North Pole, Alaska and a tour of Fairbanks

Miles Traveled: 0 (North Pole, Alaska and Fairbanks, Alaska)

We started the day with a drive north to visit the North Pole, or so we told the kiddos.  I think Nolan was afraid that his behavior may not make the Big Guy very happy, as he kept saying, "No Ho-Ho house, MomMom."

We didn't stop in the town, just drove through, but they really played up the theme.  The street lights were painted as candy canes and I bet you can guess the name of the Catholic Church in town.


From North Pole we continued our drive north to Fairbanks.  We started our visit at Pioneer Park.  From the website the park looked like it would be really appealing to the kids and to us.  It claimed to have an abandoned gold mining town, mini golf, playgrounds, and a train.  Now don't get me wrong, it had all of those things, but they hadn't been updated since the park's creation.  As Adam and I wrinkled our noses at the aesthetics of the place Jack and Nolan were having a blast.  Such a reminder that children see things for what it is worth and not what they are expecting.

As we drove north out of Fairbanks we realized if we kept going we could make it to Prudhoe Bay, but on this trip we were not quite equipped for a visit to the Arctic Ocean.  

As we enjoyed the scenery on our afternoon drive we saw many sections of the pipeline.  It is quite an impressive part of the countryside.

As we moved forward I realized that we were also scouting land for a future hunt for Adam.  I should have caught on when Adam said let's just go a little further and he was having me write down the name of landmarks.  It's a good thing the view was pleasant.