The last report from Fairbanks

The end of our stay in Fairbanks is getting close, but we still have some things to do. Our first stop is a few miles outside of Fairbanks is a town called North Pole, and as one would imagine it has an extreme Christmas and Santa Clause theme. The main attraction is called North Pole and inside this building the selection of Christmas ornaments and decorations is mind boggling but that is not all. The jolly old elf himself Santa is on duty each and every day except one! This store offers a mailing service that lets you send Christmas cards to family and friends that will arrive in an envelope post marked North Pole. Imagine the joy that would bring to some little ones. They also have a reindeer petting area, but it was closed the day we were there.

As we were riding around it was quite obvious that almost everyone in the North Pole region embraced some sense of the holiday. The business below was just one that displayed it all year long.

Judy and I both enjoy an activity called geocaching and we are going to see if we can find some caches in the area. The first one that went after was hidden at a memorial park for two Alaska State Troopers and the tribute it presented was pretty impressive. After admiring the park, we found the cache and moved on is search of our next one.

The second one that day was near the Fairbanks Visitor Center and after finding the cache we found an impressive arch built entirely of moose antlers!

Sometime while we were riding around, I first thought I saw a broken windmill then I realized that it was just an interesting way to install solar panels. It is pretty evident that building codes are not too strict.

From some of the previous posts it is obvious that Judy and I really like old cars and on our last day in Fairbanks we found the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum. It was a very impressive collection, but the really neat thing was that all of the cars ran! Thanks to a group of volunteers each car gets serviced and driven at least once a year. This museum had some of the most exotic cars that were ever made. Pictured below are just a few of them.

Every once in a while, I see something that just makes me want to knock on their door and start asking questions and taking pictures. Unfortunately I could not find anyone around, so I just got the one photo of this extremely robust RV.

Our next stop on this trip will be Denali and I hope that it is a good stop.