The first picture below is the scenery I had when I hit the road this morning.  Shortly thereafter a caribou (Moose? Elk? Whatever) crossed the road just a few hundred yards in front of me.  In seconds he disappeared into the bush.

The sun was out and the views were marvelous.  75 degrees at midday.  Arrived in Delta Junction, the end of the Alaskan Highway to have lunch.  Wrong.  The visitor’s center has a sign: “Closed for 2015!  See you next year!”  Most restaurants are closed permanently.  Others are open only for dinner.  Delta Junction is nearly defunct.

Proceeded onward to Fairbanks, again with a view to die for.  It was hard not to stop every few minutes to take pictures.  Briefly drove around North Pole, another city seemingly on its last legs.  Finally got to Fairbanks and discovered that I’ve arrived a week too early.  RV Parks and many other tourist locations open May 15th.  Found a State Recreation Area.  No showers, no wifi.  It’ll do.  The stress of finding a place to camp wore me out emotionally, so I took a break from tourism and went a movie.

Fun fact: In 1902 the community’s founders agreed to rename the place Fairbanks, to curry favor with Washington DC.  The name was that of Senator Samuel Fairbanks, of Indiana. (I’m thinking some town somewhere is thinking that “Trump” has a nice ring to it.)  The city has lots of historical markers and fun stories, which I enjoyed reading until 9:30.  (It’s now 10:45 and I’m not close to needing a flashlight.)  There is truly a lot of history here.  Among other things, it was the changeover point for airplanes headed to the Soviet Union in WWII.  Americans flew them in, Russians flew them out.  I’m looking forward to spending at least one full day here.  Maybe more.  I’m going to skip any kind of excursion to the Arctic Circle.  Too much time and money for too little reward.  I’ll save it for the cruise trip.

Mosquitos are out, but my repellent is doing it’s job.