Fun in Fairbanks!

This is my third time trying to get to Fairbanks, Alaska for a 48 hour layover...and I made it!!! One of the wonderful perks of this job.

We arrived last night at around 9:30PM, but you wouldn't have known it - it was still light out...kind of an early dusk feeling. One of the other flight attendants called ahead to make sure that we were assigned to the cabins at the hotel - they're right near the Chena River. The cabins are so cute!!

Here's a link to my photo album on Facebook - I tried downloading the pictures to this blog, but let's just say that it was a pain in the neck...! https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2342076914086.137627.1314851818&l=119af651e0&type=1.

The captain and first officer brought fishing poles and they've disappeared off the face of the earth. So the flight attendants decided to go out and have fun sightseeing. So this morning we met up after breakfast and started looking for a rental car. What we didn't know is that the Army is holding some sort of exercise this week, and all the small, medium and large cars are all gone...for every rental company. There were some SUVs available as well as some pick-up trucks. We decided on an SUV - we felt it was overkill, but it was either that or sit at the hotel all day.

We started out heading to the North Pole, Alaska. It was really cute. All the stores, restaurants, etc. had candy cane striped poles holding their signs. The street lights were candy canes. The nearby Church was St. Nicholas Catholic Church. We stopped at the Santa Claus House to see what we could spend our hard earned money on, and I'm proud to say that I spent nothing. Yay! I saw a couple ornaments that I liked, but they weren't exactly what I wanted. So we took a few pictures, visited with Santa's reindeer behind the store, and headed on down the road. We were disappointed that Santa wasn't there yet - we had an hour to wait. So we moved on.

Our next stop was at a couple overlooks along the Tanana River on the way to Delta Junction. The scenery was just gorgeous. It was overcast and a bit drizzly, but we still managed to get a few great photos. We were looking for animals along the way, but all we saw was a German Shepherd!

We finally arrived at the Visitor's Center at Delta Junction. There were lots of cool displays, as well as lots of cute gifts. But again I resisted. I found the state bird of Alaska outside of the Visitor's Center - in fact, there were two of them.

It was time for lunch, so we headed back towards Fairbanks and stopped at Rika's Roadhouse in the Big Delta State Historical Park. Rika was a strong woman back in the early days and had a roadhouse that served the men who worked on the Alaska State Highway and worked on the communication systems for the military during WWII. Most of the original buildings are still there, and are now filled with antiques for our enjoyment. There is an operating restaurant that we stopped at, and I had the most incredible crab/corn chowder bisque and strawberry rhubarb pie! Delicious!

Afterwards, we drove down the road a little ways and watched as some men were working on the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline. They were tethered to the pipeline (over the river), and were adding pieces to the pipeline. It was interesting to watch as their co-workers brought a piece of metal from the yard, loaded it onto their speedboat, drove to a spot beneath the pipeline, and the guy tethered to the line lowered a line with a hook on the end. The guys on the boat attached the metal, the worker above pulled up the metal and then attached it to the pipeline. It was also fun to read the threatening signs posted near the pipeline!

As we headed back to Fairbanks, we were disappointed that we hadn't seen any wildlife! Then right outside the fence along Ellison AFB, we saw a moose! Yay!

Once back in Fairbanks, we went to "downtown" to see what it looked like. It wasn't horrible, but I think Anchorage had much nicer shops. We also walked over to Golden Heart Park and looked at the First Unknown Family statue that was erected in 1983. It was very beautiful and honored the first Inuit family. On our way back to the hotel, we dropped off the SUV and now we're without transportation, sort of. The hotel shuttle is supposed to take us wherever we want to go within Fairbanks - so we'll see what happens.

We had thought about going to the infamous Salmon Bake at the Pioneer Park - they have an unlimited buffet of Salmon, Cod and Prime Rib. Had they also had crab legs, I would have gone. But one of my co-workers doesn't eat fish, and I wasn't totally convinced that it was worth the cost...so we decided to eat at the hotel. Instead of having an Alaskan specialty, I ended up with a delicious grilled cheese sandwich!!! It was so good. After dinner, I took a walk around the local area while taking pictures (the sun had FINALLY come out), and then retired to my room.

We should have another full day of fun tomorrow before we have to take the van back to the airport at 9:30PM. It's been a fun visit, and I look forward to coming back again (and reserving a car beforehand!) - it will be a fun time!