Fairbanks Arrival
9:30PM, 68 degrees and you seriously need your Maui Jims...
07.01.2011 - 07.02.2011
51 °F
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The Great Alaska Journey
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After a 5 1/2 hour flight to Fairbanks, we arrived without incident, with the exception of our headaches from many very small children shrieking in flight. Greeted by the "The Princess Brigade" our bags were taken to our lodge for the next few evenings. After dealing with a room snafu we settled in after midnight.
6AM came early with only a few hours of interrupted sleep. Tour director Jeff Porter called for a 7AM breakfast meeting, then Wheels up on Princess bus 7227, there are 38 total people in our escorted cruise tour. Leigh equates it to an adult summer camp, but is having a good time despite of the tours busy busy schedule.
We began today with a Sternwheeler Riverboat tour of the Chena and Tanana rivers. We saw a bush pilots demonstration of a float plane. We toured an authentic Athabascan village and saw the deceased Susan Butcher's famous Iditarod sled dog team now currently run by her husband who wrote a book about Susan and her brave sled leader dog Granite who took her to Iditarod victory. Susan died of Leukemia Lymphoma, and she is survived by her husband David Monson and two daughters. David wrote a childrens book telling of Susan and her dogs, proceeds go to the charity. He was there today to autograph the books. After lunch we took a gold mine tour of the El Dorado Gold Mine in Fox, Alaska. We were guided through a permafrost tunnel and mining camp and tried our hand at placer mining methods. Leigh, Debbie and I panned for gold and collectively managed to get $45 worth. Leigh had the gold mini nuggets put into a necklace for the memory. Tonight we are weary from the travel and the 22 hours of day light. A 7:00PM dinner of Halibut awaits and a good night sleep with our Zorro masks.
Tomorrow we leave Fairbanks early by rail to Denali National Park where we will stay the next two nights. First Denali excursion, the Nenana Gorge Whitewater rafting trip...stay tuned....
Posted by Melissa919 07.02.2011 19:04 Archived in USA
