Friday, August 31, 2012
Cheri Aug-30-12
2:58 AM | 
Posted by
Sharp's Travels
First off an update on Jim, he has a kidney stone. He goes in again tomorrow and they will remove it. He should be able to travel by the time we leave this park.
Spike gave us the City tour this morning at 9:30am. He showed us all the places to shop, eat and get gas. He also gave us a tour of downtown.
We made a stop at the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline. The 800-mile pipeline crosses three mountain ranges, 800 streams or rivers and has carried a cargo of more than 16 billion gallons of oil since going into operation. About half of the 800-mile line is underground. It cost $8 billion to build. We got an up close look at the pipeline. We stood right under a section of it.
We all had lunch on our own and at 1:15pm we met at the park office and boarded a bus that took us to the Riverboat Discovery. The Discovery Sternwheelers are the only remaining authentic sternwheelers left in the state.
We cruised the Chena River and watched a bush pilot do a takeoff and landing in the water right next to our boat.
We stopped along the shore to watch Susan Butcher’s Iditarod Champion sled dogs in action. The dogs are so excited to get hooked up. They pulled the musher and 4-wheeler around a trail as we watched. When they got back, the dogs all jumped in the water to cool off.
We got off the boat at a Chena Indian Village and were given a guided tour through the village and told how the natives lived and hunted years ago. The old cabins were neat to look at and the beaded work done on the clothing was beautiful. All the flowers were so big and gorgeous.
The weather was beautiful; it was up in the 70’s today. The water was like glass. It was a slow easy ride down and back up the river. We couldn’t off ask for a prettier day.
We returned to the park at 5:30pm and were ready to head out again at 6:30pm. Spike took his staff to Pioneer Park for a “Thank You” dinner. There was a number of our group that also went along.
Pioneer Park is a free 44-acre historical park. It has a working restored steam locomotive, a collection of authentic gold rush cabins & buildings, lots of shops and the best Salmon Bake in Alaska. They have grilled salmon, cod and prime rib with all the fixings plus dessert. It was fabulous. We all ate too much and needed to walk it off. We strolled down by all the shops and Spike took us to one shop called Bush Babies. We all ended up buying diamond willow sticks that we intend to make into walking sticks. We’ll see how we all do on that!
It was after 8:30pm when we all got back to the campground. We’ve had a long, busy day, but a great one!
To see pictures of the day click on this link https://picasaweb.google.com/sharpstravels then click on album: Fairbanks day one.
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