On to Fairbanks

DENALI PARK, AK - - We used to escape Skagway by heading to Whitehorse in the Yukon, now we escape Denali by heading to Fairbanks...120 miles north up the George Parks Highway. For those with low expectations or who have a general idea of what to expect in "The Last Frontier" Fairbanks is not a bad place. Since we plan to escape at least once a month if we have the same days off we should get to know it better.
ONE thing which I did find interesting in Fairbanks was a mileage chart/sign at the tourist center: we are closer to Moscow, Japan, Southeast Asia and the island of Guam - - to name a few places - - than Ormond Beach.
THERE are plenty of places to get coffee only they are all free-standing little drive-thru stands rather than the friendly sit down / take out your laptop and sip and nibble while you blog or search the internet type.
DESPITE having the University of Alaska in town the place is anything but a 'college town'.
GOOD fried okra can be found north of the Mason-Dixon Line...way north.
BILLIE'S Backpacker's Hostel is a very quaint and friendly place where free coffee and warm cinnamon rolls are served in the morning. As usual, and one of the reasons we like hostels, we met a number of interesting people. One such was a young Japanese individual who sported a "Cold Foot" T-shirt of such a tacky design that it surely was on the triple discount rack. Cold Foot is actually a town about 250 miles north of Fairbanks and above the arctic circle. The re is only one road: the Dalton Highway which has the company of the Alaska Pipeline all the way from /to its beginning in Prudhoe Bay on the Beaufort Sea. I asked the Japanese guy, who was about mid-20s, how he got there: "bicycle, with my pack and my tent." Two points: (1) he's one helluva lot braver than the two of us to ride that distance alone on a mainly dirt/gravel road with long, long stretches of nothing and nobody and no services or anything. (2) If I did ride a bicycle all the way to Cold Foot I surely would have gotten a better looking T-shirt.