Fairbanks

The next day (Wednesday) we took the shuttle back to the train station and checked our bags. Since we were going to Fairbanks we couldn’t check them right to our hotel, but had to pick them up at the train station. The train was the exact same as the first one and we were in the Gold Star car again. The ride to Fairbanks took 4 hours and we had both lunch and dinner on it (which wasn’t that good.) I wrote all my post cards to people on this train and mailed them at the train station in Fairbanks. When we arrived in Fairbanks I got our bags and found the shuttle to our hotel (the River’s Edge Resort.) The shuttle was not wheelchair accessible. I should pause here and say that not only did I have our tour company (Alaska Tour and Travel) tell all the trains, tours, busses, boats and hotels about the wheelchair, but I also personally e-mailed or called the hotels and trains myself and was told that they would be.

We didn’t have to check-in at the hotel since we were given our keys (which were the oldest looking card keys from the 1980s.) I did set up the shuttles for our tours though. Our room – which was a small cottage – was alright.

The next day (Thursday, June 30th - my birthday.) We ate breakfast at the hotel and then took the shuttle to the Discovery Riverboat Cruise. We had no issue boarding with the chair. On the cruise we saw a pilot take off and land on water and went to an Indian Village (they call themselves Indian and not Native Americans.) In my opinion there is no such thing as a Native American since they all crossed over from the Bering Sea and hence aren’t native – they are just earlier immigrants then the rest of us. The best part of the Indian Village was the dog sled team. There was one dog in particular that kept running up to my mom and jumping up to her. I guess she (the dog) thought the chair was a sled. Even people around us kept commenting on the same dog staying with us. I got a lot of good pictures with them. All-in-all the cruise was pretty good.

When we got back to the hotel we ate at the hotel’s restaurant. Since it was my birthday I had the filet mignon. It was cooked just right and tasted great – I haven’t had steak of any kind in a restaurant in the past 2 ½ years because New Hampshire doesn’t know how to make them well-done. The only down side to the meal was the waiter who smelled - it was a mixture of marijuana and bad body odor. I was also able to get birthday wishes from friends and family via e-mail and Facebook which was pretty neat. I had a good birthday even though we were in Fairbanks.

The next day (Friday, July 1st – Canada Day) we ate breakfast at the hotel again and then around 11 am a shuttle came and took us to a part of the Fairbanks Airport for our tour to the Arctic Circle. The tour company people were very nice and helpful. We bought peanut butter and jelly lunches from them to eat on the tour – my mom ate her sandwich, but I didn’t have mine for some reason. We took a small plane an hour and half to Coldfoot . I took a picture of the GPS when we crossed over the Arctic Circle. From there we met our guide and took a van to the village of Wiseman – with a population of 13 families. There we talked to some local guy and saw his house (he has the same Internet satellite we do.) The one good thing is that the guide drove my mom and me around the village since the chair couldn’t go in all the mud and holes. One thing that put me off about the village was that they didn’t have any Indians, but kept talking as though they did. We took the plane back to Fairbanks where the shuttle brought us back to the hotel. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant where this time we had a good waiter, but the kitchen kept messing up our order (I had filet mignon again since everything else was fish or seafood.) Before going to the Arctic Circle tour I called the Alaskan Yellow Cab Company in Anchorage to reserve a wheelchair accessible car to take us from the Anchorage Train Station to the Airport at the end of our trip. The first woman I spoke to (her name was Easter) was beyond stupid. She kept saying I wanted the car at 22:10 and I kept saying that I wanted it for 10:15 pm or 22:15. Then she kept asking me for the address to the train station in Anchorage – which I didn’t know and told her that there was only one and that her company was only in Anchorage and should know it. The last straw was when I asked her how much it would cost and she first said she didn’t know and then said “Let’s say around $20.” I didn’t trust her with the reservation and so asked for a supervisor and after having to yell and shout at her several times she transferred me to another dispatcher and I had the reservation checked with her. The story with this taxi continues later.

I have to say that after going over most of Alaska I found Fairbanks to be the best place both in terms of the tours and the people. I would definitely like to go back there.