Alaska-Fairbanks

I'm back for more recaps from our Alaska trip! Following our day at Denali we stopped for a late dinner at the Silver Gulch Brewery in Fairbanks before we headed to our lodge for the night. Ramsey and I enjoyed some reindeer sausage in our beer cheese soup, and I had a homemade root beer that was super good!

We stayed at the Mount Aurora Lodge that is owned by a friend of Matt's. It was the former bunk house for the copper mine. It was the most adorable place! 

They have a really good view of the Northern Lights. They said we were there about four days too early to see them so we think we will definitely be back! They also made us the most delicious breakfast the next morning! They were so accommodating for us because we had to be out early to make in on time for our Riverboat Cruise!

We boarded the Riverboat, and they began the tour with a sea plane demonstration. It was lots of fun to watch the plane take off and land a couple times right in front of us. 

Then we headed down the river to check out the dog kennels run by Susan Butcher's family.

She was the woman who won the Iditarod a number of times. She sadly passed away from cancer but wrote a very inspiring book about her lead dog, Granite. Her husband was at his house and later joined us on the boat so I was able to get an autographed copy of the book with it written to our girls. I think it will be one of my favorite vacation souvenirs! 

Then we hopped off the riverboat and walked around a cute little village they have set up to resemble a Native Alaskan Village.

We learned all about Native Alaskan culture from their future senator, Noah.

The tour was very informative!

We tried really hard to get a picture of Stanton in her reindeer outfit in front of the reindeer!

We learned a lot about moose, too! These two bull moose were fighting and died this way with their antlers locked together. This tour was able to get permission from the state of Alaska to recreate it.

Having so much fun on a chilly day!

Someone must have taken this photo while I was standing in line to get our book signed.

After the tour, we had an amazing lunch through the same tour company. We then tried to go get homemade ice cream at Hot Licks, but they had just changed to winter hours and we were an hour early! I read really great things about that place so if you go there please tell me if we missed out!

We cruised down the road to the North Pole!!!

We saw an enormous Santa!

Such sweet sisters!

And we found Santa's reindeer.

We found a cute little ornament to take home from their adorable shop. I took a picture of the store inside, but I must have deleted it...:( it was a super cute place to shop!

Then we set off down the road towards Wrangell St. Elias National Park. It's the biggest national park in the US, but also the least visited park. We spotted a couple more moose on our drive.

Along the way we stopped at a couple viewpoints to simply enjoy the view.

Matt spotted a bald eagle so we pulled off the side of the road, and he got some great pictures. It ended up being the only bald eagle we saw since we weren't ever too close to the water.

Can you tell we (mainly Matt) have been working on our photography skills?

Then Ramsey got out to play, too!

So happy!

Then she knocked over a STOP sign...

oops...

Or maybe they found it this way.

Back to the car.

We made it to the park!

And we headed to our resort for the night. Several people told us to stay here so we ended up staying here two nights!

I have a couple more recaps I will post as soon as I can get them done!