Fairbanks, AK

June 27, 2007

We spent today doing a lot of running around. Doug has bound a military supply store and he seems to have to go to it EVERY day!!! Believe it or not, today he purchased a parachute!!!! He can visualize so well, most people would not think in the direction he does!!! He plans on using it as a cover for our RV !!!!!! I have been after him to get one to the tune of $300-$400, he got this for $28!! There is nothing like a deal to make him happy!

We spent most of today preparing a box to ship home that I will not talk about here until it arrives.

We had planned on going panning today, but our ‘chores’ preempted that!! Hopefully we will do that tomorrow.

June 28 & 29, 2007

We spent most of the day at the RV shop. We realized that if we left they didn’t do any work on it, so we stayed, only running out for about an hour at a time. They finally got it done. We took it back to the park and then went for a ride. When we returned it was so cold inside. Realized the AC would not turn off!!! During the night it was so cold I turned it off and by morning Doug was turning the heat on!!! It didn’t turn off for that either!!!

So, back to the shop we went on Fri. morning. We left it there after we saw they bought a NEW thermostat and felt they could finish it by the time we got back. We didn’t want to spend another day sitting in the shop.

We went to a national historic gold mine dredge. We thoroughly enjoyed it. We were thinking it might only be a tourist trap gold mine, but it was re remains of an actual dredge that stopped operation in 1959. When the dredge closed, they just locked the doors on the warehouses and shop and walked away. As a result, they look just as they did almost 50 years ago. All the selves still have the parts on them and the dredge looks like you could start it up today. We learned a lot about mining and then they serve a ‘miner’s lunch’. Great stew, biscuits and muffins, as good as any I have had at a restaurant. Then you get a “poke” and can pan for gold. We each got a little amounting to about $35 worth!!!

After that we finally went on our own to the ‘tailings’ of the old mines and did our own panning! We only got a few flakes and then a rain storm came in and we left with a bucket of dirt!! We will do that either tonight or tomorrow.

We contacted the fellow we met a church on Sunday to see when we could get together, he said he would like to take us up in his plane tomorrow, how great is that!!! We are really looking forward to it. How nice of him to invite us.

We are both very tired tonight and will probably make an early night of it. We have had such beautiful weather, I sure hope it is nice tomorrow for flying. The locals are complaining it is too hot!!! The last two days it has been in the upper 80’s, but no humidity, so we think it is great!