Cars

Chena Hot Springs Road – Sunday, September 4, 2011

EJ woke up this morning full of ideas for catching up on the blog.  Since a flash of inspiration is not a thing to be wasted, it was suggested that Frank find some way to keep himself occupied for a long while.

BG had acquired a substantial coating of road grime, so Frank decided some cleaning and polishing was in order.    After several hours, BG looked brand new again.   EJ was still putting ideas to keyboard and determined to get caught up. Frank, the ever supportive husband, suggested maybe he should go see a car museum to keep from getting underfoot.

So off to the Wedgewood Antique Car Museum I go.  This museum only shows American made cars and clothing of the period.  It also has a section for cars only used in Alaska.

The display starts outside with a steam powered tractor and a 1918 Duplex 4WD truck.  The first commercially viable truck ever built.

The cars are works of art and the engineering is interesting.  I won’t bore you with all the pictures I took, but the old cars are amazing.  You don’t see this kind of individualism any more.  Today it’s difficult to tell one manufacture and model from another.  Not so back in the early 1900’s.

Of course, touching was strictly off limits except for this one.

There was a fellow, Robert Sheridan, that was enamored of a young lady that was interested in a banker.  Sheridan had little money, but still wanted to impress this young lady, so he built a car from scratch.  She married the banker anyway, but young Sheridan went on to be an important figure in Alaskan automotive history.

I came away impressed with the quality of the museum and amazed at the lengths early Alaskans went to get cars to Alaska and how they blazed trails where no roads existed.

EJ’s all caught up so it’s time to head back to the RV and get ready to head out.  We found a place to dump and fill at a Tesaro gas station.  It happens to be close to a MacDonalds where EJ posts the updated blog while Frank takes care making sure BGs tanks are emptied and the fresh water is replenished and propane filled.

We plot a course to Chena River Resort thinking we may stay there for the night and we’re off.  Along the way we spot a herd of cattle.  Hmmm?  What do they do when it’s 40 below?

As you can tell, we got away late in the day by BGs shadow. At least the sun was behind us.

We didn’t make it to the Resort.  Instead we found a side road that led over to the Chena River.  There were two other RV’ers here and two tent campers.  We find a nice spot and settle in for the evening.

We saw our first northern lights around midnight.  We don’t have any pictures to show because they were very faint and only lasted about 15 minutes.  The locals refer to this as being a “quiet” display.  We’ll try again tomorrow night and hope they are more spectacular.

BG Miles Today	50	BG Total Miles	7186
Eat Out total $	1064.06	BG Total Fuel $	4004.44
Entertainment total $	596.63	Total Camping $	1162.03
E Miles Today	20.92	E Total Miles	2535.52
E Total Fuel $	534.72	Day # of Trip	96