To Fairbanks

8/7
Woke up to Coralie singing and making a delicious oatmeal and pb and j breakfast complete with instant coffee. Unfortunately, the rain was also coming down and the temperature was only in the low 40s. With our tarp covering the picnic table we were able to eat a good breakfast, though none of us were to keen on leaving that tarp. With the cold rainy weather and Pauline's rear disk brakes not working, a few people decided to hop on a train up to Fairbanks.

For those of us riding, the ride started with a cold light rain and a chain problem with Katherine's bike less than a mile into the ride. Things changed for the better as the day went on, with the skies clearing and the sun peaking through.



The day ended with some satisfying burgers at the Monderosa just north of Nenana.



The owner of the restaurant allowed us to sleep on their property, so after eating we walked outside and set up camp. A 72 mile day.

8/8

After waking up to our first completely dry morning we were in the road by 10:30. The ride began with a major up hill that lasted for about 5 miles. This was followed by a series of small downhills with much larger uphills following each downhill. The day slowly cleared up and the sun was out by mid-day, and the views were pretty incredible as we climbed higher in elevation. We stopped at skinny dick's halfway inn for lunch, an interesting place with lots of souvenirs pertaining to the name. The pace continued slowly with long uphills until about 10 miles outside of Fairbanks when we finally started going down all those hills we had climbed.








After a 50 mile day, we arrived in Fairbanks around 7 and ate a delicious meal of all you can eat grilled salmon, prime rib, and fried cod at the Alaskan salmon bake. After a few rounds of all three meats and desert we were all pretty content as we slowly rolled our way to the campsite. The campsite was right beside the state fair which happened to be taking place the same time we were there, the campsite was quite sketchy to say the least.


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Location:Nenana, AK