Day 17

We drove on from Tok, this drive was beautiful and contained mountain vistas and streams that we crossed. The road here was very good with the exception of a few construction patches. We were headed to Fairbanks. We stopped in a little town called North Pole Alaska. They have a huge gift shop with Santa Clause, all sorts of Christmas stuff, and reindeer outside. Grant had a blast. He was very serious about meeting Santa. He almost acted like it was an honor. We got ready to leave and get in the trailer and make sandwhiches. CRAP!. The trailer has a flat. One of the trailer tires was flat, like completely flat. I got in the dirt and changed it and put the nearly bald spare tire on. It seems to have had a sidewall puncture somehow. We drove the 5 more miles to Fairbanks. I guess after all of that driving, getting a flat 5 miles from Fairbanks is about as good as it gets in the way of mishaps. We decided to camp in the parking lot of this place called Pioneer Land. It is like a free park with all kinds of activities and museums and such. They allow RV camping for 12 bucks a night. We dropped Shari and Grant off, and we went searching for a tire shop. We bought two new tires. Once they put them on, the old tires looked so bad, I went ahead and just replaced them all. The workers were talking about how unbelievably hot it is. It is 79 degrees. We drove back to Pioneer park and got set up. I took Grant on a train ride around the park. We came back and decided to go to the salmon bake place at the side of the park. It looked very touristy and was kind of expensive at 31 bucks but it was all yo can eat salmon. They do not know Amy and I. We got in there and concluded that you must eat 4 large pieces of salmon to break even. You had to get one piece at a time. Amy and I waited patiently and kept going up until we had eaten them even on money. I was so stuffed. Fairbanks seems kind of run down. Maybe its just the part we are in. We went back to the RV and decided to move it behind some trees and posts after some Alaskan redneck teens went tear assing around the parking lot in their cars. We were afraid they would crash the trailer. We are all tired. Tommorow we plan to check out the farmers market and maybe even the Eskimo Olympics.