Denali to Fairbanks

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First thing this morning was the “Husky Homestead” tour. It’s a tourist attraction run by Jeff King, who is a four time (I think) Iditarod champion. When you get off the bus, you get a puppy to hold and they are so cute… Then you meet Jeff and he introduces himself and some of the staff. One of the other staff members talks about breeding and raising the dogs while Jeff harnesses a team and takes them off for a run. When they get back you move inside and Jeff talks about running the race itself. I’m not sure how I feel about dog racing. I know that dogs love to run, and are bred to run, but it seems that making the dogs run 1000 miles in the ice and snow for fun isn’t quite right. The humans make the choice to do the race, but the dogs don’t. Our tour guide arranged for us to be dropped off at the Denali Visitors’ Center after the Husky Homestead, so got a chance to look around there and to walk a very short bit on the paths. In retrospect, I think I would have been better off taking the morning to walk some of the trails rather then visiting the dogs.

Whenever I do a tour, I try and figure out early which couple is going to be a problem. And I pegged one couple the first morning we left Anchorage. And I was right. They are late every time getting back to the bus, and because they complained, Sherry has instituted a seat rotation. Funniest thing, they didn’t sit in the seats assigned to them today. We also have 2 know-it-alls on the bus, and from what I found out from one of the other women, one of them is also a big complainer. He felt that the rooms in our hotel in Denali were too small. Okay, Sherry had kind of goofed, she had thought we were upgraded to a different hotel, and this guy of course felt that our hotel in Denali wasn’t good enough. He also complained that he felt rushed at our dinner last night before the show. Since I’m used to a 30 minute lunch break, I don’t usually feel rushed. And the most annoying thing I found it was that when we were in Denali, he kept telling the driver to move along when we spotted animals. This is their first (and probably last) Globus tour. I like Globus, I think they are good value for the money, and I think their hotel choices are fine.



Stopped for lunch in the town of Healy at the 49^th State Brewery. Good food, nice size portions and a rustic look. And it really is a brewery, but they don’t do tours early in the day, so we couldn’t see anything.



After some time on the road (sitting in construction traffic) we stopped in the town of Nenana. They have an interesting lottery. Well, I guess it’s not a lottery, it’s more like a betting pool. For $2.50 you get to fill out a form with when you think the ice in the Tanana River will break in the spring. Sherry said that the pot last year was 300 thousand dollars.



Our hotel here in Fairbanks is an extended stay kind of place, so it’s like a small apartment. Actually, I think it’s bigger than some apartments in NY. Our optional dinner for tonight was an all you can eat salmon bake followed by another theater revue. The salmon bake had salad, salmon, prime rib, battered cod, potatoes, potato salad and beans. Oh, and since it was Friday, they also had king crab. That made some people really happy. There was white or chocolate cake for dessert. After dinner, I wandered around Pioneer Park, which is a re-created Pioneer town, but the stores were closed. The show was in the Palace Theater, and it was a musical history of Fairbanks. The funniest bit was a variation of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” using sled dogs instead of baseball positons.



Got back to the hotel around 9:45, turned in quickly since it’s another 8 am start

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