Alaska Bound Sunday, July 3, 2011
by: Bert and Carol Henderson, Rig #13.5
The smell of coffee woke us up this morning at 6:15 a.m. After spending yesterday touring the city of Fairbanks for eight hours, falling to sleep last night was easy. Today was not going to be as arduous with a “come home” time of 3 p.m. instead of 5 p.m. like yesterday. With the shortened day we’ll have time to catch-up on laundry and make notes in my travel log for my magazine articles.
This morning we started at 9 a.m. with a self guided tour of the University of Alaska Museum. The artifacts and exhibits on sustainability, Alaska life, and art were excellent. Just like the C. M. Russell museum in Great Falls, MT, two hours were not enough to visit all the exhibits and devote the quality of time to view them as they required. Some of the artwork was produced with a professional hand and very good--enjoyable. Other pieces of art were done with an adolescent hand and appeared child like in there subject rendition—some not bad. The ivory sculptures were excellent and the scrimshaw was beautiful. Carol and I enjoyed the professionally preserved animal exhibits and were impressed with the size of the polar bears paws—they were huge. Carol was not impressed with the sound room as I was. The sounds bothered her ears, but I enjoyed the exhibit.
We took time to return downstairs to peruse a smaller gallery of original art that was exceptional.
After using up our budget of time we took a few minutes to catch a cup of coffee and hot chocolate at the museum snack bar before boarding our bus and going to lunch in downtown Fairbanks.
Before lunch there was an impromptu tour of a small garden given by our bus driver Lars. Carol and I decided to stay behind and go into the enclosed visitor center and get information we could use for our travel to the Workhorse service center on Tuesday to get our coach taken care of.
Off to lunch at the Chinese’s buffet where we stuffed ourselves with marvelous oriental food like pepper steak, teriyaki chicken, oriental tea, fried rice, and good desserts. When we left to board the bus for the next stop we felt like a barrage balloon—stuffed to the max.
Our next venture was into downtown and to view the Memorial For The Interior Family. We then walked about three blocks to the Ice museum where we were treated to a pretty film about the World Ice Sculpturing Competition in Fairbanks. After the movie we were treated to the viewing of gorgeous ice sculptures that were preserved at 25°F. We had plenty of time to photograph the displays. A gentleman who is a world class ice sculpture from China provided a demonstration for us by producing a beautiful snail out of a chunk of ice.
Returning home after 3 p.m. we have a driver’s meeting scheduled at 6 p.m. followed by hors d’oeuvres and entertainment by Earl Hughes at the RV Park hotel after the meeting. We were entertained by the musician laureate of Alaska with songs that we could relate to. We sang, requested personal musical favorites, and were treated to patriotic music for the July 4th Holiday.
Our day tomorrow is a free day with people going to the Arctic Circle, and other places; we’re going to the North Pole to get letters sent to our grandbabies for Christmas and take pictures to support our claim that we’ve seen the REAL Santa Claus and reindeer team. We also hope to use our time tomorrow to do a dry run to the RV Service center that we have to go to on Tuesday.
More Later!!
--END--
No comments:
Post a Comment