Day 96 – June 14 (Alaska Day 5)– Pioneer Park

In Fairbanks they have a free park where you can walk along and view old building that have been moved from different locations around the historic Fairbanks area.  We had attempted to go to the park yesterday, but it doesn’t open until noon and we didn’t have time for the park and our boat ride.

We moved from the Wal-Mart lot to Tanana Valley Fairgrounds Campground.  There was a sign on the office door to select a site from a list of available spaces on a whiteboard and then register and drop off the paperwork.  So we walked around and found two on the list that were close together.

We had a fast lunch and departed for Pioneer Park.  We walked around the park, went into a few of the shops and enjoyed the great weather. 

On the way back to the campground we stopped at a farmers market, looking for green onions of all things.  We were going to fix a 7-layer salad and could not find the onions in the grocery department of our camping host – Wal-Mart.  Farmer markets in this area seem to mean craft show more than farm products.  It was a large market and I saw two groups selling vegetables.  While Rick and I were talking to a guy selling birdhouses an airplane flew over real low.  The guy said it was not good to see those types of planes because there was a forest fire somewhere.  Two or more planes flew overhead before we left the market.

We returned to the campground and Rick parked in front of our camper.  As soon we got out of the car, a guy showed up in a huff.  He said I was in his spot.  I explained the site was listed as open when we came in.  He was still mad and said he had paid for the site but was not going to be there when the host returned so I need to take care of it.  I figured it was really his problem to work out with the host.

We went in and Rick came over.  He said he wanted to move because of the planes flying over the campground about every 10 minutes.  So we got ready and moved to Riverview Campground near North Pole.  I would guess the guy thought he scared us off – so he had to be happy.

We checked in at the new campground and the lady in the office heard us say we were driving to the Artic Circle tomorrow and she said not to take our campers.  So we are back to - what to do.  This has been working on Rick for a while.  The car got some damage on the Top of the World Highway from the gravel and he didn’t want to pull it on the road up to the Artic Circle.  We finally decided to take the campers back to Wal-Mart for the day and drive the car.