North Pole, AK

Cloudy again today! A view of Denali will have to wait for our next trip north. We hit the road early with plans to visit Fairbanks and North Pole today. The weather was dry for most of the drive but as we entered Fairbanks the clouds let loose and it rained hard the rest of the day.

On the way we stopped in Nenana, an old town from the early nineteen-hundreds. Not much there today but they do have a lottery to guess the ice breakup date of the river. The Nenana Ice Classic is a big draw all over Alaska with a large first prize. This year 44 winners split $300,000. We also stopped at Ester, an old gold mining town near Fairbanks. In the fifties it was a large producer of gold and a few of the old buildings still survive. Twenty years ago it was a popular resort area but in 2007 it shut down.

We passed thru Fairbanks after a gas stop and a visit to the ATM. The rain was so bad we didn’t feel like stopping so we moved on to a campground near North Pole. It continued to rain so we set up our home and didn’t do much the rest of the day. We went from roughing it for two days at Denali to a site with full hookups and cable TV. I think Charlie enjoyed the TV more than we did. We watched One-Hundred and One Dalmatians with Charlie adding his comments at the appropriate times. 

The rains have stopped, Charlie’s been walked and it’s time to prepare for tomorrow and our return to Tok. If the weather clears, we hope to drive the Top of the World Highway to Dawson City on Tuesday. It’s a drive not recommended in wet weather. Karen is a bit hesitant since forty plus miles of the road is gravel and no guardrails. On the positive side the views are described as spectacular.  

                A few buildings in Ester - they are for sale: