Fairbanks Fun

Friday 6th June
We both wake feeling so much better.  We go over to the house for breakfast and John makes us a delicious omlette.  We meet a man from WA called Claus (like Santa he says ha ha) he works in the mines and lives in Perth.  He is riding a rented Kawasaki up to the Artic Circle Inuvik, he is originally from Germany but has an Australian twang to his accent.  A little hard to understand but he is very chatty.

Today we went to the Museum at the university.  It is really interesting and we use the audio tour to help us learn more about the culture of the area.  We watch a movie about the war and how the people of the Aleutian Islands were forcibly removed and moved to awful conditions in other areas of Alaska many of them died and they were all very poorly treated.  Their homes were burned to the ground in many cases and they landed at their new 'homes' with just the clothes on their backs it was soooo sad.

After seeing the museum neither of us was very hungry so we got a cup of tea and had a banana and a few crackers for lunch.  Then we rode over to The botanical gardens it is really interesting to see some of the different methods needed to grow some vegetables such as capsicum which needs quite warm soil so they use raised garden beds as the permafrost is only a short distance under the ground.  There are some kids there doing a maths day camp and making a dome bread oven and planting gardens in mathematical patterns.  We spend a lot of time watching the bees.  There are heaps of different sized bees including HUGE bumble bees and tiny native bees.

Then we go over to the Antique Automobile Museum.  It's so cool the cars are 1901 -1936 and each car has a mannequin dressed in clothes of the period, also there are hundreds of photos and bits of film to watch.  There is an 1911 car there that you can sit in and there are hats and clothes that you can wear and take photos.  It was great! and of course I bought some earrings beetle wing ones.  In Victorian times women would tether the beetle to their clothing with a gold chain OMG!!!

Then we went over to Pioneer Park and had a cuppa and looked around the village and the paddlesteamer there.

Wow what a day we packed heaps in even managed to go back to Fred Meyers and buy some nexium OTC yes you read right!!!!! it's ok I needed it and I have a prescription for it in Australia and some cold and flu tabs for Dave.