Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Finally reach the end of the Alaska Highway today! Officially the highway ends in Delta Junction, but Fairbanks claims that it is the end, so we can celebrate twice. Anyway we had 201 miles to drive today and sunny skies. We saw two coyotes along the road and that was it for wildlife, but the scenery was truly beautiful.

We stopped at the visitor center in Delta Junction and took our picture at the milepost proclaiming the end of the highway and then stopped at Rika’s Roadhouse for lunch. Rika’s has been serving travelers since 1910. In addition to the restaurant they had a small museum, gift shop, gardens and farm animals including a gorgeous peacock. Yes, that is grass and plants growing on the roof in the photo.

Along the way we stopped at a few more gift shops and eventually passed through North Pole, where Santa & Mrs. Claus live. This is not physically the north pole, but a town outside of Fairbanks where our campground is located. This is the farthest north we will be on this trip. In 1996 Jeff and I were lucky to visit Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean and cross the Arctic Circle on the way back to civilization.

Now we are settling in for a six day stay which means we can sleep late. Tonight we relax and plan out the next few days. At midnight the sky is still bright and the sun only sets for 3-4 hours. Good thing we have black-out shades.