McKinley in the far distance.

Berry Pie and Fannie Quigley

I didn’t want to leave out the few pictures of our group eating way too much as we watched the show based hilariously and musically on the true-to-life Gold Rush tale of adventures by Fannie Quigley and her friends in early 1900s Alaska. The Denali Visitors Center had a section dedicated to her, so I took a picture of her Blueberry pie recipe, which the staff at the dinner theater promised was authentic! [Note the need to kill a bear in order to cook a pie.]

The cast of the show and our family-style dinner seating.

Dredging for Gold

On the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, Gold Dredge 8, is a two-hour tour filled with the history of gold mining by the FE Company (Fairbanks Exploration Company) and the economic and environmental impact it had in the Fairbanks area.

We board a replica railcar of the Tatana Valley railroad that brought many prospective miners to the valley and take a short train ride to the base mining camp to pan for gold. Along the way, our guides hop on and off the train to give demonstrations of some of the old mining equipment.

The tour also consists of a fairly descriptive overview of the Trans Alaska pipeline.

And so, our time ends in Fairbanks. We’ve stayed long enough to see just about everything we wanted to tour, visit, and sightsee. Alas, we never did get to visit the musk ox at the Large Animal Research Station. (Mark doesn’t know we have another option to see musk ox when we get to Palmer. Hee! Hee!) Tomorrow, we turn south and travel to Trapper Creek for three nights and then down to Anchorage.