Steve and Jean Mencik headed to Alaska on May 20th for both a cruise and land tour combination offered by Holland America Line.
Flights
We flew from Philadelphia, PA airport to Chicago O'Hare, and then from O'Hare to Fairbanks Alaska. The flights were uneventful, but we did have a delay in Chicago, as the incoming plane had been struck by lightning while landing at O'Hare. Thus, they had to run a whole series of maintenance checks before the plane could be allowed to proceed. As a result, the flight was delayed about 90 minutes. we ended up arriving in Fairbanks around 9PM (which was like 1AM to us). In baggage claim, we met representatives from HAL that gave us our welcome packets, which included tags to get our luggage to our hotel, as well as our room keys, and agenda for the next two days. Once luggage was handed off, we boarded a bus for the ride to the Westmark hotel. Our luggage was delivered to our room.
Day 1
Our first day in Fairbanks was a free day, as we chose to fly in a day early so we could explore Fairbanks. After breakfast at the hotel and a quick stop in the gift shop we figured out what we wanted to do. Steve had hoped to play some golf at the northern most golf course, but it had just opened for the season a couple of days before. All the greens were still closed with temporary greens being used, and only walking was allowed. Given that, we opted to visit Midnight Sun Golf Course just to get some souvenirs.
From there, we had our driver take us to the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, where we visited the Museum of the North. This museum contains lots of information about the interior of Alaska, it's history, the indigenous peoples, and of course, the wild-life of the area.
After the museum, we headed to North Pole, Alaska. Yes, there really is such a place. We visited the Santa Claus House, which really is a huge gift shop dedicated to everything Christmas related. We sent some postcards to our grandchildren postmarked from North Pole.
From North Pole, we headed back to Fairbanks and were dropped off downtown. We eventually stopped to eat at Soapy Smith's Pioneer Restaurant. The food was good (reindeer hotdog and homemade potato salad), and the proprietor was full of great stories about his family. From there, it was back to the hotel (about a 6 block walk) to collapse for the evening.
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