Thursday

Day 50 – Thursday, August 1

There’s a heat wave going on in Fairbanks—84 degrees today!   But, yesterday we did get to try out Alaska’s weather at 40 below zero in the chilly chamber at the Discover dock with some of our caravan friends. 

(I like the heat wave better!)

 

And, speaking of cold weather, when we were at Walmart, I noticed all of the lamp poles had electrical plug-ins.  I thought “how nice…they really are RV-friendly up here!”.  But then someone pointed out those electrical plug ins are not for RV’s…that’s what they use in the winter for cars.  When you pull in, you plug in, so that your car will start when you come back outside….Oh I get it…that’s why those plugs are hanging out of the cars!  Now, it makes more sense….

We visited the North Pole today and got a special stamp from the visitor center.  The receptionist at the visitor center (wearing a Christmas shirt)  was born in Ft. Wayne, Indiana…small world!!  She has lived in Fairbanks for 3 years and said she never wants to spend another winter in Indiana!! 

The city of North Pole is 4.1 square miles in size, with a population of 2,200.

At the Santa Claus House, I spoke to Santa, (who was leaving for lunch, so I was not able to get my picture with him), but I assured him that Spot and Jim have been very good this year.  He was pleased, because his coal inventory is low, and there are a large number of people who will require a big lump of coal this year! 

The outside tile of the Santa Claus house was painted with a pretty Christmas motif, and the inside was filled  with wall-to-wall Christmas things .

You can see the theme of Christmas throughout town.  Of course, there is Santa Claus Lane and the Santa Claus House, but also St. Nicholas Catholic Church, and the sign for the welding supply company was held up by giant candy canes! 

Spot got an early Christmas present…an Alaska bone!  He loves it!

We spent the rest of the day catching up.  Jim cleaned and washed the truck, got the dust and dirt out of the storage bins, washed the back of the motorhome, and I made the grocery run and filled up the truck with gas.  I paid $3.91 per gallon for regular gas; diesel is $4.17 (quite an improvement over the $5+ we were paying in Canada for diesel fuel)

The drama of the day was the mechanical problem experienced by one of the couples in our caravan caused by some shoddy maintenance work done before they left for this trip.   The short story is that they will need a new engine in their motorhome.  So….instead of sitting around waiting for their coach to get fixed, they have elected to rent a smaller motorhome and continue on with our group for the rest of the trip; then on the return trip, swing back by and pick up their motorhome (hopefully fixed) to get back to their home in Myrtle Beach!  They are taking it surprisingly well—what a great example of a good attitude, great approach, and outlook—we should all take lessons from them!