The weather has been absolutely beautiful this week here in Fairbanks, Alaska. Everyday Jenni Merkley and I talk about going on a walk, but our schedules have not panned out accordingly. This afternoon was exceptionally warm, so after all her runs to and from the office, we met up and walked. We had no specific destination, just wanted to see downtown. We are only about 2 or 3 blocks from City Center.
Downtown is relatively small, I was surprised. It was like downtown Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. The buildings weren't too tall, and it downtown is confined to about 8x8 blocks. Here is the old Northern Lights Hotel, it looks like it used to be so nice, but not its all boarded up. You can even see that some of the windows are open! I don't know the meaning of the sign, but it was kind of funny. The building is abandoned and now for sale.
There are gift shops practically on every corner. Only they are more sketchy then the gift shops we are used to in the lower 48. These gift shops are houses, turned into business. Most of them have way too many signs on the exterior, and animal sheds along the yard and roofs for either fences or decor - i'm not quite sure, maybe they serve as a dual purpose. This particular shop, they don't let you leave unless you buy something - so I've heard. We had some coworkers go in this past week, and they couple wouldn't stop talking to them, and kept following them around showing them how nice everything was and kept trying to ring them up, wouldn't let them leave until they finally agreed to purchase something. Desperate times call for desperate measures I suppose.
A lot of the buildings are abandoned. This is an abandoned restaurant. The window panes were all painted over, and most windows are cracked and broken. The building was bright Yellow, Red, and Green - looked like a poorly painted nightclub, or Oishi in downtown Sandpoint, Idaho.
I'm not sure why I took this picture. This was a foam "M" from a sign that had fallen to the ground. I guess maybe this is my attempt at being artistic?
Fairbanks has predicted that we will see $5.00 a gallon this summer here in Alaska. Boy, these coaches are really going to be expensive to run this summer. I mean, this place doesn't have diesel but it is running at about $4.53 (ish). That's just plain crazy! One small town here in alaska down South on the coast has the fuel shipped in, but the river is running too low this week (haven't heard why) and they couldn't get it up there. So they started flying in the barrels, but in the meantime, that small town is seeing $9.20 a gallon. RIDICULOUS! Just stop driving when it get's that high.
My hotel is on Noble street. What a coincidence:)
The WWII memorial in the park downtown. During the war, Fairbanks' air base allowed russian airplanes to use the base. They picked up many planes from the base, and flew them across to Serbia. This is the monment signifying the relationship we shared at that time with the Serbian pilots as they relayed on Alaskans as ally's.
It's so crazy how close Alaska and Russia really are. If you look at the Aleutian Islands, you see how the wrap around? Crazy huh. And look at Alaska! I heard today that the flight to New York and Hawaii is the same distance from Fairbanks, and it takes a quarter of the time to fly to Moscow Russia. Now that is fascinating.
The quote by President Roosevelt in 1945. It is inscribed on the bottom of the monument.
See the three flags behind the monument. That would be the USA flag, The Russian flag, and the Alaska state flag.
Some weird sculpture we hiked through snow to see. We don't know what the significance is. But the below picture has the silhouettes of these men with their names engraved in the steel...they are all names of chiefs.
In the back of this truck is a giant water tank. This is a very common site here in the interior. Fairbanks, being as large as it is (approx. 98,000 people) has many areas that don't have running water. In the rural areas, about 40% of interior Alaskans have no running water. They store water in the huge tanks that they fill in town, and take out to their cabins.
Jenni and I on the walking bridge!
Another monument we saw was an Eskimo family. Signifying the history of past-times of the interior of Alaska.
Overall the walk was very fun and informational. We found a couple museums to look into, and hopefully see before leaving Fairbanks in 2-3 weeks. I want to see as much as I can. I know that we plan to attend the University of Alaska museum which has a mammoth, and many other artifacts dug up in the Boreal Forrest and permafrost. I'm so excited to learn as much as I can to develop a tour to give the guests on my coach an enjoyable tour. I loved spending time out in the sun, walking. It's nice and refreshing to get out of the hotel and see the sites like a real tourist does:)
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