We’re moving on tomorrow so we’d better get out and enjoy Fairbanks. Our time here was shortened by about 6 or 7 days and we didn’t really do it justice. But, we tried. Today we started at the Farmer’s Market, a nice display of baked goods, crafts and plants for sale, lots of plants for landscaping and pots. Boy do these Alaskans plant flowers and gardens. BTW - Alaskan vegetables grow huge and gardens can be immense. Certainly not something that I would think of when I thought of Alaska. But - remember - the days are long and the sun is out for hours during the summer. What makes vegetables grow? Lots of sun and rain. And, they’re here in Alaska. I, personally, can attest to the both of these. Before I close my eyes at night I raise the bedroom blind and look out at a setting sun. And, today it rained all day and into the night.
Flowers, not this year. Baked goods, lead me to them.
Then we headed over to the Fairbanks Visitor Center which really covers everything north of Denali. There is even a museum and gallery here.
Gary is standing with a rubber cast of a moose print and a bear print. Note that each of them is larger than his head. I’m not sure that we’re ready to meet either of them on the trail.
Gary also checked out the fish table (someone with a sense of humor and reality actually painted blood on this table.)
I’m thinkin’ if he catches them, he’ll skin them. But fishing is huge here. We’ve met whole families who are all going fishing. We met a guy who has a freezer in his Montana 5th wheel. He plans to go home only when his freezer is full. But more on fishing later when we get to the coast and actually see it first hand.
There was lots about the history of Alaska, the animals of Alaska, the people and the natural beauty.
We have seen many ‘tipsy’ trees and lots of tipsy telephone poles too.
This shoe caught my attention and the story caught it even more. The lesson: wear fur-lined boots when she flies.
We also took a tour of Pioneer Park in the middle of Fairbanks. Here they have several museums an old riverboat, quite a few historical cabins and buildings from old Fairbanks that they have brought here. Oh, yeah, they have food - of course but also a miniature golf course and a huge playground for younger kids. We strolled through the older homes and into the home of Judge Wickersham.
They have refurnished it and have tried to come as close to the original as possible. One of the docents showed us a piece from the original wall paper which a Boston firm came quite close to matching. The common style of felt on paper.
My favorite story about Judge Wickersham involved this old Victrola. He bought it in 1905 and, since he had the only one in town, he bored a hole in the wall so he could stick the brass horn through and at Christmas, played the carols so loud that people out side could hear them too.
But the rest of the house was well done with period furniture and furnishings.
The street was filled with old buildings and homes.
Looks like Gary has to wait for me here.
That’s because I’m up at the ice cream store with our sodas and cookie.
We visited a few museums and then took our daily walk. There are lots of log cabins up this way, many quite new and we noticed that builders have to account for the fact that trees are wide near the truck and not so wide near the top. When you cut a log, it will be wide at one end and narrow at the other. So, how to build a home to make each wall the same height?
Alternate them, of course. My Lincoln logs were the same diameter at each end so I never had to think of this problem. See how they’ve alternated the small ends with the big ends here. Hmmm. Never thought of that.
On the way back to the car, we found a moose.
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