Day 95 – June 13 (4^th Day in Alaska)– Fairbanks Day 2

I took the dogs for a walk this morning and the step didn’t work again.  Yesterday it started working all by itself and I thought there must have been a relay or something that had reset to make the steps work.  I guess that is not the case.  So I climbed out of the camper backwards and then lifted the dogs down to the payment.  On our way back I started counting campers in the lot – I counted 21 various campers, not including the two that seem to live here.  I started the generator to fix the coffee.  I looked at the cutoff switch indicator light, which had been out.  It was now on like it should have been.  I opened the door and the steps worked.  I don’t know what is going on because the generator should not impact the step function at all.

We have reservations for a 2 o’clock trip on the riverboat "Discovery" and have to be at the dock by 1:15 to check in and pay for the tickets.  So we are going to stop at the Pioneer Village in the morning and then go to the dock afterwards.  We got to the park for Pioneer Village and found it was closed until noon.  That didn’t give us enough time plus it was about 10 o’clock and we would have to wait for two hours.

We went to plan B, the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska.  We asked at the information desk if two hours would be enough time to tour the museum.  The young girl said yes, most people take 90 minutes to two hours.

This is a truly outstanding museum and a must see if you get to Fairbanks.

We stopped for a fast lunch after the museum and as we headed to the car, it started raining.  We decided to go ahead with the ride and drove to the Riverboat Discovery.  This was billed as a three-hour tour, just like the SS Minnow.  We hoped our tour would have a better ending!  It did stop raining.  So things were looking good for our trip

The Discovery is a true sternwheeler riverboat.  We have been on other boats with a paddle wheel, but it was for show and didn’t really move the boat.  This one actually does work.

The first thing we saw was a float plane take off the river and then he came back around, landed and then took off again.  It was a nice show all by itself.

The Chena River is lined with some very nice homes.  Each is unique and many were built by the owners.

We stopped on the river next to Susan Butcher’s kennel for a mushing demonstration by Susan’s husband, Dave Monson.  Susan won the Iditarod dog sled race four times.  Dave was holding a puppy and there were 3 or 4 other puppies running around playing and being petted.  The dogs could not wait to begin pulling the four-runner with Dave on it.  He had a microphone on and was talking to the boat through the speakers when he made one pass and said they were traveling over 20 miles per hour.

Look closely and you will see the dogs pulling Dave on his 4 wheeler

Next we went to an Athabascan Indian village.  The riverboat tied up and we went on a walking tour of the village.  The kids that told of the way of life were all Alaska Natives.

It was a great day!  Seems like that is what I say every time, but each day is something new and interesting.

Here is Chloe after a hard day of Wal-Mart parking lot guard duty.