Alaska 2013

Leaving Chena Hot Springs

Another nice day to travel but not much to see with all the cloud cover. From Chena to Fairbanks seemed a lot shorter than we remembered traveling the other way. We went on through Fairbanks, the North Pole and several other little villages and on to Delta Junction. However, before getting to Delta we had to stop at the Knotty Shop along the Richardson Highway. The shop has all kinds of furniture and other items made from knotty trees. We are getting a lot better because we can stop at these places and not buy anything. While in Delta Junction we stopped by the First Baptist Church to take a couple pictures and were fortunate enough to see Dave Becker, the pastor, for a short visit. After visiting with Dave, we decided to stop by the Buffalo Diner and have an ice cream prior to heading further south. The drive south from Delta was nothing compared to our trip on this same route back in July. In July we could see all the beauty of the Alaska range with all the snow covered mountains. Today we would never knew there were any mountains because of the overcast and smoke from a previous fire. We decided to stop at a Paxson Lake BLM campground on Paxson Lake to spend the evening and go on to Valdez the next morning..

The good part of the highway from Chena Hot Springs to Fairbanks

Santa's House in North Pole Alaska

Santa at the North Pole

A picture of the Alaska pipeline taken from a bridge crossing the Tanana River on the Richardson Highway.

John and Gypsy in front of the Knotty Shop with a Knotty caribou.

A knotty something?

Entrance to the Knotty Shop

Knotty wood for sale...

First Baptist Church in Delta Junction

The pictures from the Richardson Highway were not as beautiful as they were in July. The overcast skies and light rain made the mountains hard to see.

We hoped these signs only pertained to winter time driving?

Another view of the Richardson Highway...

Paxson Lake was we spent the night and a little over four hours to Valdez.

Everywhere we go we see these signs. We think they may be trying to scare people out of Alaska?

On the campground road looking for a site. Most of these campgrounds are on the honor system. You find a spot, fill out the registration form and put registration and money in the drop box...

Our campsite for the night and we haven't seen a bear yet...

This morning started out very differently from our last few mornings... It was 56 degrees cold and rainy and we didn't look forward to having to pack up and then go outside to hook up the jeep. So be the life of a bunch of Gypsies, wear out your welcome and move on... Just kidding, we think a lot of people we saw at Walmart live there permanently. Anyway, it was one of those days that would have felt good to sit around a warm fire and drink hot chocolate. Now that's an idea, build a big fire in Walmart's parking lot... bet their sells on S'mores would really go up. We finally did get packed up and left Fairbanks around noon with the thought; "Do we really want to go to Chena Hot Springs even though it was only 57 miles from Fairbanks?" The first 22 miles of road were as bad as any we have been on in Alaska; dips, frost heaves, and bumps were around every curve as we drove through the drizzle. As we went over an especially bad frost heave the road suddenly straightened out and the drizzle stopped. The rest of the way to the springs was on good road winding through forests and bridges as they crisscrossed over the Chena River several times. Just 57 miles and 2 hours later we arrived. We really didn't know what to expect. After checking in and finding our campsite we went for a walk... Is that Rudolph? Nope he doesn't have a red nose, just another reindeer being walked around the resort. After watching the reindeer, we came to a beautiful garden area filled with cabbage (biggest we have ever seen), broccoli, many kinds of lettuce, garden peas, onions, beets, carrots and several kinds of berries. The more we walked around the more excited we were; move over Anchorage, Chena Hot Springs has to be the flower capital of Alaska. The flowers and gardens were equal to the ones you would see at Disney World. After an hour or two just walking around in amazement we decided to try the restaurant. A good choice... started with some delicious crispy and juicy fried oysters and grilled scallops and some wonderful seafood chowder. After the chowder we had the best salad we have had on the trip, every vegetable was fresh from the gardens. Chena Hot Springs is a private resort offering indoor and outdoor natural mineral hot springs pools. It has the world's only year round ice museum and ice bar. The resort is over 100 years old and is located on 440 acres of wilderness. We really played the tourist game with tours of the ice museum (20 degrees), tour of the gardens and green houses, geothermal energy tour show casing Chena's renewable energy projects and of coarse several times in the hot springs (105 degrees). Our only question was why did we leave? Chena is open year around with the busiest time being in the winter when temperatures are as low as -40. What a thought? What are you doing this Christmas?

A couple pictures of the road to Chena Hot Springs. Pictures don't do a good job of showing all the frost heaves and bumps...

More bumps and heaves...

Rudolph was very popular with the tourists.

He would pose for a picture in a heart beat...

Nice cabbage

Chives in the herb garden. Chena had the largest herb garden we had ever seen.

Egg plants

Variety of vegetables

Garden peas... There were bushels of peas needing to be picked... One of the gardeners told us to pick us a mess if we wanted some... They grow all these vegetables for the restaurant and to feed their employees. People working at the resort are provided a place to stay plus two meals a day. Anybody need a job?

One of many types of squash grown

Strawberries were one of the many types of berries they were growing...

Raspberries

Hope we don't bore you with all the flowers? We had never seen some of these flowers..

and more

and

Colors

and more

and

everywhere

Could you pick a bouquet ?

and here

Even the buildings are covered

Yellow is in

More yellow

Linda wanted to take all these flowers with us...

If there are flowers, Linda will find them...

Gypsy took some time in the afternoon do visit Rudolph at his home

This was a near miss that happened our first afternoon at Chena. Wounder if the outhouse is still needed.

Appetizers - Fried oysters and grilled scallops...

Our home for two nights at Chena...

Welcome to the Ice Museum

Entering the Ice Museum... Once you enter the first door you are in a large lobby where you can put a heavy coat before you enter the museum.

John sitting at the ice bar. Everything is made of ice accept the covers on the ice stools which are covered with reindeer fur.

John was trying to warm up by the fire until he realized the fireplace and logs were made of ice...

It's nice in here, it's only 20 degrees. In the winter when it's below zero outside think how this place would feel?

Linda sitting at the ice bar with an ice glass, of coarse there is nothing in the glass... I think she is having too much fun in here?

Linda sitting at an ice table with an ice lamp.

Linda exiting the igloo.

More flowers... a rose encased in ice...

Chandelier made of ice...

Sled dog crossing and sled dogs

Sled dog taking a nap...

Life of a sled dog. Each dog is chained to a post and have their own private little house. The only time they are not chained is when they are training or working... At this kennel there were 60 plus dogs and two girls in their twenties taking care of them. One of the girls told us she has competed in six Iditarod races and her best finish was 15th. They normally have sixty teams start the race...

Entering the Greenhouse

Cucumbers... The gardeners pick off the same vine for around 15 months. They keep pruning the vines and the vines keep growing. Some vines are at least 20 feet long.

More cukes

Lettuce. In the green house there is lettuce from just germinating to ready to harvest. Each lettuce plant is planted as an individual seed.

You can see the many types of lettuce grown in this greenhouse. They also grow a lot of lettuce outside during the summer. Its hard to see the lighting, but the gardeners told us LED lights of different colors (red, white and blue) are used for maximum growing. The LED lights stay on 24/7 (24 hours 7 days a week)

We have never seen so many tomatoes in a greenhouse. These are the smaller salad tomatoes. The tomato vines are pruned like they do the cucumber vines; however, they change out the tomato vines after 12 months. You can see how long the vines get in this picture. Those are tomato vines laying on top of the containers.