Onwards to Fairbanks at a Fair Pace

We left Hope and the Kenai Peninsula and made our way northward to Fairbanks, about 350 miles from Anchorage.
Purposefully we plan to take a few days to cover this distance because there are still many things we want to see and do along the way. First up was to complete our souvenir shopping in good ole Talkeetna.
I don't know what it is but this funky little tourist trap really cast a spell on us as this is our second visit here in as many weeks. It is located right on our way so as we approached the turnoff to Talkeetna we each shrugged our shoulders and said OK, what the hell let's go.
We lodged up at our previous boondock spot, made lunch, took a nice nap and headed off to town after the cruise and tour bus crowds departed in the early evening.
Debbie wrapped up souvenir/gift shopping - boy, she is really knocking items off the to do list, I better step it up - while I waited with ALL of the other men out in front of the shops to shoot the shit.
Afterwards we went over to Denali Brewing for a quick beer, walked thru town, went to the post office and then back to camp. Denali Mt was clouded over big time so no sightings of the high one this day. While walking thru town I noticed the white board out in front of K2 Aviation that advertises the flight viewing prospects for the day: Today's Views - We're Still Flying!. When we went two weeks ago the board said Spectacular Day to Fly! I wonder if they reduce their prices when you can't see the mountain, or more importantly, do they jack them up when you can see it? Hmmm, curious minds want to know.
While walking thru town I captured this shot of the Fairview Inn where President Warren Harding stayed while visiting AK in the 1920's. Seems Mr. President caught some kind of a flu bug at the Fairview and while in CA  two weeks later he up and died from it. Since that time no sitting President has visited AK until Obama came here last year to videotape a glacier walk with that phony adventurer Bear Gryalls.


Next morning I made the mandatory stops at Talkeetna Lodge for coffee and Flying Squirrel Bakery for a savory bun and then buttoned up the rig and down the road we went - 'with no particular place to go' (thanks to Chuck Berry for that stanza), just head generally north towards Fairbanks.

Denali was cloud obscured the whole way north to Cantwell, AK where we decided to drive a few miles east on the Denali Highway which is a 150 mile long unpaved gravel road all the way east to Paxson, AK and the Richardson Highway. The views along this scenic byway have been highly recommended but we truthfully were not up for 150 miles/8 hours of washboard/potholed gravel road.
We went out the Denali Highway about 8 miles east of Cantwell and happened upon a very beautiful campsite at a spot called Joe Lake, now how can you go wrong with a boondock spot called Joe Lake I ask you dear reader. You'd go for it too, I know you would. Parked the RV right next to the shore of a mirrored lake with 6000 foot peaks on three sides and a crisp view of Denali on the fourth side later that evening.


Spent the day swimming, soaking up the sun, fished a bit, read and napped. It was partly cloudy but mostly sunny all day until about 7 PM when the western skies completely cleared giving us yet again crackling views of Denali 'only' 75 miles away.

With a lot of moisture in the air we were also treated to an evening rainbow and spectacular cloud coloring/lake reflections thanks to the slowly setting sun - it was very pretty indeed, and the quietest spot you could ever imagine.


We spent the next 48 hours speaking to each other at a whisperlike decibel level, very very peaceful - we are sooooo relaxed. That's Joe Lake for you right there my friends. Eager beaver in the foreground, Denali demanding respect in the far top left (click on it, it's a good'un).


For this evening's entertainment we sat out and watched a group of 4 beavers swim right in front of us, haul out of the water, go ashore and gnaw down small trees/branches and swim them back across the lake some 100 feet or so to their lodge. They were so close we could hear them chomping away on the trees onshore about 20 feet from us - and this went on non stop for 2 hours! We were mesmerized. They liked coming close to shore (us) where they could lay in the shallow water with their backs on the sandy lake bottom to have a quick bite to eat from the tree branch before heading home with it. Kind of like I did when I'd pick up drive thru for the family, you know no one will notice a coupla handfuls of french fries missing when I get home, right?
Let me tell you these guys were busy working their huge tails off - I'd estimate each beaver measured in at around 4.5 feet in total length with the tail about 2 feet long and 18" wide, they were fat too. But man could they swim, stayed under forever when they weren't carrying their goods and terrific swimmers while on their backs pulling these small trees across the water - very efficient guys. One of the finest 2 hour wildlife specials we have ever watched, that's for sure.


As this was going on we both turned to each other, then looked at the sun setting behind the mountains and said it almost simultaneously, let's stay here another night...done and done.


Spent the next day under mostly cloudy skies and it rained fairly hard starting about 3 PM and continued off/on thru the night.
Right on time at 6:30 PM the task focused beaver crew punched in for work and we watched the same show as last night from the IMAX room in the LD because of the rain showers, until....
speaking of wildlife viewing check out what showed up at our campsite around 7:30 this evening, picture taken from the IMAX room:


...damn jeepers.....
Keep in mind we are in the middle of nowhere with not another living soul for miles and maybe at peak hour one car every 10 minutes passes by. And geezus were they loud, I was pissed 'cause they scared the beavs away...a-holes. Looked like an organized/guided jeep tour and credit to their tour guide as it appeared he was in tune with the whole scene and was politely moving them along...but how clueless can you be, come into such a serene space where we've been whispering for 2 days and nights and start screaming at each other?? It sure was a quick and jolting wake up to reality I suppose...but it really sucked dear friends, paradise lost. And they chased the beavers off, pretty rude commercial break to the wildlife program I'd say.

Rain continued thru the night so we hit the road the next morning and stopped at the Clear Sky Cafe near Anderson, AK for a light lunch. Your basic log structure, dark interior with antlers hanging all over the walls for decor and friendly people - pretty standard Alaskan roadside cafe. Server asks, so you folks up here for the music festival? What music festival, please tell us more.
Well, this is the annual 3 day Anderson Family Music Festival with 30 bands playing all types of music. Hmmm, sounds like fun. So we finished lunch and drove out to the Anderson River RV Park to snoop around and met the organizer and his family welcoming folks at the front gate - it sounded like a ton of fun, plenty of room to camp in the RV section for free and $40 per person admission for the weekend, not too bad. But, and here's the big but, it was pouring down rain and forecast to do the same thru the weekend. We were not up for a 3 day Woodstock like mud bath but in all honesty the people we saw there were having a ball.
Alaskans deal with rain a lot differently than Debbie and I do. It's almost as if they love it. Kids run around in T shirts, shorts and flip flops; adults walk down the street texting/talking on cell phones; haven't yet seen an umbrella in use (other than ours, yeh we kinda stick out) since we got here; people waiting outside in the rain for 90 minutes to get a table at the hot restaurants - it's crazy, never seen anything like it.
If the weather had been a bit fairer we would have hunkered down for the weekend and got our groove on, oh well maybe next time.
Here's another one for next time...organizer was telling me that every Memorial Day weekend the Anderson Family Park also hosts a "machine gun" (his words) derby which he says is a real hoot. Now that would be one helluva weekend! Freaking Alaska - where else on planet earth can you take in a machine gun derby and then follow it up with a music festival at the same site?
Free love, free ammo and free RV parking, what's not to like about that?
We continued northward to the quaint village of Nenana, AK right at the confluence of the mighty Tenana and Nenana Rivers about 70 miles or so south of Fairbanks. Here they engage in a rather unique lottery.
For the past 100 years community leaders have conducted the annual Ice Classic (google it for more info). Basically, the lottery winner has to pick the EXACT date and time (to the minute) that the ice will break up on the river come springtime. To record this exact moment they construct a huge, probably 50 feet high, log tripod that is painted white and black (like a lighthouse), put a giant red flag atop it and then haul it out onto the river ice. Then they attach a wire to the top and run it onshore where the other end is attached to a gigantic clock atop another huge tower. When the ice breaks and the tripod falls into the river, the wire is tripped and the clock is stopped at the exact minute and a winner is declared.

This may sound kind of corny but trust me it is a BIG deal. Not only does it signal an end to the long, dark and cold winter these Ice Classic Lottery tickets sell all over the State for $2.50 each (we bought 10) and last years winner won.... get this, $400,000! And here's the best part, the community charities rake in the cash with parties, events, parades, and other celebrations leading up to the big moment - not to mention a nice cut from the ticket sales...pretty cool, 'eh?
Next day (Saturday July 30th) we continued on into Fairbanks and I'll relate our experiences there to you fine folks in the next post.
Take care all... we're hoping this rain will stop - 5 days straight so far with no end in sight. More scientific proof as to why everything is so green up here and the 4,000,000 lakes are all full to the brim.