Spending the night at a RV park in Fairbanks we woke up to one of the few days of sunshine we have experienced so far. Our stuff was finally dry, and climbing out of our tent we were offered free coffee from our friendly camping neighbor. Wearing shorts and a T shirt we were happy that we finally were warm. Packing up should have been easy, but the dirty truck made it difficult since we didn’t really want to touch anything. Getting everything wrapped up we headed to the carwash which was conveniently located in the RV park. Here we saw two Australian guys with their decked out Unimog campers… we were a little jealous.
We began the difficult task of washing off the thick dried on mud from the 1000 miles of the dirty Dalton. 20 minutes of washing and we could finally see the original colors of the truck again. Unfortunately most of the mud ended up on my freshly washed face and clothes… oh well. There wasn't much in Fairbanks that we wanted to see except for the University of Alaska Muesum of the North. We were completely engaged by the galleries and tried to learn as much as we could for the hour of parking that we had purchased.
We then headed to the local outdoorsman store and stocked up on gadgets, camping fuel and then headed out of Fairbanks late in the afternoon. The road south wasn’t too interesting in comparison to the Dalton we had driven a few days prior, so there isn’t much to talk about.
We reached Denali National Park to see clouds, heavy winds bending over trees and again… rain. We couldn’t see Mount McKinley or the beauty of the park so we kept on driving south towards Anchorage. We will return to Denali in a couple weeks hoping for better weather and to enjoy the outdoor festival that is taking place there on the 14th. The next 100 miles of road were through thick forests and swamps. With the rain pouring down we decided to make camp in the boonies. The campsite was located 18 miles off the highway and beside Trappers Creek. We chose this spot because it was free and our Milepost mentioned that high clearance 4WD vehicles were necessary. It ended up being beside a raging river that was a hot spot for gold panners. Talking with some local tour guides they described how just then, one woman had found $60 dollars worth of gold within an hour of panning. Also three weeks ago someone found a nugget worth $1800. Whether this was just made up or was actually true…we will never know. We assumed that it was true due to the amount of campers, quads and equipment in the area.
Our dinner was quick, since we were getting sick of all this rain and being wet. We had some hotdogs and called it a night. We awoke once again to pouring rain and a very wet tent. Having a delicious ham and egger breakfast we packed up the soaking wet tent and headed for better weather… or so we thought. We had a few hours of driving to get to our new destination and there wasnt much along the way that lightened our damp spirits, except this place called GORILLA FIREWORKS. We had a good laugh, took some pictures like tourists and mosied on our way.
We arrived in Anchorage to cloud cover and you guessed it, more rain. The city was much bigger than we thought and the streets were tight for the wide and long cruiser. After finding some public parking we set off on foot to explore the city. Our first impressions were that it is much nicer than Fairbanks and the smell of the local cuisine and fresh pretzels made us hungry. We explored the local mall and searched for a nice coffee shop while the rain outside continued persistently. Longing for a place to dry out our gear, get good nights sleep, and have a shower we caved and began our search for a hotel room. Using the internet for the cheapest prices, we found one by the airport to call home. The price was high but still the cheapest we could find and after heckling the price down a bit we pulled our gear out of the car and headed to our room. Walking up the stairs with a funny smell coming from the rooms, wet outdoor carpets and questionable neighbors we already had second thoughts… not a good thing. To our surprise the room was rather clean, warm, and doesn’t smell as bad as all our wet stuff…
While the tent is still packed away wet on the cruiser, our stuff is drying out all over the hotel room and it is nice to finally relax, watch TV, and be dry and warm. Tonight we will be using the internet to research local sights and make an agenda for the next few days. The weather is supposed to get nice for this coming weekend, so we are planning to stay in the area for about a week until the weather changes. We are so sick of rain. This is the last night we are spending in a hotel room though since the price for one night could get us at least 10 nights in campground. With our dry sheets and clothes we will suck it up for the next week and setup camp in the local state park where we will build ourselves a tent city and try to let the tent dry. The plan is also to rent bicycles and leave the cruiser parked for a few days while explore the city.
Tonight we plan on updating the blog and uploading some pictures from the earlier days when we didn’t have service, so scroll back to those posts and enjoy the new pictures.
