Dunfey Alaska Journey

In our first full day in Fairbanks we were busy. We went to the Tanana Valley Fair, the Alaska North Museum at the University of Alaska and Pioneer Park.

The Tanana Valley Fair was similar to local state or county fairs in upstate New York and western Massachusetts. We arrived to discover it was senior day. All seniors got in free and were treated with a free turkey dinner. We passed up the dinner and tried the reindeer sausage instead.

 The exhibits at the Alaska Museum were excellent. We were a little disapointed in that we had seen similar materials at prior museum visits all over Alaska. It still took us about 3 hours.

The Pioneer Park was a unique experience. There was no entrance fee to this public theme park that contained a number of small museum attractions for Railroads, Bush Planes, River Boat, etc. There were many original log cabins moved to this site where they were used for gift and craft shops.

On our second full day in Fairbanks, it was rainy all day. We decided to take a 60 miles drive out to the Chena Hot Springs Resort. We toured the Ice House there which is powered by Geothermal Energy. We took a dip in the hotsprings rock pool which was very warm. We had a great dialogue with the Chena Ghost (Mark Ransom) with whom Fred had been communicating   via the Alaska Living Yahoo Group. Mark is a manager at Chena Hot Springs.

While we were talking with Mark at Chena Hotsprings, a Milepost reporter introduced herself to Mark. She was same Milepost reporter that took our pictures at Wrangell-St Elias primitive campground earlier this summer. We exchanged stories.

Tomorrow morning, we are dropping our camper off at RV service facility to get the wheel bearings repacked while we fly to Ruby for an overnight visit. Ruby is an isolated village of 200 people on Yukon River about 200 miles west of Fairbanks. We will be staying at the home of Emmitt and Edna Peters, who were friends of Fred’s uncle Fr. Ron Dunfey.