Fairbanks & Santa Claus

On August 24th we drove from Willow up George Parks Highway (3) to Fairbanks. We passed McKinley and were lucky enough to get some pictures of it from the Southern side. I say we were lucky because we didn't get another peek at it again, even when in Denali National Park. The drive was beautiful. Huge snow-covered mountains in the distance and the Fall colors all around us.



We went to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which sits on a hillside overlooking all of Fairbanks. Got myself a sweatshirt and walked around the campus a bit.

Just outside of Fairbanks is the "real" North Pole and that was a cute town. All of the streets are lined with red & white striped light poles and streets are named appropriately "Santa Claus Lane" & "St. Nicholas Drive". We stopped at Santa Claus' house, however he takes Sunday and Monday off to rest.... just our luck. First I missed out on my toe drink and now on Santa. His reindeer were there and that was probably more fun to see ???


If any of you want to write to Santa to tell him what you'd like for Christmas, they do respond to all letters. The address is: Santa Claus House, 101 St. Nicholas Drive, North Pole, Alaska 99705. They have kids' letters posted all over inside and it's cute to read them.


While in Fairbanks, we stayed the first night in a hotel so we could get showers (much needed after 2 days camping in Willow) and then the 2nd night in a campground directly under the airport flight path, so we did get some great views of the underbodies of planes. HA! We did have a nice time as the weather was perfect and sunny. Not much to downtown area so we didn't spend any time down there, however went to Pioneer Park to see some old mining equipment, a paddle boat, and old planes. Do you see that strange looking thing Matt is sitting on? That is actually an old snow machine and both of the sides roll over the ice. Wierd!

We also saw the Alyeska Pipeline that transports oil from Valdez (funny, because I'm in Valdez right this second) all the way up to Prudhoe Bay at the tip of Alaska. Interesting to see just how far it goes and how big the pipes are...we'll keep them pumping oil while we're on the road.

On the way out of Fairbanks, we stopped at a World Famous Skinny Dick's bar. Lots of funny signs posted all over the place and as you can imagine, some dirty stuff as well. It was recommended to us by Tara and Brian, friends we met in Willow. We posted our $1 bill on the wall of the joint as many people before us have done and left with a sticker for our car.