Trips by Adventure: Trip to Alaska and West Coast

August 16, 2013 – We got up really early (4:00 am) to go on a tour to The Arctic Circle. We departed downtown Fairbanks by bus at 6:30 am and got back home at 10:30 pm. The tour was very interesting. We had an excellent guide who told us all about the Alaskan Pipeline, Alaskan history, PFD’s – each resident receives an annual payment from a oil reserve fund of $800 -$1200 a year, Arctic Circle plants, animals and conditions. We went up the Dalton Highway. The highway is shown on the TV show “Ice Field Truckers”. The early morning was foggy, rainy, and muddy. It cleared off coming home so we got to see many great sites. We stopped in Joy, Alaska for coffee and outhouse break and Yukon River Crossing camp for lunch and dinner. We received our certificates for having been across the Arctic Circle. They severed us whip cream and chocolate cake at the Arctic Circle to celebrate. Birds would come and eat out of your hand. They loved Arctic Circle cake. We got home about midnight and are going to be sleeping in. It was a great adventure. The wire on GPS broke so I will be working on other methods of navigation tomorrow

Alaska Pipeline in fog

Joy, Alaska- gifts, coffee and outhouse stop

Alaska Pipe Line

Yukon River Camp - housing and restaurant used during construction of pipeline
and now a stop for gas, food and housing on your way to Prudhoe Bay oil fields from Fairbanks.

Surplus Tug for sale. We just have to drive it down the Yukon River to Arctic Ocean
and then south through the Panama Canal to Pensacola. Sounds like a great trip.

These tree are 100 to 150 years old . They only get to grow about 3 months
a year and the ground is frozen all the time about 3 feet down so the roots
grow parallel with the ground about 3 feet down.