Day 2 in Fairbanks, AK. May 24, 2011. I had a horrible time getting yesterday's blog done. The computer simply would not save the work. I troubleshot for nearly four hours until after midnight. I typed the blog twice and lost it both times. Finally, I went to bed at 12:30 AM. It was still daylight in Fairbanks.
I awoke at 5:30 this morning. It was daylight again. I finally concluded that my operating system was simply incompatible with the blog. I switched over to Mozilla Foxfire and, bingo! Everything worked great. The blog began to auto save my work every 60 seconds. I was able to edit and preview prior to publishing. I was even able to backdate the blog to last night. I was so happy that we went back to the store and spent another $150. This free parking for RVs has turned into a real money maker for Walmart.
We then drove across town to visit the Museum of the North, one of the nicest museums I've seen recently. The structure itself is beautiful, with sweeping lines reminding visitors of a wind-carved snow sculpture. Inside, there are three 30-minute movies running throughout the day. We watched one entitled "Dynamic Auroras." Well, Annie watched it and I tried not to fall out of my chair. Five hours sleep doesn't get it for me.
The art and the exhibits were done at the highest professional level. Artifacts from ulu knives to kayaks to dinosaur fragments to a stuffed brown bear, eight feet, nine inches tall were tastefully displayed. The Museum of the North gets Malachi's highest recommendation.
After lunch at Big Daddy's Barbecue - no relation to the Big Daddy's in Boulder, Angie - we went to Pioneer park. The free park has a stern wheeler in dry dock and several dozen original log cabins transplanted from the Fairbanks area. The cabins are arranged in town-like fashion. It was a trip back in time. Pioneer Park lacks the glitz and sparkle of the Museum of the North, but it was worth the time.
We are back in the Walmart parking lot tonight. We discovered that we'd left all five sets of binoculars in Kansas City, so we paid Walmart a third time for letting us park here. Public campgrounds usually cost about $20 a night. Private campgrounds run $30-$40 per night. So far, this "free" camping at Walmart has cost us about $400. The genius who came up with the idea of letting RVers park on otherwise unused lots should get the Sam Walton Award for innovative ways to pad the income side of Walmart's profit and loss statement.
Tomorrow, on to Denali. We have two nights reserved in a campground within the National park. The costs for both nights will be $22.00. Ordinarily, the cost would be $54.00, but our Senior Passport results in a $32.00 savings. That looks like a great deal compared to the free parking at Walmart.
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