Copper Center- Fairbanks

Ricks Birthday! I hate that we are leaving the Copper River valley. It's sooo beautiful and peaceful...sigh.  Back on the Bus with Stan for a 8 hour bus ride to Fairbanks.  This far into the wild there are few stopping places. Thank heaven for the on-board restroom. One of our stops, Paxon, is a run-down little road house with a mom and pop diner, rooms for rent and closed gas pumps. I bought a book about two sisters from California who relocated to this area in the 1920s which I read on the bus trip.  Fascinating.  On the road again... Several hours later we stopped at another roadhouse, Rika's.  Already two tour busses were parked in the parking lot. How can they serve all of us?  Easy peasy...cafeteria style: soups, salads, subs and homemade baked goods. Stan raved about the Strawberry rhubarb pie so we HAD to try it.  Pretty good stuff!  The rest of the afternoon we were bus captive until we reached Fairbanks: a bigger city with a military base and Univ of Alaska. It's more flat than where we've been so far.  We were BEAT. Buuut we'd scheduled a dinner tour and raft trip this evening-what were we thinking?  Larry, our guide, picked us up at the door, then we headed to the other side of Fairbanks to get another couple, Kathy and Dallas.  The real star of the evening was Larry. Larry looked like a STONER: long stringy hair, hand-repaired sandals, big goofy looking guy. We soon found out that Larry's no goof.  He's a PhD who's lived in Alaska over 20 years, mostly summers. On our way to the restaurant, he told us of his adventures.  Turns out he spends winters in Asia, mostly Nepal hiking. HUH??  He's also hiked Kilimanjaro   He spent three years surveying in Siberia ("I don't do math, I only held the stick") and he currently lives near the University in a 16' x 8' cabin with no electricity and no indoor plumbing.  Well crap that's half he size of our CAMPER not including slide outs.  Larry's not had plumbing his entire time in Alaska. He says many college students live in unimproved cabins. Can you imagine anyone in Indiana roughing it at college ?? I think not.  We arrived at the restaurant for dinner: very rustic yet good food. Our friends arranged for cake for Rick, then off to the Chena River for our raft float trip with Larry. We still have not seen a moose so we hoped Larry would change our luck. NOPE. We did see several beaver, an eagle and other birds. Mostly it was nice to have a quiet and relaxing trip.  The raft trip scenery was about as exciting as Grassy Creek,though. Luckily, Larry was worth the price of admission.  We docked at 'Joe's house' a cabin on the River. Apparently Joe owns the tour company as well as hunting camps at various locations. Joe's wife met us as we left, to tell us their story.  They too only have generated electricity, wood for heat and an outhouse. We headed back to the lodge, grateful for our comfortable homes back in Indiana