Sunday morning we woke up around 9:00am, the latest since we left Houston on September 1! I wanted to just lie around all day and do absolutely nothing! I was tired, worn out, beat, and just exhausted! It was raining outside, none of the mountains were visible, so why not!
11:00am, Ray was getting hungry. We looked at the menu of the local Grill. Nothing exciting there, just your basic hamburger joint. We got dressed and headed out searching for something to eat. At the fork in the road, one way leads back to Denali NP, the other to Fairbanks. Knowing there wasn’t much towards Denali, we headed towards Fairbanks. Searched around the little town of Healey, nothing was opened. So we kept driving.
The drive was beautiful. The further east we went, the more yellow the trees were.
After an hour I search on our GPS for a place to eat. Several had some strange names. Then I found “The Clear Sky Lodge Restaurant”. That sounded good, so I punched the directions in and we drove up to this:
Well, it’s not what we thought it would be, but we’re hungry and it’s a genuine local joint, so we decide to stop. Ray drives up to the parking lot and stops ½ way. We wonder if this is going to be a good place or not. I kept asking Ray “what do you think” he doesn’t answer. I say “do something, either park or let’s leave”. So he decides to park. We get out and walk up to the door. It’s a screen door, dark, dirty and torn. I look at Ray and say “Let’s just do it”. As I’m opening the door, I’m saying to myself “omg, omg, omg”. We walk in and right away we see an ATM machine with a cell phone resting on top of it charging. To the left is a Coke machine and a refrigeration box with a variety of what looked like old food in it. I looked towards the ‘restaurant’ and it was dark. No windows at all. There’s a bar to the left and 2 guys are sitting there. It looks like no one is in the place except them. To the right is a long stove with a low light illuminating over it. I see lots of crusty food on it. There’s something in a large rectangular pot with a handle on it steaming. I look back at the 2 guys and they turn around, smile and nod. They both look alike, long stringy hair, beard to match, old dirty baseball caps, tattoos on the arms and dirty work jeans. They’re both drinking a beer. I notice a woman walking toward the stove, but am unable to make her out until she gets up to the light. She looks identical to the guys without the beard. She looks over and just nods. I look back at Ray and he’s staring at me, probably watching my expressions. He heads to the ATM machine to get money out, possibly trying to make it look like that’s all we’re here for, I don’t know.
The ATM machine won’t work, so we head out the door. We don’t say anything. Hop in the car and drive off. I thought “What in the heck just happened?” Maybe it’s better to wait until we get to Fairbanks instead of trying these off-the-beaten-path-side-of-the-road-joints.
We finally get to Fairbanks. We drive and drive around looking for a place to eat. Absolutely nothing is opened. The streets are all clear; it’s almost like all the people disappeared in this town! It was strange. After an hour of unsuccessful searching for a ‘local’ restaurant, we decided to pull into Chili’s, have our lunch and head back to Denali. I was so disappointed with this place that taking a picture was just an extreme effort. So, never go to Fairbanks on a Sunday!
We stopped by a little town called Nenana which is next to the Tanana River. Nenana was the starting point for the 1925 serum run to Nome, where diphtheria antitoxin was transported by rail from Anchorage, and continued by dog sled to Nome.This is the train depot which was built in 1923.
We head home, finish packing for our trip to Anchorage in the morning.
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