2015 Summer Journey, Alaska Crossing,part 9

                      2015 Summer Journey

                           Fairbanks and Chena Hot Springs

                          Alaska Crossing part 9

June 29, 2015...Monday…Day 3

The Alaskan morning came none too soon since we forgot to put up the blackout panels on the camper windows, that what happens when one eats till you have to be rolled on out of the place!
This day would be spend tracking down a new cable for the winch, remember I broke it in Canada near the Salmon Glacier outside of Hyder, Alaska.
With some luck we located a cable company that could help us and finding a new, stouter fair-lead was done as well. We ended up at the Alaska Rubber and Rigging Co., they carry cable up to 1-1/2 inches in dia. in stock.

While I was busy outside tearing off the old damaged parts, they made me a new and much stronger cable including a new hook.

 

90 feet of new cable, hook included (165 dollars) and a new fairlead (100 dollars), all set to go!

Julie said we needed to restock on some items and to get my “Smartphone” working again; it hasn’t worked since entering Canada and served only as a paperweight. Thankfully, my wife’s old flip phone worked fine. Off to the Verizon store, they fixed it (somewhat) and a stop at the local Fred Myers Market for restocking of supplies. While there we found out about their 10 cents off per gallon per 100 bucks you spend with them with the customer serve card, that helped in reducing our fuel cost.

The day was pretty well shot time we got done with everything and we spent one more night at Pioneer Park.

June 30- July 01, 2016

Next day brought about getting to know some of our fellow RVers, we found out where a good laundry facility was at and an eatery call “The Loose Moose” on Airport Way were we could get Caribou sandwiches.

Laundry done, we travel through town to the Sourdough Fuel on Airport Way, filled up with diesel (11.4 mpg), dump the waste tanks and filled the propane tank up.

We ate at The Loose Moose a couple of time while in town, we had Caribou patty sandwiches with some very good sweet potatoes fries and they were good!

Extra Caribou patties were bought; this would be a delighted addition to our food stock. As a note the internet was pretty good here. From here we headed out of Fairbanks to Chena Hot Springs, we kind of made a circle of the town and ended up on the A3 going towards Johnsen Expressway.

There were a lot of RVs in the Wal-Mart parking lot as we cruised on Johnsen Expressway.

Steese Expressway/ A2 would take us to Chena Hot Spring Road and to our next designation of Chena Hot Spring.

Chena Hot Springs Rd. was a fairly straight shot with some rolling hills, a very easy drive. Plenty of camping and fishing areas appeared along this route.

Not too far after passing over the North Fork Chena River some vehicles were pulled over on the narrow should, a moose was spotted. This would be our first one inside Alaska; I had to park somewhat further up and walk back to see this moose.

I had a hard time getting a good photo of her; she was buried within the trees and shrubs but managed to get a couple of somewhat photos.
Our motoring for the day came at than end at the end of the road, none other than at Chena Hot Springs. An overhead wooden sign greets all visitors coming and going.

Parking our rig and we headed for the office to secure a site for tonight. It was lightly raining as we made our way to the office passing a unique flower planter container

After paying for our site (2 night/$40) and signing up for the Ice Museum (fee) along with the general facility tour (free) we wander around for a bit just to see the place.

By the time, we got back to our rig it was raining at a pretty good clip. Finding our site wasn’t too bad; there is a lot of privacy between sites with the trees and shrubs surrounding everything, but all you got for the 20 bucks was just a spot.

It was close to 08:00 pm, time for dinner and getting some sleep. Mother Nature rained all night, so we when to sleep in our cave with the sound of calypso drums laughing us away.

July 02, 2015/ Thursday...Chena Hot Springs

The morning greeted us with low slung clouds hanging just off the local hills. There’s a chill in the air making us bind our jackets tighter around us as we walked to the meeting area for the start of today’s tour.

It wasn’t a long walk and we were there at the office building in no time. When we signed up for the two tours yesterday, we noticed that the only other language spoken here besides English was Japanese. I would later find out this was due to Chena Hot Springs having Japanese partners.

Everybody ended up meeting our tour guide (both tours) outside, where he explained a few do’s and don’ts of the tour along with the vision of the owners of Chena Hot Springs.

The first tour is seeing the Aurora Ice Museum, so we all made like sheep and followed our guide towards a pale blue pointed structure. Once there more history of the museum was explained.

Extra jackets were inside for those not equip with heavy enough jackets, it was crowded inside the staging area.

Watch the video

Our host didn’t rush anyone; we had plenty of time to wander around the ice museum. Our host was tending the bar; appletini was the house special.

The ice museum tour was fantastic and the general tour of Chena Hot would begin shortly. Upon exiting the museum I didn’t think about than effect that would happen to my camera lens, they fogged up, it was warmer outside relatively speaking, none the less I warmed them back up in time for the general tour.

While heading over to their power plant and couple of critters were spotted, a chipmunk and a young moose that’s wanders into the grounds.

Once inside their power station I was able to see what I had read about. Chena Hot Springs uses low temperature geothermal water to generate electrical power by using modified UTI centrifugal
chillers units; they are able to generate 60% of their electrical needs.

The rest of the tour was showing our group around the grounds, what they grow here in their green houses and of course the hot springs itself where visitor soak their weary bodies in, it’s a large pool.

There are a lot of flowers around and being guard by a giant dragon.

Julie and I decide to spend the rest of the day soaking in the very inviting hot springs pool, so off we went to get our swimwear. One more night would be spent here before going back to Fairbanks

Thanks for following along,

Alex Blasingame

aka, c.travelingman21000

Alex and Julie's Travels

Part 10