We had a really good nights sleep in the wayside at MP 288 on the Richardson Hwy. That was after a 5th wheel pulled in at 10:40. We thought, okay, another RV, that’s okay. Nope, these people were so noisy. They kept slamming doors. Finally, they moved, except they went out of the wayside and drove around, and then back in. They they got out of the truck, again, and slammed doors all over again, talking and making noise. They finally, after slamming doors again, left at 11:00. We think they had just stopped to take pictures.
We opened the shades and our view had changed. Now we could see beautiful snow covered mountain! We couldn’t see them last evening.
We left the wayside at 8:00, driving north. The scenery was spectacular, although it does not come through as well in the pictures.
Just as we were reaching Eielson AFB, we started to have smoke in the air. The farther north we drove, the worse the smoke became. Past the AFB, we were passing North Pole AK. North Pole is a small town with a big Santa Clause store. Since we were not sure that we were going to be able to stay in the area, we stopped at the tourist trap! You can see the smoke in the pictures.
A lot of Christmas items and of course, Santa was sitting talking to people. We wandered through, I bought my pin, and we quickly continued on our way.
The air was horrible. Fortunately, my asthma did not kick in. We continued on to the Elks Lodge in Fairbanks. We were afraid that we would not be able to get a site, but there was only one other motor home there. There are 13 sites, with 30 amp electric. So we disconnected the car and went into the Lodge to pay our $25, per night. We only paid for two nights. Bob has an appointment on Monday, so we knew we had to stay at least that long. We backed into our site, right on the Chena River!
Margie and Wayne are going to be staying at Rivers Edge RV park,as they are going to need FUH’s, since Wayne’s sister Cindy is flying in on Sunday. The will be arriving later today and boon-docking at Fred Meyers for the night, prior to checking into Rivers Edge. We decided not to stay there as it is so much more expensive ($46 + tax) and we can semi-boondock for five nights.
The first thing that we did was go to the local UPS store and pick up the bladder for Bob’s side of the bed. We returned to the motor home with the box and then we decided, since the air quality is so bad, that we would try to get things on our list completed. We decided to go to Silver Gulch brewery for lunch. So we drove to “beautiful downtown Fox AK” as they said on the brochure. Beautiful downtown Fox consisted of the brewery and a really dumpy looking bar across the street!
The brewery was nice though. Bob had a beer sampler and I had water. We had nachos for lunch. Bob really liked the Pick-ax Porter, and bought a six-pack for home.
When we stepped out of the brewery, we immediately noticed that the air had improved. There was a dense smoke advisory until 3PM. They lifted the advisory at 2:30, as the air had cleared. It became beautiful, with bright blue skies and was 70 degrees, w/o humidity!
We went to Walmart and bought a new DVD player. Bob installed the new bladder and attempted to install the new DVD player. He could not get it to play.
We returned to the motor home. Margie and Wayne were not going to be arriving until later, so we decided to go to dinner at the Pump House, as local restaurant which had been suggested to us. The restaurant was very pretty inside, with rustic ceilings and oak tables and chairs. Dinner was excellent. Bob had the blackened halibut special with some of the Pump House’s famous fish chowder, which was excellent. I had the best salmon I have ever had. It was grilled with a mango salsa and mashed Yukon potatoes. Yum! They also had my Cupcake Moscato, and I had one glass. Since Bob had beer with lunch, he drank the water!
When I went to stand up, my left ankle( the injured one), started acting up. We walked ( I limped) down to the waterfront to look and take pictures.
We returned to the motor home and I iced my ankle. We watched two episodes of Downton Abby on the I-pad. So far that is five episodes of season three.
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