Road Trip 2010: Day 42 Fairbanks (Part 1)

Tuesday, July 20

Terry went off with 30 of our group to visit the Ice Museum, the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors’ Center, the Georgeson Botanical Garden, and the University of Alaska’s Museum of the North. I stayed back at the trailer to check out the slideout and simply rest by sore legs. (I wasn’t the only one to stay back. One gal was in the hospital being operated upon for an infection around an old repaired hernia. Her sister stayed at her side. (She came through with flying colors and will be rejoining us tomorrow for the rest of the trip.) Two couples stayed back because of poor health. One stayed back because of a bad back that occasionally makes long walks—or even trips through museums—difficult. And two of our leaders stayed back because the wife was flying up to Barrow to visit one of her sons.) I found nothing discernibly wrong with the gear workings of the slideout. I just hope the darn thing doesn’t act up every time we try to move it in or out. I would have napped but they were cutting grass all morning at the campground and lawnmowers are sure hard to block out. So I worked on my photos and posts.

Of course, when Terry returned, she had a card full of pictures from her adventures. And I was still behind! Just to do justice of the photos at the Botanical Garden will require a Part 2 to this post.

Every February there is an ice sculpting contest held in Fairbanks. Teams and individual artists from around the world show up to compete in the competition and the results can be impressive. Web cams follow the progress of the artists as they work to complete their sculptures which can be many, many feet high.

For those of us non-residents who are unlikely to be in attendance, they actually save a few of the "coarser" pieces by putting them in deep freeze (20 degrees F). Those pieces with fine detail have long since succumbed to either the ravages of warm weather or the process of sublimation wherein ice and snow turn directly into water vapor even at very cold temperatures.

Bear in Ice

Cacti in Ice (That just seems so wrong!)

Artist in residence demonstrates technique.

The Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors’ Center was a miniature museum in itself.

Antler arch at Visitors' Center

Beadwork on display

More beadwork on display

Flowers at the Visitors' Center

The next stop was the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska.

There they had artifacts both human and other on display. (Being behind glass, however, photographs proved to be a challenge.)

Mummified blue ox of the Pleistocene

Beadwork on display at the museum.

One room is set aside to expose nature to your senses of sight and hearing. Musical tones and gently changing lights (similar to the Aurora) wash over you as scientific instruments pick up on what is happening in the earth.

Sound and Aurora Room

While Terry and Jonathon were in this room there was a dramatic change in both the light and sound they experienced. Both took on a more foreboding aura and Terry told Jonathon that there must have been an earthquake somewhere in Alaska--usually a pretty good bet. Later that night I checked and sure enough at 1:29 PM that afternoon there had been a 4.0 earthquake out on the Fox Islands of the Aleutian Chain.

On to the Botanical Gardens!