Chena Hot Springs

We had a fun day today at Chena Hot Springs Resort. In addition to the hot springs they have an ice sculpture museum that serves "appletini's" in carved ice martini glasses!

The ice museum started out as an ice hotel with a bar, a wedding area and four bedrooms. But, it never was allowed to open as a hotel because it did not meet the building code - it didn't have a sprinkler system! So now they call it a "museum." They have a husband and wife team, professional ice carvers, that work full time to keep it maintained and carve all the martini glasses. They actually celebrate many weddings inside - obviously short ceremonies! They provide winter coats and suggest you wear gloves so you can hold your martini glass! What a unique experience!

A tiger

A xylophone

A polar bear

The "Aurora" bedroom

Cheers!

It really felt good to soak in the hot springs after time in the ice museum!

 Look what we saw on the way home! Mom and her calf!

Arctic Circle

Roger and all the other "girls" drove the Dalton Highway to the Arctic Circle yesterday. The other guys and I stayed behind - figured my broken pelvis would not tolerate a twelve hour drive!

Another adventure crossed off the bucket list!

Riverboat Tour in Fairbanks

We took a 3 hour tour down the Tanana River on the riverboat Discovery. Along the way we saw a demonstration of a float plane taking off and landing near us in the river; toured a replica of an Athabascan native village and visited the home and kennels of Susan Butcher.

Susan Butcher won the Iditarod sled dog race four times with her favorite dog, Granite. She died of leukemia in 2006 but her husband and two daughters continue to run the kennels and enter races. I bought Samantha and Emily a book about Granite and her daughter autographed it. Their school mascot is a Husky so I figured they could donate it to the school library when they outgrow it. We heard about how they train the dogs and then they gave us a demonstration using a special ATV instead of a snow sled. They get so excited to run and when they were done they ran to the river as soon as they were unharnessed!

Native Indian employees talked about their heritage at the Athabascan village. This winter coat is made of multiple types of animal pelts - beautiful and warm!

Good Bye Denali!

This was taken the morning we left Denali for Fairbanks!

North Pole, Alaska

                                          We put in a good word for everyone with Santa!

River Rafting

We went white water river rafting on the Nenana River in Denali - scenic and fun! There are class 2-4 rapids on the 2 hour trip that make it pretty exciting! They provide "dry suits" with latex feet, arm and neck holes plus boots and life jackets. Dan asked if they gave us helmets and our guide said "Not usually, do you have anything in there you need to protect?" Roger, Dorothy and I were in the front and of course we got the wettest - freezing cold water on our face and hair!

No pictures of the gorgeous scenery - too busy holding on tight!!!

Getting wet!!!

Grand Denali Lodge

We drove up to the Grand Denali Lodge for happy hour and found all these cute signs along the winding, switchback trail!