4°C outside temperature - 40°C water temperature :-)

Hello there! :D

We found free wifi again, this time at Billie’s Backpacker’s Hostel in Fairbanks! It’s a really cosy place to stay at! Lots of people, and the rule here is “just pretend you’re home” :D And we sure feel like it! So here we go!

As you remember, Davy’s birthday wasn’t so great… on the seventh we drove over 6 hours across the alaskan interior without stopping anywhere, except to get gas in a little village (town?) called Tonsina, where there seems to be exactly one house/business: the gas station :-) Plus the weather wasn’t so good then either, it was raining all day long.

So I decided to postpone Davy’s birthday to the 8th.
As every year, when we woke up, I told him: “Hey Davy! It’s your birthday today… again! :D”
He was all happy about that, obviously :-) Then I made him coffee and a peanut butter bagle (the usual morning treat). And finally I told him that as it was his birthday, I’d do everything the way he wanted for one whole day. (I should have know that couldn’t be good… :-) )

So from Delta Junction, on a beautiful sunny summer day, we drove all the way to Chena Hot Springs.
Along the way we stopped at North Pole! We even saw Santa’s reindeers, his house and his street: the Santa Claus Lane. (Believe it or not, all the lamp posts in North Pole look like candy bars! :D Funny little town, appearantly they get an insane amount of letters every christmas… haha!

So from there we drove off to Chena Hot Springs where we thought that with all that driving, a little hike at 3:30 in the afternoon would be just the ticket! So here's what we did: We drove to the Angel rocks Trailhead and started to climb the steep trail up the hill. From there we had a wonderful view of the valley below us.

Davy was so happy with the hiking that he said: “Hey, there’s a trail that goes from up here directly to the hot springs! It’s only an additional 6.5 miles to go! Let’s do it! Only we didn’t have a car back at the hot springs, so we had hitchhike back in a car with someone leaving the springs! And that’s something I was sure never to do!!

But… there’s always a “but”, isn’t there… :D But, it was Davy’s birthday so I had to do all he wanted to do, which is why we hiked on. The trail was really beautiful, with stupenduous 360° views of the valley below us! :)

So we arrived in Chena Hot Springs at around 8pm in the evening. The sun was still shining brightly! Davy and I walked around the hot springs resort for a short while, then sat down on the bridge from where you leave the springs and waited for a car. The first car drove right by Davy and didn’t take us along.

But then I said: “Let me do this, maybe they prefer girls… with boys you never know :D “. So I stood in front of him and it didn’t even take ten minutes when the next car drove by... and stopped! :-)
 “So where are you guys headed?”
“We’d like to get to mile 48.We have our car there and just hiked all the way here”
“Sure! Hop on, we’ll somehow all squeeze in!” (The car was kinda full before we even got on :D) So that was awsome!

From the trail head we decided to drive to our campground, but on the way we saw lots of cars standing on the side of the road… Now, that can only mean ONE THING! :D Wildlife!! So we stopped too, and there it was! First we saw a Moose in the pond, walking in the water, and then a huge beaver crossing the street which then dived into the pond. From there, whenever the Moose got too close to his damn, he'd make noise with his big tail by smashing it down on the water surface! :D So funny! :D

So that was yesterday, a pretty amazing day!!

We also feel less like tourists now, because tourists have nice windshields and alaskan people all have the cracked windshields, cracked all the way through! And ours is cracked now too! Not all the way though, just a little. :-) Guess it's too cracked to be repaired, but those things happen when you drive through Alaska for 4 weeks!

It didn't even happen on a gravel road! (Even though we've been driving more than 300 miles on those too!) No it was on the paved Richardson highway when a truck passed the car in front of him, and Davy followed it a bit too close… then we just heard the “CRACK!!!”… so now we have a nice little crack in our windshield… :D


We were off to the hot springs today! That felt soo good! :) There were hot spots in some places where the water was so hot you couldn't stay there otherwise you had the impression of burning yourself! (the thing is, yesterday the sun was out and we thought it would be better to go hiking and enjoy the views rather than to stay at the hot springs and be lazy all day... it sure was a very good decision! :-)

That’s all for now folks.

Take care! :-)

AnD

The pipeline! Goes from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez all the way through Alaska! :-)

They even got special bridges to keep it out of the water :-)

Santa's Reindeer @ North pole!

North Pole

Candy bar lamp posts! :)

Finally i got my picture ot the Moose Xing sign :-)

Angel Rocks trail

mile 3 on the way to Chena Hot Springs!

View of the valley below!

We got to the top! :-)

the "rural" Hot springs Resort :-)

beaver crossing the road! :)

Moose hot springs :-)

our tent site @ the Red Squirrel Campground

luxury camping ain't it? :-)