One Last Alaska Post - Fairbanks

Our last three days were spent in Fairbanks. In addition to seeing the sights, we connect with a a couple who were high school classmates of my mother. The husband was the president of my mom's class (PAHS '46) and was a ceramics professor at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. They are a lovely couple who have done lots of travel in their retirement.

Panning for gold, we combined our finds and had two lockets of gold pieces made - one each for my mom and I.

We had lunch at a reconstructed mining village. Dad and I posed in front of a giant gold pan.

A stop at a visible portion of the Aleyska (or Alaska) pipeline. Here's a sign telling us where we are!

This is a retired "pig" - a device that goes through the pipeline to keep it clean. The name came from the "squealing" noise it makes as it scrapes the sides of the pipes.

We took a riverboat ride on the Chena River.

We stopped at a model of an Athabaskan village - the native people to this area of Alaska.

Our guide was a lovely young woman who is part Athabaskan. Here she is describing the different types of fur that is used.
This coat was hand made by an artisan and cost about $20,000. Needless to say, I didn't get her number.

Not far from Fairbanks is North Pole Alaska and a huge Christmas stop. Our favorite find was a string of lights make from shotgun shells.

And finally, we went to a recently opened Antique Car museum where my husband thought he died and went to antique car heaven. The "newest" car there was from 1936.

I hope you enjoyed a snippet of our trip. We took about 2,300 pictures. If you want to see more, you'll have to come visit us so we can bore you with our vacation pictures.