Saturday, 8/5 – Denali to Tok, AK

We started out with a chilly, beautiful morning ride on our way to Fairbanks. Mid-morning we stopped for a break, made coffee, made a couple of phone calls to check in with family.

About 20 miles south of Fairbanks we ran into smoke. The smoke hung over Fairbanks and the surrounding area all day. Despite the smoke, we went to the visitors center.

The center has many excellent displays. The pictures will give you a sense of the museum-like quality.

The 3-D map was very helpful to us as we looked at the topography of where we had ridden. Also, you can see the arc of the Alaska Range and visualize how it was uplifted by the collision of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. Denali is in the center of the arc.

We are Episcopalians, so the story of the Bishop Gordon was very interesting to us.

We walked from the visitors’ center to the ice museum a couple of blocks away. We watched a short film about the ice sculpting contest held each year in Fairbanks, then went into the room with all the sculptures. It’s kept at 27 degrees for obvious reasons. Fortunately, they had parkas for us to wear.

The first thing we did was ride down ramp on a sled.

We posed for pictures.

And took pictures of some of the sculptures.

The resident artist did a quick sculpture for us.

We went for lunch at Seoul Sushi. Lynne had heard about the restaurant from some other sightseers at the ice museum. Mike and Tim opted for more traditional fare, but the sushi was excellent according to Beth and Lynne.

Rather than stay in a campground shrouded in smoke, we decided to go on to Tok.

We stopped for gas in Delta Junction.

We passed through a few stretches of smoke from the fires.

We made an unplanned stop because Lynne was stung by a bee and needed to treat the sting.

We encountered construction delay just 22 miles from Tok.

We stayed at a different campground from the one we stayed at on the way up. The Tundra RV Park and Bar is beautiful with trees between sites.