The final frontier
Trip Start
Sep 23, 2010
1
90
366
Trip End
Jul 13, 2012
Where I stayed
Glacier house hostel
Fairbanks, Alaska
Monday, May 16, 2011
On the way we stopped at a spot just over a bridge where we were tipped off that it was a good place to see Dall Sheep (these are quite special as they're not generally found anywhere else). A few blurry photos later, we carried on the journey stopping for something for lunch, (a strange thing called Devilish Ham, a bit like peppered corn beef) arriving in Fairbanks around 6pm. We hadn't booked any hostels in advance but had a few places to try, two of which were next door to each other, or so we thought. It turns out that one owner had taken over the two properties and he showed us round both! Well, he first showed us a suite at $120, then he showed us the "hostel" which was, would you believe a caravan or a kids tree house (which would have been fine if I was 9) at $30 each! The last room he showed us was quite nice but at $100 was still to much for us, so we said we'd get back to him and check out a few other options that we had. Next stop was Billy's Backpackers that was recommended, but we gave up on that as the owner was not around, neither was the next place we tried and began to wonder if we'd find anything. We had one more place to try and thankfully we were in luck, a nice family run basic 4 bed dorm at a very reasonable $20 plus tax each. So we signed in, popped to the supermarket for supplies, went back and cooked dinner and then settled in with the movie Salt and getting off to bed around midnight.
17th May.
Got up at 9 and had breakfast. After skyping Cat's parents, we headed off into town which took about half an hour/40 minutes, to walk the mile and a half. We had a look in the visitor centre and their impressive exhibitions and got some ideas on what to see and do. We then took a walk along the river past a monument of eskimos and down to Pioneer Park (Alaska's only historical theme park) where there are lots of log cabins, places to eat and fun things to see like a riverboat and some great machinery. Most of which was shut, but it looked good! We walked back via a cafe for an ice cream sundae and after a rest we put a pizza in the oven and settled in with a film, Max Payne. After dinner, I made some pancakes for dessert, then had a shower, a bit more cable TV and then bed.
18th May.
Got up at 8.30am and had breakfast in the kitchen. After a bit of internet surfing regarding our flight that we needed to cancel and a quick email check, we checked out. Before leaving, we borrowed the owners phone to ring the airline to cancel our return flight as we weren't going to be using it now, as we're on the other side of the country and not planning on going home just yet. We headed out the wrong way for now as we wanted to see Musk Ox and there was a farm up the road the other side of town. We got lucky and there were half a dozen quite near to the fence and we even got to see a couple butt heads together, as they were fighting over the hay in the corner of the field. From there we drove out to the main highway (nearly going in the wrong direction completely) and off to the next stop a few miles down the road.
