Gold mine, Pipe line and Eskimos

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Day 1

What a long day of travel-- on the "road" over 15 hours- but every leg of the journey went well- no issues! We arrived in Fairbanks at 8:30 Pm- which was 12:30 Am our time- then checked in to our room at the Princess Fairbanks Lodge - sitting on the banks of the Chena River- took a walk around the property - still daylight at 10:00pm


Day 2
Up at 7:00 am for breakfast and a full day of sight seeing -- first up was a sternwheel boat ride up the Chena River- saw championship sled dog training center, an Alaskan Indian village, raindeer - then went to a gold mine and panned for gold-- Suzie and I panned nuggets worth about $39! On the way back from the Gold mine we stopped at an observation point for the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline that runs over 800
miles from Prudhoe Bay in the North to Anchorage in the South- an amazing engineering accomplishment. Enjoyed a Wine Dinner - four course meal with special wine pairings for each course back at the lodge! It was excellent- met a couple from South Dakota who have traveled to Ruwanda in Africa on an Humantarian trip for 21 days- she had also been to China -very interesting. Leave here tomorrow morning for Denali National Park- will take a scenic train about 4 hours- will have breakfast on the train- staying at the Denali Princess Lodge- the largest hotel in Alaska for the next two nights!
will try to get photos out on the next post-

Tim and Suzie

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