Day 2 July 5, 2022 Morning

We were to leave on Day 2 at 8ish. The plan was to have breakfast at 6:30 and have luggage downstairs in the lobby at 7:30. Good thing that John and I are early risers anyway. The eight of us were downstairs right on time. I thought that was a good omen and continued the rest of the trip. It is so nice to travel with people who show up when they are supposed to.

The bus we boarded was big enough for a party of thirty. We had lots of room. The couples sat together and Ron and Krista had seats to themselves as did Tom. We put our stuff in the seats behind or in front of us. Most everyone else had backpacks that were much larger than ours. We had a dinky little backpack I bought in China. It fits me, but it is a strain for John to put over both shoulders. By the end of the trip, the fabric between the shoulder straps was ripping out.

The story of the backpack is a funny one. We bought it at the silk market in Beijing, China. Picture booth after booth of merchandise to sell and you have the silk market. I went into one area that had backpacks and called out to Becky that I liked this one. She came up to me and hissed in my ear to never let them know that I actually wanted to purchase something. Oh, yeah, this is not an American store where the price marked is the price you pay. We ended up having to walk away because the shopkeeper wouldn’t bargain. Why should she? I’d already said I wanted it. Dumb American. As we walked away, the shopkeeper called after us, “Lady, lady” and offered a lower price. Clearly, we did buy the backpack.

ALASKA PIPELINE

We started the morning by going out to the Alaska Pipeline. It was right where the pipe went from above ground to underground. Tom told us they built the north half of it above ground to avoid melting the permafrost which is melting now anyway because of climate change. It certainly was big. As an environmentalist, I wonder about the environmental cost of the pipeline, but all the information we heard about it touted how good it has been for the Alaskan economy. First, the boom of workers who built it, though most of them went home once they were done.  We spent thirty to forty minutes out there, not really much to see anyway. Big pipe on tall legs. John took several pictures of it.

 

At this location, the pipeline dives into the earth and continues underground.

Across the street was a place where tourists could pan for gold. The bus driver told us that they trucked in possible gold-bearing soil from another location for tourists to pan for gold. Ah, tourism.

CREAMER’S FIELD

Next, we drove to Creamer’s Field, a bird watchers’ sanctuary. Krista had taken a taxi there the day before. Tom told us that it was built on the site of a former dairy farm, hence the Creamer’s Field name. He had hoped we’d be able to see moose close up. We saw some but they were very far away. I used my bird song identifier app, Merlin Bird ID and it told me we heard a Song Sparrow. We also saw some sandhill cranes.

This is what Google says about it: A local favorite, Creamer’s Field offers multiple programs on birds, with the most renowned being the Tanana Valley Sandhill Crane Festival held annually at the end of August. Creamer’s Field includes approximately 2,200 acres, including 150 acres that are within the city of Fairbanks.

LARGE ANIMAL RESEARCH CENTER (LARS)

We said farewell to the bird sanctuary and drove out to the Large Animal Research Center or LARS of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. We were supposed to get a tour at 10 a.m., but the center canceled the tour due to the smoke. You can see some of the smoke in the sky at Creamer’s Field photo. The LARS folks thought it wasn’t healthy for their employees to be out in that atmosphere talking to people. That was unfortunate. I wanted to hear about the research they were doing.

Tom had been out there a few weeks before and had recorded some of the information from his guide. He played it for us as we drove out there. It was interesting and I would have liked to have heard the rest, but I understood their reasons. Luckily, the muskoxen we were supposed to see were close to the fence by the parking lot, so we saw that. Big old dude. Hairy, too. John took this picture of the musk oxen. If we’d had the tour, we’d have also seen the caribou they have on site. Alas.

MUSEUM OF THE NORTH UA-FAIRBANKS

Since we didn’t get the tour, we had some time to kill. Tom called an audible and as a replacement for the Large Animal Research Center tour, the bus took us to the UA-Fairbanks campus and we went to the Museum of the North. These are pictures of the brochure I picked up.

As it turned out, it was worth going to, and well done. A display about the Alaskan-Japanese-Americans who were interred during WWII impressed me. I wish I’d taken a picture of a quote by one of them about how fragile freedom is. It felt very relevant in our divisive times. I also noticed that they highlighted women’s stories. The only men’s stories I remember seeing was in the interment section. For more information, their website is https://www.uaf.edu/museum/exhibits/highlights.php. Good job, UA-F.

This is outside. Nice view. Not me, behind me.

After all this touring, we were all hungry and boarded the bus for our next stop. Lunch! At a restaurant called The Cookie Jar. Now that’s my kind of restaurant. (Channel Sesame Street’s Cookie monster here.)