Travel Day: Fairbanks to Denali

We left Fairbanks on Tuesday & traveled 4 hours south to Denali on the Alaska Railroad.

 Our conductor (the Snickers bar is a whole other blog I plan to write someday).

 Old telegraph poles dotted the landscape. They are now on the National Register of Historic Things (didn't know that was a thing) and cannot be removed.

 Alaskan sense of humor...

 Our first snow-capped mountains!!!

 We were told we could see Denali on a clear day.

 Sadly, it was not a clear day.

 It was beautiful nonetheless.

We were met at the train station by a hotel shuttle, handed our room keys & taken right to our room. Nice! We stayed at the Denali Bluffs Hotel. Our room had a nice view from the balcony, but there was a sister property, the Grande Denali Lodge, that was at the top of the mountain, so we took the free shuttle up to the top.

 

 The GM had quite the Alaskan sense of humor.

The amazing panoramic view from the top of the mountain.

We took the shuttle into town & found a cute little village full of souvenir shops & eclectic restaurants. We grabbed "Bear"itos at Black Bear Coffee House, a place famous for serving coffee from beans roasted in Alaska. Funny story - one of our shuttle drivers was bragging about how amazing the Alaskan coffee was. She ranted about how it's grown, roasted & everything right there in Alaska. Being a coffee nut, I knew there was no possible way coffee could get enough of a growing season in Alaska, so I asked about the "grown in Alaska" part. Oh, but she was ever adamant it was definitely grown there. Poor thing. Haha!

With no scheduled activities today, we took it easy after lunch & checked out the shops.

My favorite shirt with more Alaskan humor.

We had dinner that night at the hotel's Mountaineer Grill & Bar. I was still stuffed from my huge "Bear"ito, so only had a salad. Buzz scoffed that I should throw the salad in the yard then kill & eat what comes to eat it. That said, he had buffalo chili & reindeer sausage. Both were tasty!

Fairbanks, AK

We arrived in Fairbanks on Sunday, August 9 around 8:00 PM Alaska time, so even though we'd been traveling all day, we weren't very tired. Our hotel, Best Western Plus Chena River, was close to the airport, but not near town, so our sit-down food options were Brewsters & The 49er Club, the latter of which had a big SHOWGIRLS sign. Not wanting to fight the local U.S. Army for a table, we opted for Brewsters, got some decent grub & a great Alaskan Amber. Walking back to the hotel around 10:00 PM, the sun was setting & it was in the 50s. Nice!

The next morning we set out to walk the scenic Chena Riverwalk. It was overcast & in the high 40s with a little wind, so we dressed in a couple of layers.

We made it to downtown Fairbanks & saw some historic churches & sites.

St. Matthew's Episcopal (log cabin) Church

Never before seen a sled dog stained-glass church window. 

Inside St. Matthew's

Downtown Fairbanks

Immaculate Conception Catholic Church

The night before at Brewsters and again at our hotel, locals kept recommending we visit the Ice Museum. Ice Museum? Why on earth is there a museum about ice? I know it's cold here, but ice just melts. What on earth? To say the least, we were skeptical. This was a jewel of a museum! In March each year, Fairbanks is host to the World Ice Art Championship. The Ice Museum is located in an old movie theater. You watch a video about the competition; the most strenuous of which is a 5-day team challenge. Blocks of ice as high as 30 feet are brought in & teams drill out their creations. Some of the creations are in the museum in a -20 degree freezer. Thank the Lord they had parkas for us to wear!

Moose

Polar bears

The slide!!!

Two non-native Eskimos!

Sled-dog team

Then we got an ice carving demonstration from Andy, a one-time winner & numerous-time 2nd place finisher of the World Ice Art Championship. I should have gotten this on video. It only took about a minute.

This last one is cool, because he heated the flower so that it would "open."

Fully amazed & ready to book our return trip for March of next year to see the World Ice Art Championship in person, we left the Ice Museum. We lucked into a fantastic little lunch spot that did fresh crepes & really good HOT coffee (it never made it out of the 40s today). After lunch, we hit the Riverwalk for a few more sites.

Clock tower in Golden Heart Plaza

Unknown First Family Monument

Lend-Lease Monument

Antler Arch - created by 100+ moose & caribou antlers

After a full day of seeing all the Riverwalk had to offer, we walked back to the hotel, grabbed more grub & Alaskan Amber at Brewsters and called it a day (we'd walked a total of 11 miles today - my dogs were tired). Tomorrow we take the Alaska Railroad to Denali.