Lemons Make Lemonade

That’s a better title then ‘with smoke comes fire’.  Unfortunately the fires caught up with us this year.  I can report the most it effected us was we had to change our plans.  Roy did say he wanted to do some SOP (Seat of the pants) camping this year.  He clarified that with me by saying this was not what he had in mind.

The original plan was 3 nights in Fairbanks then boondocking around the interior of Alaska for 11 nights and return to Fairbanks for 8 nights.  Mother Nature had some different plans. That picture was one of the nights you could see smoke in town, it also helped us make the decision to stay in town for the next few weeks. We are still planning on driving up the Dalton and leaving the trailer in Fairbanks (baby still needs a rest).  As far as driving to circle this might be out of the question because it’s a little far for a day trip.  There is still a fire burning by Chena Hot Springs which was in the plans at one time.  This past weekend did help some of the fires because of the rain it also cleared the air for the airshow at  Eielson Air Force Base. I am ok with this 3 weeks in Fairbanks it will give me enough time to explore plus eat at some good restaurants that we discovered on our last time here.

We spent one day at Pioneer Park which is a free park divided into sections covering history of Fairbanks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Park_(Fairbanks,_Alaska) The day was smoky and pictures were interesting in that you can see smoke in the pictures.  The park itself was large we were able to rent 2 scooters for $10 an hour what better way to get around.  Each of the buildings were moved from other areas of Fairbanks and each building has a plaque with where it was originally located. The brown building with the white trim was a house of Ill Repute. The park has a train but due to smoke in the air Roy had to settle on this to get his train fix.

He does make a handsome engineer.  I think we need a trip back here to take the train for real.  Speaking of trains they have the Harding Railroad Car https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harding_Railroad_Car on display. There is also an aviation museum on the grounds of the park.  We did not go inside though we are here long enough I think it is worth a trip back.

We have a birding friend who has been encouraging Roy to engage in more bird recognition.  He is only interested in finding the big yellow bird known as Big Bird.  So I am just glad Roy did not have a paint brush with him to paint this big bird yellow.

I was glad because I didn’t have bail money.  I did ask our birder friend Lisa if she had bail money.  I texted this picture to her with a note asking for bail money I said he got caught trying to paint it yellow.  Her reply was I thought it was one of those scams.  Then I sent this picture and she texted ok now I know it’s legit.  I sent back Roy assures me it’s legit so please send money.  This is what I got from her

so good news is I did not have to use her money.  We are going to check out LARS (Large Animal Research Station) while we are here now that the smoke has cleared.  Another thing we might do is head back out to the North Pole for some less smoky pictures. So the lemons we acquired have already been made into lemonade.