A Plesant Short Stop In Nenana Alaska

Our party work up early to head into Denali, Alaska, by Bus.  The trip was a little over two hours and included a short stop over in Nenana, Alaska to learn about the Nenana Ice Classic the town and view the Tanana river.

Note: Most of the Alaska trips bus coaches have bathrooms/restrooms in them so no need to worry about needing to get off.

The trip was a breathtaking trek through softly winding roads through lush green forest and high snow-caped mountains.  For those who are new to the region, Alaska is a very mountainous landscape and does not include many flat regions.

The trees and forest were so green for being such a white snow covered region for much of the year in this area.  Alaska forest soak of the snow melt-off and plentiful sun filled summers.

Permafrost (ground is permanently frozen year around) covers most of the ground in this region, making it hard to farm without greenhouses.

The bus driver informed us that the University of Alaska Fairbanks has been researching growing in Alaska to figure out which crops grow the best in the region. We finally stopped off at our halfway point in Nenana Alaska to take some pictures, use the toilets, and explore the local cultures, which were quite interesting.

The town includes a small free public museum where you can buy a ticket to the Nenana Ice Classic (sorry, no online purchases available from what we could see.) For background on the Nenana Ice Classic, In Nenana, the Tanana river freezes over during the winter months.  In the spring, a large tripod is placed in the middle of the frozen river and a string is attached to the tripod and a timer onshore.  Towns people check in occasionally and an armed guard is placed in a nearby watchtower 24/7 to make sure no-one tampers with the setup.

Last year the Ice Classic competition paid out over $300,000 in prize money, which went to many winners who guessed the same time.  Good luck to those winners who entered this year (and future years reading this blog.

We stopped here for almost 30 minutes before continuing on to Danial.  Overall the stop included sled dog petting, snacks and drinks, restrooms, scenic views of the Nenana river, an example tripod, the free museum, and friendly people.  We boarded the buses again to go to our next stop, Denali Alaska, which we will talk about in our next post.

Our Adventure Begins: Fairbanks

Our adventure began as we touched down on a nice June day in Fairbanks, Alaska.  A nice 65 degree wind blew through our hair as we waited for our buses to board.  After flying from Denver, Colorado (stopping off in Seattle for a few hours,) it was great to finally touch down in Alaska after a long awaited trip to begin our adventure.

Our trip included 10 days through Alaska, concluding with a Holland America cruise for the last part of the trip.  The tour would be going through Fairbanks, Denali, Anchorage.  Then sailing our of Seward and Cruising through Glacier Bay National Park, Haines, Juno, and Ketchikan.  We would end in Vancouver, Canada for what would be one of the most breath-taking and scenic trips we had ever taken.

Our buses finally arrived as they took us to our hotels to eat dinner and Finish our day.  Tomorrow they would be taking us to Denali destination by bus, a destination we readily looked forward to. 

 

For the small amount of time we had, the Fairbanks area is a unique area to Alaska being so large and so far from water.  It made me wonder what the residents that stay do during the winter to pass the long dark days.  The town is unfortunately over-run by chain restaurants.  

We had a big day tomorrow, as we were heading to Denali by bus in the morning.  For those of you have had the question, can you sleep in Alaska during the summer?  The answer is yes.  You can as all of the rooms we visited have heavy shades.  We might recommend for those over sensitive to the light to bring close pins, to shut the shades extra tight.

Warning: Be careful traveling in some areas as we were chased by a local as they yelled out racist slurs and told us to leave the area.  This was the only time in Alaska we had problems.