Sunday (July 17) trip to Fairbanks

Princess has occasional trips to Fairbanks for its employees to shop and get out of the wilderness for awhile. Sunday Ginger and I got on it.   We had a small list of supplies to get. There's nothing but a small
general store in Healy.   We reviewed information on Fairbanks. Decided on taking a trip on a sternwheeler riverboat; see  www.riverboatdiscovery.com

Joining us is our friend Leona. She lives in the Fort Myers area, and grew up in Akron, Ohio.  She is married and the same age as Ernie. She works as a hostess in our King Salmon restaurant.

It is a beautiful day, 77 degrees, clear blue skies. The ship has 4 decks, we go to the 3rd and sit towards the bow (for you nonswabbies, thats the front).

First they show how Alaskan's commonly have small planes in their driveways, versus cars.
Then ahead is a float. The emcee on the boat, who did a great job, describes the plane, on how it will head towards us and be at our decl level when it gets to us. It does. As it flies around, they tell how it will do a tricky land. Head towards us again, it makes the landing and pulls alongside. The pilot is miked up and tells us some things about being a bush pilot growing up in the bush.

Later we pull alongside the home of Susan Butcher , the 4 time winner of the Iditarod Winner, who unfortunately died of cancer at the age of 51, with 3 children.  Her oldest girl (about 15 yrs old) is on-shore and miked up. She shows us the puppies in training  Introduces the dog team and what each dog's job is.  A musher, who is also mike uo, like a NASCAR driver, takes off.  He makes The command, YEE, HAW, GEE , and the one the dogs hate to hear, WHOA (stop).  They fly along pulling the ATV (with no engine) at a truly fast speed. When finished they are released and jump into the river, swimming with the local kids.
 Look for susan's book, GRANITE, on Amazon.

We next go to an n Athabascan Indian village  Deboard, and spend an hour  hearing and seeing how these indians survived in wild Alaska.

It was a wonderful trip!!!