Thursday 25 July
We woke up at the Visitors Centre where we had stopped last night and continued on the Richardson Highway from Delta Junction to the North Pole. During this, we passed Eielson Airforce Base which occupies more than 63,195 acres southeast of Fairbanks and has the second-longest runway in North America. The 354th Fighter Wing mission is to prepare the U.S. and allied aviation forces for combat, to deploy Airmen in support of global operations, and to enable the staging of forces to promote U.S. interest in the Asia-Pacific region. We saw all of the military fighter jets lined up and ready to take off in case they were required. Mum was enjoying herself taking photos of all of the planes and the base, when after we had passed it, Dad mentioned the sign which said “no photography”, but only because he wanted the pictures too!
We took the exit of the highway onto ‘Santa Claus Lane’ into the city of the North Pole. The city incorporated the theme “Where the spirit of Christmas lives year-round” with the lamp posts are painted to look like candy canes, and we drove past other roads called ‘St. Nicholas Drive’, ‘Snowman Lane’, and ‘Mistletoe Drive’, to get to Santa Claus House. It was established in 1952 and is the home of the Original letter from Santa. It was everything you would expect the North Pole to be (except without snow). There was Christmas music playing with Christmas decorations, clothes, and toys everywhere! We browsed the gift shop, and Dani was happy as she got some fudge and we also got some Christmas tree ornaments that will always be extra special for us. There was also a Mr. and Mrs. Claus there. But the best part was meeting Santa’s reindeer. We visited the ‘Antler Academy (of Flying & Reindeer Games)’ which was next door to Santa Claus House. We were able to spend half an hour with the reindeer, feeding and interacting with them, and dodging their massive antlers when they turned a different direction. The North Pole also has the World’s Largest Santa Claus standing nearly 50 feet tall!
We stocked up at Safeway supermarket for the next few days and headed out to Chena Hot Springs. Tayla, Danika, and Josh went on a tour of the Ice Museum where we saw many different ice sculptures inside a building lined with ice made to look like an igloo. There were four different rooms in it that you could rent for $600USD a night. It also came with a room inside the lodge as the ice rooms did not have any bathrooms and most people needed that or got too cold. The longest anyone has lasted was 3am. They supply you with caribou hide, a zero degree sleeping bag, caribou pillows and a comforter.
While Tayla, Danika and Josh visited the Ice Museum, Chris went to organise our camping and overheard the lady saying that there was a 50% discount on rooms which included pool passes and towels for two days. We added up the cost of staying in the camper and two days of pool passes and hiring of towels, it was cheaper for us to hire ‘a family suite’ with all of that included. The girl was awesome and said we could come in first thing in the morning and do a late checkout so we stayed in the camper tonight but booked the room for tomorrow but didn’t tell the kids.
We had mini fish fillets and battered prawns with baby carrots, cucumber and broccoli dipped in ‘kiwi dip’.
