Sight Not Seeing

Good morning, my friends. We have one more day here in Fairbanks, and I think we'll have an easier day of sight-seeing from yesterday. Yesterday's outing turned into an exercise in frustration, but all's well that ends well, right? Nobody died, and we're living to spend another day seeing some stuff we've already located.

As for yesterday, it started with Father's Day Eggs Benedict for Mike. I've made this dish in our larger fifth wheel. I've never attempted it in this smaller truck camper, but it worked out. If we were home, I'd make the Hollandaise sauce from scratch. When camping, I use an envelope of the Knorr mix. It's actually pretty good. Certainly it works in a pinch.

And as long as we're talking about food, let me just catch you up on what's been on the menu. For one thing, this RV park is a part of a larger "resort" with a restaurant, cabins, and a lodge. We decided to eat at the restaurant the night we arrived. They had fresh seafood on the menu, and that sounded good to us. The restaurant is right on the river. This was the view from our table. It was warm, and we sat outside.

We splurged on a bottle of wine. As it turns out, this one came from our home town in Oregon! When in Rome, you know....

I chose the wild-caught Alaska salmon. It was served up with some garlic mashed potatoes and some fresh veggies. Delicious.

Mike chose the seafood fettucini, which was about twice what he could eat. It was also very tasty. He had what he brought home for lunch yesterday.

And I have been on the hunt for both cherries and apricots (together) in the grocery stores since before we left home. I've seen apricots, and I've seen cherries. But Delta Junction was the first place I found both together. I snapped them up at a ridiculous price, but some things are worth paying for. I made this dessert for us to enjoy after our dinner on the day we arrived. These are my annual Apricot-Cherry Upside-down Mini Cakes. You can find the recipe for these at the link I've given you. They aren't as pretty served up on our Corelle camping dishes. At home, I'd serve them on some elegant dessert plates, but we're roughing it here.

The kitties have been totally stressed out, as you can see. Happily, I finished embroidering my instructions about how to find the best seat before we left home. If you’ve forgotten: Move the cat.

When we left the camper yesterday morning, Sadie was enjoying the morning sunshine on her catio.

So here's where our frustrating day of sight-seeing started. We began our walk on this trail alongside the river.

It was reassuring to see this sign, indicating we were heading in the right direction.

Along the way, we passed by this white lilac.

And this fluffy white thing. My phone tells me this is rhubarb. It makes sense since there is rhubarb planted in some other barrels around here. I've been tempted to take my scissors and harvest some.

So we kept walking, but that sign above was the last indication we were headed in the right direction. We walked to and fro, checking our phones, trying different maps on the phone. Finally, we gave up and walked back to the campsite. Since Pioneer Park was our destination of choice, we just got in the Jeep and drove there.

As it turns out, the Riverwalk starts here, but it winds through historic downtown Fairbanks rather than alongside the river. We really weren't up for that, and so we bagged the whole effort. Instead, we strolled around Pioneer Park. I kind of expected a park...you know...with grass and trees and that sort of thing. Instead, Pioneer Park is kind of a craft mall and a recreation of a historic Alaska settlement. Here's a map of the place:

We were a little early, and only about half the little shops and museums had opened. We first encountered The Harding Car.

And there it is. It isn't often you find something devoted to one of our lesser-known presidents, Warren G. Harding.

Turning around from there was a sternwheeler. Please don't climb the fence no matter how much you want to.

It's a big boat. There was a gangway indicating that it was once open to the public, but no more.

The rest of the "park" consisted of these relocated log cabins. This was the first one we saw. These were all little shops selling different Alaskan handmade items.

Here's the sign with information about this structure.

Looking at the side, it looks like this.

I just liked this next one, but I didn't pay much attention to its history. It bore a woman's name, but I can't read it here.

Turning directly around was this little chapel, identified as the Church Meeting House. A sign to the right indicated this was a Presbyterian church.

There were dozens of these little structures. I liked this one:

Here's its history.

This above the door made me smile.

There was a large art museum...closed while we were there. But we were told we could see the high water mark I mentioned in yesterday's post just inside the foyer. Sure enough...You can see the floor at the bottom. It was about 2 feet high.

Here's the sign about the flood.

Okay, so despite the frustration, we enjoyed our time at Pioneer Park. Next, we went in search of a mural I'd seen online at That Old Sew & Sew quilt shop. I knew the quilt shop was permanently closed, but I really wanted to see this mural. We drove to the address and walked all the way around the building. Nothing. We couldn't find the mural. If we'd found it, it would have looked like this. I've left the photo credit at the upper left, along with the notation that the photo is five years old.

The only mural we actually saw was this one, showing a bear with the Alaska pipeline.

Also, these sidewalk murals. Funny.

By then, our shadow selves were fed up looking for stuff that didn't exist. At their request, we decided to head back to the camper.

Along the way, we crossed this Veteran's Memorial Bridge over the Chena River lined with state flags.

We had some lunch and we took naps. And then I finished up the fourth block for my Raggedy & Friends project. Here's my wrinkly block.

And here are the four blocks I have for this quilt so far.

On a more positive note, we've now located the Wedgewood Wildlife Refuge, which shares a parking lot with the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum. It was another fiasco trying to find the wildlife refuge. We finally stopped in at the visitor center, and a very kind woman came outside with me and pointed me in the right direction. It was just about 200 yards away. As we were getting ready to walk there, a man and his son were complaining about the bugs and spraying themselves with insect repellant. We had none with us, and so it seemed like as good a time as any to call it a day. We'll go today, and we'll be armed with our insect repellant. Also, we'll visit the auto museum. 

So that's today's agenda. We're expecting better luck sight-seeing wise. Hopefully, we'll see some interesting stuff in both venues. Of course, I'll be back tomorrow to tell you all about it.