September 25 - Fairbanks and Chena Hot Springs

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Today is a rest day. Since I fell on to the bed and didn’t get up right after dinner again (some time before 10 pm) I was up at the insanely early time of 6 am. Being a weekend day even the continental breakfast area was not open. It was truly a relaxing day. We went through our gear and did laundry. We ran to the store to re-supply and grabbed lunch to take back to the room. We also washed the Dalton highway off of the rental truck. It took two washes. We thought the automatic car wash would do a decent job, however after I got out of the truck and Dan found the back of my jeans covered in mud we went to a do-it-your-self car wash and did it a more thorough job of it. After all this we considered a nap but we had heard a lot about the Chena Hot Springs and if we napped we would have missed out.
Chena Hot Springs is at the east end of the Chena Hot Springs Road. Sourdoughs (minors and prospectors) discovered the springs in the 1900s and the area was a hot spot since then. In 2006 an Ice Hotel was built on sight but they did not have the means to keep it going year round. They eventually developed an absorption chiller in which they house the collected works of a husband and wife team of ice sculptors. For an additional fee we could drink an “appletini” from a hand-made, ice martini glass. When we walked into the space we were immediately hit with how dry the cold was. The point of the absorption chilling process is to keep the ice as dry as possible. The guide even explained that the only lost art was due to sublimation (ice to gas transformation). There was a work area to the front, and two large knights jousting. There was a bar with a raised seating area that had an ice carved fireplace with a faux fire log going. There were an Ice bear and her cub who were featured on a Coca Cola commercial. There was even a chapel for people to get married. The coolest was the 4 bed rooms. It is not billed as an ice hotel any more. No fire extinguishers or sprinklers in the building (duh, what?) but people pay to spend the night in the icy environment.
We finished our tour of the museum and bellied up to the bar where we were served a double shot of liquor. One vodka and the other apple liquor. We toasted and got toasted. Another pair who ordered up the special drink took one sip for a picture and left them behind.. Our lovely bartender asked us if we would like the left over drinks. Since alcohol kills germs we said sure. When we finished our drinks we were at a loss as to what to do with our ice glasses. We were given some ideas by our tour guide/bartender. Take them out side and smash them, get them re-filled in the bar next door or melt them in the hot spring. Since we had two gasses each we opted to smash two and melt two. We could have done all three but we didn’t want to pay resort prices for another drink. After smashing our glasses we ran to the locker room to change into our bathing suits. This is what we had come for, the hot spring. The smell was not as strong as I thought it would be but the heat was more than I expected. They have to cool it down just for bathing. It comes out at over 150 degrees. We floated around for a while and struck up conversations with fellow bathers. One couple was tourists in their own state. They came up from Kodiak. It was a great relaxing addition to our day. We finished the evening with a nice dinner at the local brewery, Silver Gulch. Then I once again (this time tipsy from appletinis and hot water) fell on the bed and didn’t get up until morning.

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