September 24 - Wiseman to Fairbanks

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We slept in until 8:00 am local time and hit the ground running because upon our return to Fairbanks it was time to start relaxing. Yea right. After using the exterior access shower (It was indoors) and packing and loading the truck I noticed the Truck’s temperature reading was just above 30 degrees. Oddly enough, it didn’t feel that cold as I loaded the truck in a tee-shirt and jeans. We then had breakfast in the common room and finally departed at around 10:00 am. We gifted the Host’s with Oranges and Bananas we gathered from the Hampton Inn the previous stay. You would think we were delivering gold. The irony at such a location. It was well received as they don’t get such produce in that part of the world. Upon Heidi’s (Hostess) recommendation, we decided to drive around 20 miles north for nicer scenery. It was a good suggestion as the Mountain Ranges were beautiful including several snow-capped mountains and once again we felt it was a shame such a beautiful place was viewed by a fraction of the world’s population! The cold was evident of ice forming on roadside puddles. It is getting to be that time of year for the Alaskan Tundra. We made the destination for the turnaround at milepost 210 on the Dalton Highway. I was ready to press on to Prudhoe Bay, but time constraints would not allow such a trip. Maybe next time.
At the start of the pavement, Danielle assumed the drive of the truck until our next stop of Coldfoot. We made the stop in Coldfoot for a fuel top off and some shirts identifying we had made the trip. We left Coldfoot with the Garmin GPS stating that our 11:30 am departure will have us in Fairbanks at nearly 8:00 pm. We made a push to get back taking a couple of pictures and a couple of bathroom breaks and a rolling lunch and made it to the start of the Dalton at approximately 4:15 pm. Don’t try this at home folks! The remaining 70 miles on the Elliott Highway to Fairbanks seemed to be an equal obstacle. We wanted to get back to Fairbanks at a reasonable time to check in to our hotel and settle in and did just that at around 5:15 pm. We made the Garmin eat its words by arriving approximately 3 hours early. We did it not dangerously as we were being passed by local Alaskans the entire way back, but did notice that the GPS was estimating on the conservative side on the Haul Road and was lost for the most part on the Elliott Highway.
After settling in, we decided to go to Chili’s for dinner. It was against our original intentions of patronizing the local establishments for the entire trip, but we had a long week and after two days of traveling the famed Dalton Highway were of the opinion of “screw it!”

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