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2010 alaska

Mountain Biking Ester Dome Single Track, Fairbanks AK

7/10/10 update - how sweet the trail is! What’s even sweeter is that April drove me up to the trail head. Thanks to the midnight sun, I didn’t even hit the trails until 8:30 pm. I rode the loop once in each direction. The trails were in great condition and the counter-clockwise flow was great. I posted a few addition pics of the trail head because I had trouble finding it. — I got up early to hit the dirt today. When I finally make it to the trail - 11 miles and I swear a straight up climb to the trail head- the trail was in great shape and flowy. I didn’t get a chance to ride the whole loop due to time. Maybe tomorrow morning…

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2010 alaska

Day 35: Wednesday, July 7th

The mosquitoes at our campground at Cripple Creek were pretty bad last night. They were so bad Scott brought out the incredibly adorable mosquito mask.  We threw everything into the van as fast as we could and went back to where we had dinner, Chatanika River.  Now when I say we I really mean Scott.  I helped pack things up, but Scott was the one who put up the tent in the mosquito storm last night and took it down this morning.  He said that the mosquitoes were fighting for position on his hands because that was the only skin exposed.  Bonus to mosquito land: we had the campground to ourselves.

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2010 alaska

Day 34: Gold Dredge on Steeses Highway

In between the hike and our dinner location Scott stopped at an abandoned Gold Dredge.  He came upon some kids who were panning for gold there.  I put those pictures on a different post because Scott went camera crazy and wanted all of them posted.  He said it was about 30 miles Northwest of Fairbanks up the Steese Highway.

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2010 alaska

Day 32: 4th of July - Tok to Fairbanks

The gas tank is filled up at $3.59 a gallon, and that’s a bargain compared to the Canadian price of $1.18 a liter.  That equates to $5.31 a gallon.  Yikes!  Every visit to the gas station means at least $100.  That’s even harder to swallow when you consider we are only getting somewhere between 12 – 14 miles per gallon.  It’s a good thing we are camping instead of staying at hotels.  We have eaten out less than five times, so that saves money too.

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2010 alaska

Day 31: July 3rd Alaska here we come!!!

Somewhere before Alaska we slowed down for what looked like, from a distance, a real police car.  I was impressed at how many other people slowed down for it.  Scott doesn’t usually speed, but when the small towns pop up the speed goes down quickly.  There are of course other places where Scott has had to slow down.  They weren’t kidding when they said the permafrost wreaks havoc on the road.  Some parts of the road are gravel, which was interesting, but the frost “heaves” try to heave you right off the road.  We were thinking of our Auntie Tiffy who loves bumpy roads.  The hilly back roads on the way to Wisconsin don’t hold a candle to these roller coasters.  They try to warn you with flags and a little bump sign, but they can’t flag everywhere.

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