Day 11- Denali to Fairbanks
Up at 6AM. Had to leave our bags outside our door by 7AM. Decided on breakfast at the Salmon King again. We checked out of our hotel and placed our carryon bags in storage. White water rafting at 7:30AM on the Nenana River. The Nenana River is a glacier fed river that passes by the Princess Denali Lodge. A number of the rapids are classified as class 3 and 4. The water temperature is about 37 degrees Fahrenheit! We were instructed on how to put on our dry suit to make sure we stayed dry. Then we were given instructions on what to do IF we fell into the water. Use feet first and try to catch the rope we throw you. Dark? You are under the boat and need to find your way out. I'm thinking, I'm going to be too numb to do any of this.
Doreen and I had our own raft which was controlled by one person. Thank goodness we didn't have to row! After our first rapid, we fell in love with white water rafting. The dry suit kept us dry and warm, except for our hands and face. Each of us got splashed in the face with the 37 degree water and it really woke us up! We were hangin onto a metal bar to keep from falling into the river, so keeping our hands warm was difficult. As we got used to the class 1 and 2 rapids, we were able to let go of the metal bar and warm up our hands a little more in between the class 3 and 4 rapids. We traveled through 11 miles of the river in about an hour and a half. My only regret is that they had no photographer so we had no picture of us fighting the rapids. I carried my Kodak photosport which is supposed to be waterproof. Apparently, it is not good to 37 degrees Fahrenheit as none of the buttons would work on the unit after the first splash of water. Oh well! We have the memory.
Back to the hotel by about 10:30. We grabbed our bags out of storage and sat in front of the lobby fireplace to warm up and use the internet. Starting to rain a little. We decided to grab some lunch at the King Salmon Restaurant. Then we figured we would take the 2PM shuttle to the Visitor's Center. Toured through the center and gift shop and then walked over and waited for our train.
Train arrived at 4PM. We were assigned Table 4. We were seated with a gentleman from Quebec who was traveling by himself. He had traveled across Canada and cruised up through Alaska. Because he was there first, he sat facing the front of the train while we sat facing the back. Doreen sat for the first half of the ride with her eyes closed. About half way through he invited her to switch to sitting towards the front which she gratiously accepted. For the rest of the trip, we ran into him several times and we took his pictures with his camera, then he took our picture with our camera.
There was somewhat of an issue with dinner logistics. The Princess staff tried to get people to go down to dinner based on their table number. Unfortunately, a number of people wanted later times and there weren't enough tables to accomodate all. As a result, a number of tables decided to wait until we got to the hotel to have dinner. We went down when we were assigned and had prime rib. It was delicioius! An Alaskan Amber topped it off.
The Alaskan view changed as we traveled from Denali to Fairbanks, going from mountainous to flat and then to hilly. We saw numerous telephone poles without wires. These are from the old telegraph system that followed the railway. We saw very little wildlife during this portion of the trip. Most of the scenery was packed with small pine trees which probably hid the wildlife.
We got into Fairbanks at about 8PM. The bus took us directly to the hotel. Again, we had been handed our keys and excursion package on the train, so we were ready to go to our room as soon as we got off the bus. Before we went up to the room, I arranged the early morning shuttle bus to the airport for our last day My packet had my flight departure information as unknown. I had done my own flight reservations and had input them to Princess, but apparently they did not catch. They added our name to the shuttle bus list and told us to have our luggage outside our door by 3AM and be down in the lobby by 3:45AM! Yuck!
When we got up to our room, all of our luggage was there, including the stuff we had not seen since the cruise ship! And we had internet! After checking in with the people back home, we walked down to the first floor and visited the gift shop. Then went out to the back deck and relaxed and watched the sun set.
Day 12 - Fairbanks
Up at 6:30. Breakfast in the hotel restaurant. The hotel had a buffet breakfast, but we chose to order off the menu. I then used the lobby computer to checkin with the airlines. I broke down and instead of one checked in bag per person, I paid for two. With the bath robes and chef's jackets and other stuff, trying to get our bags to the 50 pound limit was almost impossible and we figured it was better to pay $35 for an extra bag than $100 for an overweight bag. I was unable to checkin with our New York to Vermont flight. The first two were Delta and I thought the New York to Vermont flight was United. At least that is what it said on my agenda.
Discovery Riverboat tour at 8:15AM. Bus to the boat. The new boat handles 900 people! We chose a seat down on the first floor. This was a good spot to be because when they opened the doors to go out on the deck, I could be one of the first. While the boat tour followed a script, I was impressed that all of the people were local people who were in the Fairbanks area 12 months of the year. With the exception of the park rangers, for the last 11 days, all of the people we interacted would be leaving Alaska after September and not coming back until May. Many of the Discovery Riverboat tour and the El Dorado Gold Mine tour people were high school students from the local school.
After a floatplane take off and landing demonstration, a dog sled training demonstration and a tour of a native American living area, we were brought back to the Discovery landing area and treated to a lunch of stew and biscuits. Allowing for time to go through the gift shop, we met our bus driver and traveled to the El Dorado Gold Mine. This tour demonstrated how gold miners would remove gold from the permafrost. We were taken by train to the working gold mine area. While on the train we were entertained by singer Earl Hughes. Earl is a popular Alaskan singer who has played with Don Ho. The train went into a gold mine setup were they demonstrated how gold veins were found, then how the gold was extracted from the ground. We then traveled up to the gold mine post where a sluice machine was demonstrated and recent high school graduates showed how to pan for gold. Finally, we were given a bag of dir extracted from the sluice machine and a pan and invited to look for gold. The bus drivers as well as the high school students were very well versed on how to do it. My wife found about $30 worth of gold while I found about $5. Unfortunately, I spilled half of my pan so it could have been more :) After your gold was weighed, they offered to put it into a necklace at a price that was usually two or three times what the gold was worth. We opted to take our gold flakes home and put them in a vial for memories.
Back on the train to go back to the bus. One more surprise. An unplanned stop at the Alyeska Pipeline. The real gold of Alaska! After about a half hour there, we headed back to the hotel. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant then went up to our room. Time to start packing! Making sure all bags weighed less than 50 pounds. And making sure we could actually carry our carry on bags. Good night Fairbanks!
Day 13- Fairbanks to Home
Up at 2:45AM. Our bags were picked up at 3AM on the nose. We went down to the lobby at 3:45 and found a large number of people waiting for the shuttle bus. Actually two buses worth! Onto the bus and to the airport by 4:15. Lots of luggage to transport, we needed a cart. Luckily I had gotten the boarding passes from the computer at the hotel the day before so we moved ahead of a long line. Still couldn't get a boarding pass for our Vermont flight. Went through security and I won the lottery! As I passed through the detector, it beeped and told the security agent that I had been randomly chosen for a pat down. Lucky me! I should have purchased some lottery tickets. I passed the pat down and proceeded to my gate. Decided to get a coffee, tea and pastry before the flight. The line at the coffee shop was a mile long and slow. By the time I got it, it was time to board.
The Delta flight from Fairbanks took off right on time. They actually feed us some cookies as well as a drink as opposed to our United Flights which gave us only a drink. Got into Minneapolis 15 minutes early, but had to wait 20 minutes until our gate opened. Got to our gate just in time to board. Flight from Minneapolis to New York also went well. We had to pass north over Syracuse because of weather, but still got in on time. We got off the plane and tried to check our United flight and were told we had to go to the United terminal. This entails leaving the Delta security area and taking a shuttle bus to the United terminal. When we got to the united terminal, I tried inputting the information into the kiosk and it told me that it could not give me a boarding pass for a US Airways Express flight. US Airways Express ??? Talked to a United representative and he said , "Yeah, they do us a favor every now and then and carry some of our flights". So, we hoped on the shuttle bus again and drove around to the US Airways terminal. Try to type the information in the US Airways kiosk and it didn't recognize the number. Aaahh! Talked to a US Airways representative and he said he would have to find someone else who knew something, then disappeared. I then tried fiddling with the kiosk and found that if I typed in my last name, it found the information and gave me 2 boarding passes. I left before the representative even got back.
Through security again (had to give up my bottle of water) and found our gate. Good thing we had two hours between flights! We boarded on time and it looked like we were going to arrive home on time. Wrong! On the runway, the pilot shut down the engines and turned the light on, then told us that the airport was temporarily shut down because of lightning storms in the vicinity. He did let us use our cell phones so we could inform our rides. They feed us a drink and cookies while waiting the one and a half hour on the runway. Finally, the airport opened and we were 13th in line. Take off went fine and we were into Burlington airport by midnight. Vacation officially over!
Fairbanks Pictures
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