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| The Fairbanks 4th of July Celebration at Pioneer Park, that The Locals Prefer to Call by the Longheld Name of Alaskaland. Master of Ceremonies is Dressed as President Herbert Hoover. The Presidential Train Car is a Museum to the Right. |
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| 1923 Presidential Train Car for Herbert Hoover's Visit to Alaska |
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| Chantal, Artist, Mother, Preacher's Wife from Australia. Here in Her Shop in Pioneer Park. We Met Her Parents, Dad Chris is a Preacher in New Plymouth, New Zealand and Spent a Month With Them There. |
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| This Cute and Sweet Girl is Esther. She Made This Funny Face and I Happen to Catch It. |
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| A Sunday Afternoon Trail in Fairbanks. Yes, There are Mosquitos to Defend From! |
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| Looking From Our Second Story Room to Our Car in Fairbanks Cabin |
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| Bird Sanctuary at Dairy Museum Farm. |
Saturday. 4. Met up with the Halbrook family from church, at noon at Pioneer Park for the Independence Day celebrations. We walked around and looked at some of the historical displays. Esther, their daughter, took us to Chantal’s shop to introduce us. She babysits for Chantal's kids, the youngest is also Esther. Chantal is an artist with lovely items that I don’t have enough time to shop today, but I will be back hopefully. We met Chantal’s parents and family in New Plymouth, New Zealand in Jan 2024! I’ve followed her on Facebook ever since. And now here she is in person! We had hoped to attend a wedding here in Fairbanks at the end of July. A man from Chantal’s congregation and a woman from New Plymouth, Leisha, from her parents' congregation. Leisha and her daughter are waiting for immigration papers and they have not arrived on her time schedule. She is now hoping to arrive in Fairbanks in September. Her fiance has gone for several weeks to see her in New Zealand. Darrell got a huge ice cream as his holiday treat. After watching the ceremony with a man dressed up as the visiting President Hoover of 1923, Darrell and I went to meet Chantal quickly at her shop. Then we met the Halbrooks at the movie theatre to watch ‘Young Washington’. We didn’t know much about the movie, but we enjoyed it. It was a lot of 1700s war and fighting which bore the harsh realities of the history and the reminders of how our country was formed.
Sunday. 5. Time in worship and Bible class with others. Time together at our cabin. A walk through the woods at the Dairy Farm and beyond.
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| Esther Reading Her Rainbow Color Book to Us! |
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| Owen Visiting from Alabama |
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| Barn at the Botanical Garden |
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| Darrell Beside this Stream at the Botanical Garden. Kids Come Here to Play in the Water. |
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| A Field of Peonies in Bloom at the Botanical Garden |
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| Peony |
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| Pretty Bloom |
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| Variety Flowers |
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| Darrell's Hand Holding a Peony |
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| More Blooms |
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| Wow |
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| Another Peony |
Monday. 6.
Tuesday. 7. Mid-morning online Bible class is interrupted by poor internet connection here, even with the Starlink that our host has provided. Darrell is supposed to teach this class next week and this won’t work. He’s going to ask the local preacher, David, if he can come to his house and teach from there.
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| River Through Fairbanks |
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| River Walk in Fairbanks Downtown |
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| Visitor Center in Fairbanks |
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| Excellent European Pastry Shop |
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| Us Chilling in Our Living Room |
Wednesday. 8. My haircut day! I also did a little shopping. After lunch we went to the free museum and visitor’s center in Fairbanks. We took a couple mile walk along the Chena river’s paved walkway. We watched the end of one movie in the Visitor Center Theater and an entire 2nd movie about the “Arctic National Wildlife Refuge” in Northeast Alaska. I may have seen this movie in my life, but being here in Alaska makes it closer and more understandable. I have such gratitude for this area and the people who have worked for it and continue to manage it. It’s a treasure for sure. The first movie was about the man whose diary I have been reading at our airbnb/cabin. These were some of his reels from his first year of building a cabin and living off the land in the Twin Lakes region. It was interesting to me to hear and see the end of his life story and what happened to his cabin. I suppose this same history conclusion will be at the end of this book I’ve been enjoying too. After the museum, we googled to find French pastry nearby. We found a good one to share! In the evening we went to Bible class taught by Bob Burcell, local and lifetime resident. Starla brought me her food processor to borrow as I requested. She’s leaving town with her three kids tonight on a redeye. They are going ‘outside’ for 3 weeks to Indiana, Kentucky and who knows where else!
Thursday. 9. Hanging out at our cabin in west Fairbanks, closer to Ester, down a wooded lane and just off Hwy 3, about 12 miles to the other side of east Fairbanks. We slept until about 7am, late for us, but we enjoyed the luxury.
Friday. 10. Darrell’s eye treatment went very well. He had a quicker recovery today. The doctor had a resume of 20plus years in the Air Force and some high level government positions. He seemed quite thorough with a lot of experience. By evening, we were able to go for an after dinner walk at the Botanical Garden. We found the maze on this visit, but got done with it pretty quick. While looking at an Alaskan tourist map, I was reading 3-days in Fairbanks, and found out about the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics! I looked it up online and it is next Wed-Saturday and it is the 65th annual event. We are now pretty excited to discover this and look forward to it.
Nomad Notes. This week Darrell’s Mom was in and out of the hospital in Salt Lake City while Steve and Janine are caring for her during her time with them. We had a call with Eric, Owen and Esther. The next day or two, Owen asked to call again. I was gone to get my haircut, but Darrell got on the phone with him and the conversation went on for 40 minutes! Darrell filled me in on the content with Owen showing his Paw Patrol toys, as usual. Then Darrell diverted the conversation to make up a story, “there are no monsters under the bed”. Darrell proceeded to speak his made up story with different Sesame Street characters affirming that there are no monsters under the bed. He said that Owen was very interested in his storytelling! I continued to think how wonderful it is to love your grandpa so much that you want to call and hang out in conversation and spend time together! My heart is so full. We’re looking forward to Darrell’s sister and daughter, Cyndy and Kylee, coming on Saturday night to be with us for 4 nights. I’m starting to get pretty excited to go back to Denali National Park with them next Monday!
We also decided on and confirmed some open dates in our travel stays for August. After we leave Valdez on August 12th, we’re going back to Palmer for a week, and a different airbnb than last time. After that we are going down to Homer for a few nights. Then back up to Soldatna for our final week before going back to Anchorage just prior to our Cruise leaving Sept 2nd. I let several of our Palmer friends know that we are coming back there and will see them again.
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