Day 16 - Boy racers for the day

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Having already spent a day wandering the long streets of unexciting Fairbanks, we decided to hire a car and explore. Our boy racer, dodgy handbrake car was from 'Rent a Wreck' with an advertising slogan "Don't be fooled by the name" - we just had to try!

We made it to 'North Pole' a town 15 miles from Fairbanks. The entire economy revolves around the fact that anything posted there gets an official 'North Pole' postmark. This means everything relates to Santa Claus and Christmas. It was quite disturbing just what levels of tackiness can be reached when that's all they ever do. We are just pleased that it is still July and we cannot carry much more stuff as you would all have had something very tacky!!

The main reason for the car was so we could get out for Chena Hot Springs, a place we had been recommended, over 50 miles outside of Fairbanks, we thought we would go see especially after our fantastic experince in Iceland.

Well it is an odd place, it has a feel as though it has not been finished, but got the punters in already. Our tent is surrounded by 30 foot RV's and the spring pools sure ain't Iceland. But it was good to have a nice long soak in the evening light (not getting dark at the moment).

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