After logging well over 5,000 miles, we arrived at the Chena Marina RV Park and made camp, as you may recall, on Tuesday afternoon. We’re located on a pond a little more than a mile long and somewhat less than 200 feet wide. It would appear to be man made, except I’ve been assured that it’s natural. Tethered the length of the pond on the west side at fairly regular intervals are float planes of various makes, sizes, and colors. Just back from the pond, and running it’s length, there’s a runway for wheeled planes. Every 100 yards or so is another hanger. On our side, the east, there is the RV park, where a few peple summer with their planes, a couple private homes with planes, then a few fishing and hunting outfitters, with their planes, and some more homes with planes. By now you have the idea of a lot of planes, and you’re right. Given dstances traveled in this Last Frontier, folks fly a lot. Even people who live across the street that circles the pond have planes. As you can imagine, there’s lots of activity and a certain level of noise. Owing to a couple helicopters, the drone and whine of Cessnas and their cousins is broken by the thumps of the choppers. Still, it’s fairly quiet from mid-evening till 6:30 AM and you quickly tune out the sounds anyway— especially when you can take off your hearing aides!. It seems that few folks tire of watching the landings and take offs, and that includes a retired airline pilot and his wife—who is also a pilot…. The RV park is a real nice one and we have a “premier” site that’s only thirty or so feet from the water. That “premier” stuff, aside from price, is that we get a large lot for the trailer and additional parking for the truck, a real luxury in some places. There’s a concierge service, bus to town, free RV wash, etc. We’ve called it home for the last five days and will stay here until Wednesday morning when we depart for the thrills of Denali. It’s comfortable and has allowed us to be tourists instead of travellers. And, as you may have sensed, I was getting pretty tired of the longish drives most every day….It’s only a couple miles to downtown Fairbanks and we’ve been into town a couple times. Fairbanks is only about 30,000 souls, though the “economic area” it serves amounts to 80,000. So, while it’s much larger than you’d expect, the downtown itself is fairly compact with few buildings over three or four stories. It’s pretty much a service and supply point for all of interior Alaska, with some mining industry. Additionally, it houses Eielson Air Force Base and Wainwright Army Base, so there’s a strong military presence. It’s also the home of the University of Alaska Fairbanks whose glorious presence looms on a hill above the town. It’s really a gorgeous place with some very fine architecture. With all this said, Fairbanks is a nice, small city with an big urban sprawl problem as it’s ringed by roads lined with the usual agglomeration of fast food joints, supermarkets, drug chains, ad nauseum. This definitely detracts from the history,represented here in so many ways and in which they take great pride. There’s little apparent poverty, but I’ve read that the city fathers, and maybe mothers, cleaned out the bars and sex stores a few years back. Drugs, gangs, and DUI are cited as major problems in the press, but most of it sounds either typical or benign…. So, as I say, we’ve been tourists in and around the city. As many of you know, we went to the Midnight Baseball game played at 10:30 PM with only natural lighting. Though I left in the fifth, Dave stuck it out till the tenth inning when he decided to leave— and the Fairbanks Goldpanners promptly scored to pull out a win over the Beatrice Bruins. The next afternoon we went to the annual outdoor arts festival in the core of the city. It truly wasn’t much different than anything we could have visited in any number of cities at home excepting the types of crafts offered, often with an accent on the native cultures. Yesterday, we took a relatively short ride to Chena Hot Springs, located about 50 miles east. Dave hiked the Angel Rocks Trail for a few hours while I angled the North Fork of the Chena Riverfor grayling with only minimal success. At the fourth or fifth stretch I fished, I manged to catch two grayling, neither of which was eight inches. But the river was muddy from thunderstorms the night before and so the going was tough. And I did catch a species of fish I’d never caught before. We drove up to the hot springs but didn’t go for a dip. The most interesting thing there was a “kennel” of huskies that must have run about 100 strong. All in all, a fun trip in nice weather, the fishing be damned. Not much wildlife, though we did see a few moose, and while I was fishing I kept glancing over my shoulder for bears. Today we started the morning at the university museum, as fascinating as it is beautiful. (We’ll get a picture up.) It’s a repository for Alaska’s vast and varied trasures and is a magnificent introduction to the physical history, the various cultures, and the development of the state. As museums go, this one should interest just about anyone. The upstairs is an art gallery and fairly captures the diversity of the state. (Surprisingly, there was one anti- Iraqiwar piece,an American flag each of the stripes held together with safety pins, and a variety of quotes (Dubya, Rumsfeld), sketches (the crooked smirk), and symbols imposed. There was an accompanying letter from the university president expaining why it was important to exhibit the work. Same ole, same ole.) In Fairbanks? Wow! After the museum it was off to the Large Animal Research Center to see the musk oxen and caribou. There was no tour scheduled for about an hour, plus we are slated to visit a musk ox farm in Mat-Su, so our stay was brief. We then went to the Creamer Field Migratory Bird Refuge where Dave took a short hike and I contented myself with watching the sandhill cranes peck about the barley. We wrapped up the day by visiting the Tanana Valley Farmer’s Market where Dave bought a loaf of Zuccini bread and i got one of onion batter….. So, that’s been life the last few days, nothing exciting, but quietly satisfying. I could remain here for the summer if the fishing in the area was decent…. Stay tuned for a stern wheeler river boat ride on the Tanana River and possibly a trip north. But if this all seems a bit tame, hang in there. Next week in Denali, we’ll be staying nearly 40 miles out in the park at a camping area that was closed to tent campers last summer due to marauding bears. If I can stop cowering under the bed long enough, while Dave is out hiking, I may get off a wild and wooly blog…
(here’s a picture of the pond, and check out the google map overhead -dan)
