This morning at 6:00 as it was clear and blue sky. We drove toward Fairbanks and the scenary was different that the Yukon. It was a flat country with tall trees that had short branches. There would also be areas where the trees are in marsh land and the water would be a red color that I assume was iron deposits. We stopped at the North Pole first which is a small town about 10 miles east of Fairbanks. They have a christmas store up here and roads with names like St Nick Steet and Candy Cane Lane along with other tourist shops associated with Christmas. It was a nice little town but I would not like to live in it and think about Christmas year round.
We drove thru Fairbanks and started north along the Dalton Highway but turned back at Fox after we had put in gas. I was beginning to realize now half way thru vacation that we were going to have to push it in order to see everything I had planned . So we skipped Chena and Manley Hot Springs and told ourselves if we ever come here in the Winter that we would check these places out, but not when it’s 75 degrees outside and the sun never goes down. I would also like to take the Dalton Highway some day for curiosity, I don't know if I would enjoy the trip or not. We continued south on Highway 3 with scenery being like it was driving towards Fairbanks from Tok. There were many pull-out areas for viewing that always had overgrown trees in the way so you never knew what you were supposed to be looking at. I remember having a hard time driving this stretch as I was tired and Cindy and Jacob were asleep. What I did to get thru stretches like this is put on music like Guns & Roses or Morissette. Eventually we would come to a small town where we would get out, visit some shops , eat and then be ok for another four hours.
We drove to the Denali National Park office and paid $50 for 2 adults, (children free) to take a eight hour tour tomorrow that would start at 5:00 a.m. and hope to see Mt. McKinley. After we signed up for this we figured we better find a place close by to camp. We ended up on the Denali Highway 8 which goes east-west thru the central part of Alaska. We pulled over after driving about an hour on this gravel road and camped close to a river. We pitched the tents and made dinner as we had two rabbits that kept checking out the campsite. Jacob would take pictures while I was thinking of Rabbit Stew. The weather had changed to windy and overcast this evening and we went to beearly aroud 9:00.. I drove 400 miles today and 3150 total in six days.