Fairbanks and Paxson

Trip Start Sep 05, 2008
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Trip End Sep 16, 2008


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Flag of United States  , Alaska,
Tuesday, September 9, 2008

I ate my ice cream as we drove north out of town to the Alaska Pipeline viewing area. You could walk right up to the pipeline and check out some displays on how it worked. Rick really liked it. I guess he doesn't get to see that side of his job very often. After our informative visit to the pipeline, we started heading back south. Just to the southeast of Fairbanks we drove through the little town of North Pole. You had to hand it to the residents; they definitely took their town name to heart and rolled with it. All the light poles in town are painted like candy canes, the Wendy's is decorated like Christmas inside 24/7, and the town is home to the world's largest Santa. We had to stop for this.

We pulled off the road and ended up at the Santa Clause House. Wow. Outside- giant Santa outside, complete with an actual "north pole" and reindeer. Inside- perpetual Christmas. Unfortunately, Santa was on vacation so no pictures with the jolly old elf. This place had every Christmas ornament imaginable and piece of Christmas and North Pole paraphernalia imaginable. Interestingly, this is where all the letters addressed to "Santa at the North Pole" end up. The store had letter after letter, from the U.S. as well as all over the world, stapled to the walls. It was fun to read what the kids wanted for Christmas.

We were all Christmas'd out, so we headed on our way. Again, as we were driving we spotted another roadside gem: A whole collection of animal sculptures made from knotty pieces of wood. This was definitely worth a stop, so we turned around and pulled into the aptly named "Knotty Shop." We wandered through a little sculpture garden with various pieces of knotty wood that happened to look like Alaskan wildlife. We got some good pictures and had some fun, but we really needed to get back on the road if we ever hoped to make it to Paxson.

The drive down the Richardson highway was beautiful, and deserted. We had finally left behind all the tour buses full of cruise tourists; just hours of open road ahead of us. The road and skirted the base of the mountains. At one point, a ridge of peaks rose straight up from the base of the road, at about a 45 degree angle. Amazing! Unfortunately though, the further south we got, the nastier the weather became. Overcast skies gave way to cold, pouring rain by the time we got to Paxson. We checked into our cozy cabin at Paxson Alpine Cabins and cooked a little dinner on the grill behind our cabin. Rick braved the rain and grilled some chicken that we picked up in Fairbanks. We also had some beans and corn that we heated up hobo style (in the can on the grill.) After such a long car ride, it was great to have a home cooked dinner. We enjoyed every bite while sitting on the back porch of the cabin, and even a cold beer was good, despite the temperature outside!
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