Playing around in Fairbanks

Yesterday, we all headed over to Pioneer Park to explore the "village" and soak in the history.  After some history soaking we made over to the Salmon Bake and had a wonderful dinner.   I can now say that I have had Salmon that tasted very good!  None of us went home hungry.

There is this lovely old paddle wheel boat sitting up on the land at the park.  Besides just being neat in and of itself, inside there were multiple dioramas of most of the early towns and settlements along the rivers of the area.  The dioramas reminded me of the pictures you see of small settlements along the Amazon and other wilderness areas.....vastness of the land and water and the small toe holds that humans make.

We also walked through the train car. As Nan noted, they are limited to how much they can do as long as they allow us folks to wander through without supervision.  The craftsmanship of the details is still very visible in what has been left behind.

The private rooms are through the doors to the right.....

And here is where the president stood to wave at the public when he came to visit Alaska for the first time.

For those without RV, you could use a Cache like this one to store your foods.....

Another example of tight logs.....the park has relocated many cabins from around Fairbanks. Each one has a sign to tell you were it was moved from, who built it or had it built, etc.  The small and compact sizes of the cabins reminds me that RV'ers were not the first to learn to live in small spaces.  

This building stood out because it was much larger.  As the sign below tells, the ground floor was used for a bath house.   But again, I admire the log work.

Liz and Birdie got up early this morning to take a van ride up to the Arctic Circle and back. Wait for their blog posts to find out how that went.....

Nan and I ran around Fairbanks running errands like visiting a thrift store (to drop off stuff and then of course you had to go in and look....)  I picked up two prescriptions from Walmart and we headed out to North Pole to visit Santa and his Reindeer. 

Tomorrow, Birdie and I are taking the Discovery Boat ride down the river in the morning. Well Birdie will be there if she can wake up early enough.   She and Liz don't get back until 10pm tonight. :=)