Chillin' in Fairbanks

My day off...what better to do than ride a train through the interior of Alaska? A few days before the day off I got a confirmation for the train, reserved a hotel room, and ordered my dinner. We ride in Holland America cars because they are the partners of the company I work for. Their cars are all domed cars so the views are wonderful from every seat. Employees dress up somewhat so I brought a skirt and oxford shirt. I was there in plenty of time because there are times employees get bumped for touring guests.

I boarded the train around four pm and settled myself in, as there were plenty of empty seats. I chose the very back, mainly because the rest of the car was a single tour group. I could also call people without being a distraction. I had at least three bars the whole trip, even in really desolate areas.

I took many photos, from the train's perspective, of the large hotels, the river, and the train. I only saw one moose eating, but I wasn't really looking for wildlife on this trip. I'll see plenty before I leave in July I'm sure. I did get many good sky/cloud photos.

The train car host was explaining about river silt, glacier melt, and assorted related science topics so I was taking notes which may be very helpful for my science classes this coming school year. I know people on the train probably thought I was nuts for snapping so many photos and taking notes about glaciers! We GOOD teachers never stop learning and collecting information!

Because our tickets are similar to standby meals are not included. I took a lunch from the hotel which was actually quite good. A banana and chocolate chip cookies rounded out the turkey sandwich meal. Several other couples came to the back where there is a small counter and laid out a cheese and crackers and wine spread. I talked with one lady from Australia who was just starting her month long vacation. She and her husband take at least one big trip every year, sometimes three or four. They are flying to Pruedoe Bay to go to the Arctic Ocean, then will spend time in most of the big cities as well as small villages. They are not going to Barrow, the northernmost town in North America. I found that a little odd since they will be in Alaska for so long, but they did not know the significance of it geographically. Plus, Barrow, on the first day of summer does not see the sun set at all. As revealed on time lapse photos the sun makes an arc in the sky just above the horizon. Seriously, look it up to view the photos.

Once we arrived at the Fairbanks train station there were five Holland America buses waiting to take their passengers to the Westmark hotel. Once the bus was full the driver reminded everyone of the safety briefing he had to give. Apparently, every time they got on a new source of transportation the driver, pilot, whoever, had to repeat their safety and emergency plan. By the time they were in Fairbanks that briefing was down to one sentence, "Find the emergency exit and get out!" I think by that time they had probably changed vehicles at least nine times in six days.

We arrived at the hotel and I had no competition at the desk to get my key because everyone already had theirs in an envelope. I was given a first floor room in a very quiet part of the hotel. I put everything down, changed into walking clothes and went out for my 10K volksmarch around Fairbanks. It was after nine pm by now and I think I finished those six miles by midnight. I went through a place called Pioneer Park that has homes from a longtime ago, an old
steam shovel, a fine arts center with colorful native masks on the outside of the building, and an old riverboat.

For those of you who do not know what a volksmarch is, it means "people's march" and it widely done in Europe. THere, people go in large groups to walk the countryside, generally on Saturday and Sunday. Participants get a start card and either mark or have punches made to show they have passed specific checkpoints. Sometimes there are trivia questions to write the answers for on the card. These prove you have actually made it to the halfway point. At the end beer, brats, and sweets are available for purchase. Generally in the USA there is none of that if you are doing a Year-round march, meaning you can walk it anytime you wish during the year.

On Thursday I got up early, well early for me! I planned to be busy today: go to Creamer's Field, visit the Large Animal Research Station (LARS) at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks; and go to the Yukon quest HQ to listen to Jodi Bailey. I bought an all day bus ticket for $3.00 (great deal by the way) and headed for the LARS first, mainly because it was the most remote of all the places I wanted to visit. I was able to take the bus most of the way, but wound up walking about 1 1/2 miles to get there.

LARS has funding from the National Science Foundation so their set up is quite well done. There are caribou, reindeer, and musk oxen. Who knows the difference in a caribou and a reindeer? Answer will appear somewhere is a future blog!)
There are large sections of land separated by fencing for each group of animals. To see the entire facility a tour guide must take visitor around. Today there were several elderly women who got to ride in the golf cart, mainly because their adult daughters told them they didn't need to be doing all that walking...You could see them rolling their eyes as they said this! The guide talked about the specific research topics being studied, mainly nutrition. Here's the nutrition for one young musk ox-

Next, I waked about another 2 1/2 miles to get to the closest bus stop for my Creamer's Field jaunt. The road the bus usually takes was closed for construction and I have no idea where to go, mainly because I figured all pedestrian traffic was detoured also. I called the bus company and finally, after talking to several people, was told to basically run to the next stop on the route and I'd make that next bus. I knew where that stop is so I got moving and barely made it to the bus before it took off. After a short ride I got off at Creamer's Field.

It is, in fact, a field with marshes set aside for birds to migrate to and have sanctuary or refuge. I really do not know what I thought I would see besides birds in a large field...that's exactly what I saw! There were lots of Canadian Geese hanging around, but not much else. It took me all of five minutes to watch them and decide I was done!

Unfortunately the next bus wasn't coming until 55 minutes later, so I figured I might as well walk. My thinking was I would probably get there faster than waiting for it. That was about another 3 1/2 miles so I really racked up the mileage in those two days! I went to the Yukon Quest Headquarters (another 1000 mile sled dog race I enjoy following) to listen to Jodi Bailey talk about her race and see her dogs.

Jodi made history this year by being the first musher to complete the Iditarod and the Yukon Quest as a rookie in the same year. YQ runs in February and Iditarod runs in March so there was not much time between her races and she was using some of the same dogs. She is so energetic and truly loves being with her dogs during training, on the trail, and hanging out in the summer. She brought three of them to show the public, who have serious misconceptions about sled dogs, mostly in part to movies who cast the wrong dogs for their canine roles.

She talked about their food, drop bags, their training schedules, how they are selected, what the YQ was like, and a few about the Iditarod also. She realized I was there and just asked me about prize money for Iditarod, which I thought was kind of cool, because I did in fact know the answer. She announced I was a teacher who follows sled dog races with my classes and to please excuse her for just a second. She came over, gave me a hug, and signed my Iditarod book. I figured now was the time to ask for some dog fur so she did a quick demonstration on how she grooms the dogs to get their winter coat of fur off and gave me what she had on the brush. I'm going to be using it for science class so she told me she would get some from the kids she left at home and would bring me some on Saturday. Now I have fur from Mike Santos, Jodi Bailey, the NPS dogs, and soon will have two more kennels' contributions. This is shaping up to be a great science lesson on comparing and contrasting, observation, and analysis of matter. No I am not insane, rather thinking out of the box (which I've never been in anyway). This will be my introductory set of lessons for sled dog racing so why not make it a real attention grabber?

Having done of this I went back to the hotel, collected my bag, got on another bus and heading to the gathering place of employees who were taking the hotel bus back to Denali. I did a little shopping in the grocery store, wrote in my journal for this blog while waiting for the bus, and talked to people. Around 6:15 pm the bus was ready to roll and we picked up others from the movies, and headed home. I might just make this trip to Fairbanks again- good night's sleep at a good hotel, great ride on the train, and I did enjoy all of the walking, as I have now earned my summer 100 mile club T-Shirt!