Alaska Review! Day 6--Fairbanks (Part 3)

We headed out with our destination the Museum of the North.  This museum gets rave reviews, and as I mentioned earlier, was on my list of "must do" here. 

 There is a lovely view from the museum of Fairbanks.

And it's quite the modern structure.  I took the first photo from the windows, so in this photo, Earnest is looking at what I was looking at in the first photo.

We arrived right before four, so we had to feed the meter.   We paid $33 for the five of us to enter.  I had the Tour Saver coupon book, so one adult entry was free.  Chretien suggested we see a movie, and one was starting right at 4, so we paid another $25 for the five of us to see the movie.  The movie was Sea Monsters, and while it was engaging, I was bummed that there were no more showings of the movie about the aurora on July 7.  If you go and want to see a specific movie, be sure to check the schedule online.

Anyway, we watched the movie, which was about prehistoric creatures which lived in the sea, and they tied it into present day fossil finding.  After the movie, which lasted 30 minutes, we set out to explore the museum.

There is really one main exhibit room.  With that said, it is quite large, and you could probably spend a few hours if you read all the information.  I knew I didn't have that time, so I just set out to document what we were seeing.  It was a mix of animal life and culture.

I liked the carving above.

I will say that some items are similar to what we saw at the Morris Thompson Cultural Center, but there were differences as well, so if you are inclined to like this sort of thing, you can do both and not feel like it was super repetitive (not even if you visit both on the same day, like we did). 

Upstairs, they had works of art.  I feel like we rushed through these, and again, I probably could have stayed longer. 

 Yes, this is the Great Alaska Outhouse Experience.  You had to really go in to experience the whole thing.

This last photo is a room which is "the place where you go to listen".  There are ecosystem sounds you can hear (as long as it's quiet) and the lights change colors.  It was pretty quiet when I was there, as I was alone.

Around 6 or so, we left for dinner.  We were going to visit the Salmon Bake in Pioneer Park. 

 I had read mixed reviews on the Salmon Bake.  We knew it wasn't gourmet food going in.  But for a family of five who do like fish and prime rib, it was a good experience--there were various types of salads, potatoes, beer battered cod, and even hot dogs for the kids.  There was also a dessert bar with different types of cakes.  We also purchased tickets to see the "Golden Heart Review" at the nearby Palace Theater.  Tour Saver has a coupon for a free adult ticket, so that saved us $22.  The all you can eat dinner and the show cost us $170 for 2 adults and 3 kids. 

 Part of the grills where the food is cooked.  Even though there were lots of people, there was never really a huge wait if you wanted food.

While we ate, we had some friends visit us.

I'm guessing that they are used to being fed, and fed well.

After we had our fill, we walked for a bit around the grounds.

 I guess if you go to the bake, you have to pose with the statue?

Pioneer Park has a little of everything--exhibits, a few shows, shops, food, etc.    A little bit of history rolled into pleasant grounds to stroll.

 I don't think this steamboat is in service any longer.

 Pretty far from most places.

Not the functional train.

We headed over to the Palace Theater to wait for our show.

 

We liked reading about the actors in the show.  It also helped to pass the time, as there was open seating and we stood in line for about 30 minutes.  I will mention to anyone who goes on a group tour, that having a few folks from your tour group hold a place in line for the entire rest of the tour (about 50 people) is not cool--most places would consider that line cutting.  It didn't help that there was no rope to curtail the line cutting.   Obnoxious.

 

 While we waited, I took a few photos (of course).  I felt like we had been transported back to the early days of Alaska, which I guess was the point.

 These were the four main actors.  The story was full of music and some dance, and told the story of how Alaska/Fairbanks was settled.   It was mostly family friendly, and anything that wasn't pretty much went over the heads of the boys, and my rising 9th grader wasn't always sure about the humor, either.  But they all enjoyed the show.

 The above photo was a cute skit, based on "Who's on First", except they talked about dog sledding and the mushers.

 Time to go to Honolulu before the Fairbanks winter sets in.

The show was an hour long.  The actors waited outside to say hello.

Trust was wearing a T shirt from Math Counts, and one of the women told her that when they were in middle school, they also participated in that contest.  Trust was amused by that.

You can see her looking at the T-shirt above.

With that, we headed to the minivan.  Since we needed to replenish some of our snacks, lunch fixings, yogurt, fruit and cereal as we'd be leaving Fairbanks and entering places where we either didn't have breakfast or weren't sure what we'd be getting or what sort of grocery stores were available, Chretien dropped me off at the nearest Fred Meyer and took the kids back to La Quinta.  He then came back to get me.  I spent another $78 on Friday night there, but that should mostly tide us over for the rest of the trip, as we hadn't completely depleted our stash of food.

And with that, our busy day in Fairbanks was over.  We still had activities in Fairbanks planned for Saturday, so stay tuned.