Gold (or maybe Yellow) Fever

We finally made it to Alaska! Yesterday was nearly a full day of travel but thankfully everything went well and we didn't even arrive at the hotel all that late. Of course, by the time we went to bed it was still past 2 AM EDT so it was a long day. Unfortunately, it was only 10 PM here and that meant it was still very sunny and bright when we turned in.

We were both up by 5 AM and we didn't have to meet our group for breakfast until 8 so after getting ready, we took a walk outside by the river. Even at 7 AM, the mosquitoes were out in full force which foreshadowed what we'd see later in the afternoon.

At 8, we went to breakfast and met our tour guide and some of the group. As expected, it turns out that except for one kid traveling with his grandparents, Jess and I are the youngest on the trip. Everyone is very nice though and well traveled so it is good to hear stories. It turns out many of them have kids our age so we definitely stand out.

Our first stop of the day was Gold Dredge 8. I will say it's nice to just be outside at a certain time and the transportation, tickets, meals, etc. are already taken care of - they just point you in a direction and tell you what time to be where. When we arrived at the dredge site, we had a few minutes to look at a section of the Alaska Pipeline which is a pretty impressive feat of engineering that winds 800 miles across Alaska. After boarding a train to go to the dredge site, we were finally ready to pan for gold.

When you exited the train, you were given a bag of pay dirt and then you got to pan it and collect the gold. There's definitely a technique to it and I was not being aggressive enough at first but Yukon Yolanda helped and soon Jess and I had our gold flakes collected. When they measured it, Jess had $21 worth and I had $18. I'm going to assume this is all real and therefore in about 5 minutes, we pulled almost $40 out. Basically, it'd be stupid for us not to move here and become gold miners, especially since we know what we're doing now. The rest of the dredge was pretty neat too and they had free cookies so for a first stop, it was great.

Remember how I mentioned that we were the youngest ones on the tour? The unexpected downside is that everyone seems to remember our names because we stand out. I'm terrible with names when I meet a bunch of people at once but thankfully they gave us name tags during the day so it's a little less embarrassing now.

The afternoon was spent on a sternwheel boat that cruisesd a few hours on the Chena River. We ate lunch at the place where we loaded onto the boat but the interesting part is that they had a "-40" room that simulated the cold that you typically feel in the winter here. We had light jackets on and it was certainly cold but it wasn't so bad. That said, Jess disagreed and said it was horrible (no argument there though since even +40 can be too cold for me now).

The boat cruised down the river and we saw some houses, the old pump station that's now a bar and a bush pilot demonstration. We then stopped by one the kennels for the sled dogs and they did a demonstration which was fun to watch. Finally, we stopped at a replica village that showed some of the native life. This part of it was fine, but it felt a little cheesy (plus we were losing steam at this point so fatigue probably played a factor, along with the light rain). There were also a ton of large mosquitoes around too which I'm sure bit us up. It was also great when we were listening to a talk and Jess smacked me in the head to get one off of me and hit me harder than intended. At least the lady behind us thought it was hysterical. The other neat part is the woman doing the dog demonstration along the river brought some to a pen there and you could pet them. Even the old dogs they had seemed to have a ton of energy, unlike CT who gets mad if you wake him up and make him go outside.

We then got back to the hotel before heading to a wine tasting dinner. It was ok - the fish and steak were good but I am not into wine at all so that part didn't do anything for me. I'll be looking forward to a good night's sleep since we have to get early to have our luggage packed by 6:30 AM tomorrow.

As the gold miners say, "Gold is easy to get so quit your job and start prospectin'!" Note: They don't say that, but I'm seriously considering it anyway.