Tuesday, August 9: The North Pole and the road to Tok
We left Cripple Creek campground in the rain and drove back to Fairbanks for gas and a few necessities before heading to North Pole and Santa’s Workshop. Unfortunately Santa doesn’t work Monday or Tuesday so Betsy was disappointed she didn’t get to meet him. She was very excited to look through the workshop, I.e. store! She came away with a gnome for each of the grandchildren and moose PJs for herself.
We made another stop for a geocache at a shop featuring knotty wood sculptures as well as icecream. I’m not sure why I wanted icecream since it was 34 degrees in the campground this morning and another store patron said it snowed at his house and there was fresh snow on the mountain tops. Go figure.
Then it was off towards Tok. The Richardson Highway, a.k.a. The RICH Highway, follows the Tanana river as it makes its way south. It also follows the Alaska Pipeline south to Valdez. All along the road you can spot the huge river and get glimpses of the pipeline. Our destination that day was the Moon Lake Recreation Area that was once a bend in the Tanana River. As the river silted up the bend was cut off from the main river flow creating a crescent shaped lake. The warm lake water attracts native animals and migratory wildfowl, and boasts a sandy beach where, on warm summer days, one might spot the most elusive of wildlife, the Alaskan Sunbather. We saw only ducks and a bush plane. Bummer. Of course it was raining.
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