Driving to Fairbanks

Today began my big journey northward to Fairbanks to meet with their forecasters at the National Weather Service Office there. I am joined by Tyler, another Hollings intern up here and one of my roommates, for a full weekend-long trip up north.

We started out at 6 in the morning heading north through Wasilla on the Parks Highway again, like we did for the Mount McKinley viewing expedition. Unfortunately, today was a rather overcast and rainy day and the mountain was nearly completely obscured. So, no new photos were taken. However, north of where we stopped before, the scenic-ness of the Alaska Range continued.
This kind of scenery went on for quite a ways. We followed the Parks Highway past the entrance of Denali National Park to the large collection of resorts and other Denali-themed excursions near the entrance. I stopped to get gas here (even though my tank was still half full). Gas away from the major metropolitan areas, of course, was at $3.47 per gallon there... The area near the Denali park entrance was very built-up and there were lots of buses and RVs around.
We were told that the best time to drive the Parks Highway was either late at night (night being a relative term this far north...) or in the winter--since that's when there are no RVs. And while we didn't see many RVs on our route, the few that we did run into were always going 10-20 mph below the speed limit. They also blocked a considerable portion of our view. Good thing my view wasn't blocked when we reached this point...
A mother moose and her baby calf were in the middle of the road. I stopped a good distance away--did not want an angry mother moose charging my car. And, after ten minutes or so, the moose finally decided that the road was not the best place and headed off to the side. So I can chalk up another moose encounter to my list.
The drive got rather monotonous after we got out of the Alaska Range of mountains. The road wound through a lot a trees but eventually ended up on a ridge of some moderately tall hills as we approached Fairbanks. The view in both directions, when it was there, was rather pleasant--looking out at flat plains filled with forests and dotted with lakes. Trying to get a picture as we were driving...that was difficult, though.

Finally, 5 hours and 45 minutes later, we arrived in Fairbanks. This was odd because all of the online estimates I had found said that it took between 6.5 to 7 hours to get from Anchorage to Fairbanks. I think they assumed you were driving an RV. Since it was 11:30 and my meeting with the forecasters wasn't supposed to be until 1, we drove around Fairbanks a little.
Fairbanks is the second largest city in Alaska and well into the interior. It sits in the Chena river valley at the base of the Yukon-Tanana Highlands to the north, which a are series of rolling, tree-covered hills (that would probably be called mountains anywhere else in the US, but not up here...). Fairbanks has around 35,000 people in it, so by population it's about the size of Beloit, Wisconsin (for those of you who know Beloit, Wisconsin). It is also constructed like a town the size of Beloit, Wisconsin. The city's life seems centered around the University of Alaska--Fairbanks north of town, the airport southwest of town, the military bases east of town, and the railroad yards on the northeast side of town. There is a small downtown area with some semi-tall buildings.
I don't think that Fairbanks is the prettiest city I've seen. There's a lot of new development around the outskirts with nothing but sprawl within. The town likes to celebrate its mining heritage, but instead of giving the city a quaint, rustic kind of charm I feel like it has instead amounted to a lot of old equipment sitting around rusting in the NUMEROUS scrap yards we passed going through town, or the many rundown and boarded up buildings we also passed. Granted, this is a place where they are not near the ocean and thus the weather becomes more extreme--highs in the summer in the upper 80s with lows in the winter of -40 or so. They also have convection--actual good thunderstorms that form with the "thermal trough" in the area and will sometimes dump small hail on Fairbanks should one of them move overhead.
With all of that said, we eventually found our way to the University. This signpost on campus was a real help. It told us how many miles and in what direction to go just about everywhere except where we wanted to go.
The weather forecast office in Fairbanks is located on the third floor of the building below on the campus of the University of Alaska--Fairbanks. As such, it kind of reminded me of Norman, where the Norman forecast office is in the same building as our classrooms. The office itself was very nice, though I thought somewhat understaffed. I met with the Science and Operations Officer there and we had a good two hour discussion about their local weather and their two radars and things to do in Fairbanks.

After this meeting, Tyler and I went to see the nearby Museum of the North which has exhibits on various Alaskan things. I found the museum rather interesting, particularly a painting of convection in Alaska.
After that, upon the recommendation of the people I talked to at the forecast office, Tyler and I went to eat at the Silver Gulch restaurant, which is 10 miles north of Fairbanks on the Steese Highway. It was a unique experience--we pulled up outside of the place and it looks like a big, corregated metal barn or farm storage building. So we went inside and it's a fantastically modern, well-furnished, plush, brewhouse sort of resaturant. The place advertises itself as the "Northernmost Brewery in America" and I bought one of their glasses because of that. They brew several different beers, including an Amber that I particularly enjoyed. All of their food has some of their beer in it in some fashion--be it the beer-battered onion rings, the beer-crusted "Alaskan Pizza" I tried, or the vegetable platter with rice boiled in beer that Tyler got. The food was all good, and we were amazed at the restaurant and how its appearance was so unique and it was so far in the middle of nowhere... (well, ten miles from Fairbanks...).

Also while we were up north of town, we passed by the hill called Pedro Dome, on top of which is the Fairbanks (Pedro Dome) radar (hence the call letters PAPD for it). This photo is the first one I've actually gotten of an Alaskan radar since I've been up here. It's way...way...way up on the top of this hill...
Anyhow, Tyler and I returned to Fairbanks and got into a Holiday Inn Express hotel, where I am now. Lots of sun still in the sky, even a 10:25 PM. Tomorrow we are looking forward to another day of exploring Fairbanks.