Fairbanks

7-25-09

We are parked at the Elk's club on the Chena River and it is close enough to walk into town. We walked across the bridge and watched a parade, our second in a month. This parade is part of a week long celebration called Golden Days. Lots of unusual cars and floats, many I'm sure you could only see in Alaska. We enjoyed ourselves but left about ½ way through, 1 ½ hours was enough. We checked out the street vendors. Margaret got a picture of a man holding a wolf pelt, we were told it weighed about 200 lbs in life and was captured in Tok AK.

Today at 2:30 PM was the start of the Rubber Ducky Race, a fund raiser for the Chamber Of Commerce. At 2:30PM the ducks were dumped into the water at one of the bridges so as I write I am waiting for my duck to come in. I hope he is in the lead paddling like a real duck to avoid disappointing me and Margaret cause if he won we would share the money, If he does win its worth $10,000, if not I will just have fond memories of my yellow ducky. My phones on the table beside me waiting for the call.

Yesterday we went to the University of Alaska Museum and learned more about the history of Alaska, the animals and people that inhabit the area and how they got here. I have been reading “Alaska” a book by James Michener so I'm getting a healthy dose of Alaskan history.

This afternoon I took a nap while Margaret, Bill and Carol went to North Pole to mail some cards and have them post marked North Pole actually its just a town with that name. The smoke from the wild fires was very evident. Margaret was told that there are over a million acres of forest buring now, ususal cause is lightening strikes

Margaret got a pictures of me crushing aluminum cans, Trying to come up with some gas money to get home.

So far this trip we have traveled 4570 miles and according to Microsoft Streets And Trips we are 2982 miles from home. The motor home averages 7 MPG...........OUCH.