On our way to Fairbanks from Denali, we stopped at the 49th State Brewery.  For those of you who saw the movie, Into The Wild (or read the book) this is the bus used in the making of the movie. The original bus is still out in the wilderness.  We even drove by the road where a stranger drove him to begin his wilderness journey.  It was bizarre to think how close we were to the place where he died.  Good book and movie.

On the way to Fairbanks.

A log cabin church.

We stopped at a beautiful lake to fish.  Didn’t catch anything but it was a beautiful place.

Notice the butterfly.

There isn’t a lot to do in the Fairbanks area but we did go to an ice museum. Everything is made out of ice.  They serve you a drink in a glass carved out of ice.  The temperature inside was 24 degrees.

Entrance into the “hotel”.

You can actually stay there for the night in one of the four bedrooms.  Thanks but no thanks. And you can get married there.  Unless someone gets cold feet. (Joke stolen from the guide)

View of a lakefront camp site.

We went to see part of the Alaska pipeline.  It goes all the way from Prudhoe Bay in the north to Valdez in the south.  That’s about 800 miles.

We followed the general route from Fairbanks to Valdez.  It was like playing Where’s Waldo.  Sometimes the pipeline is underground and sometimes above ground.  Who knew a pipeline could be so interesting.  Although it’s been in use for 40 years there have been very few accidents involving oil spills and those that did happen were very minor.  Chances are that in this day and age it would probably never be built. And that would have been a shame.

 

The end of the Alcan.

And the Alaska State bird.

Next post will be of the highway to Valdez.  It deserves its own post