Fairbanks, Day One

It's 8:00pm. I'm sitting on an oversized sofa in the lobby of the Pike's Waterfront Lodge, making use of their public wireless internet. It apparently does not reach to my room.

Behind the reception desk is a huge painting of Mt. McKinley. Next to that is a large moose head mount. Okay, it's not large, it's gargantuan.

I believe a tour bus from one of the cruise lines has folks lodging here as well. I saw a Princess Tours bus pull up to the front door just a little while ago.

Tourist season is just getting going here in Fairbanks. But I get the distinct impression that I came here 1 week too early. Many of the "attractions" don't seem to open until after Memorial Day. Ah well. This is perhaps the only time in the history of the world that I was ever early for anything. :o)

I have the use of an "office vehicle", which in this case is a Ford F250 XL Super Duty pickup truck. So, I did some tooling around town after my training session ended for the day and I'd checked into this lodge (which is basically a hotel with "lodge" in its name...).

Fairbanks is a nice town. It's almost identical in size to Juneau, population wise. About 30,000 each. They tie for the 2nd biggest city in Alaska. Of course, they are a far distant 2nd to Anchorage which boasts over 260,000. But hey, what's a few zeros between friends?

I think I'd enjoy living in Fairbanks as much if not more than Anchorage. It has a great university campus with the University of Alaska-Fairbanks (UAF). There are all the necessary amenities, but not nearly as much of the congestion. What more could you want?

I'll post photos some other day as I haven't figured out how to get them from my camera to this laptop given that I left the download cord at home.

Stay tuned.