After a breakfast of sourdough pancakes and reindeer sausage we continued our drive up the Alaska Highway yesterday.

Milepost 1422 is the official end of the Alaska Highway at Delta Junction, Alaska.  It’s official now, we drove the whole thing.

The End of the Alaska Highway at Delta Junction

Also greeting us at the Delta Junction Welcome Center are these giant mosquito sculptures.  Yikes!  But so far the mosquitoes have not been bad at all.

Mosquito Sculptures at Delta Junction

The museum across the street from the visitor center has some old equipment on display from the construction of the Alaska Highway.

Caterpillar Used in Construction of Alaska Highway

A few miles out of town we stopped to look at this section of the 800-mile Trans Alaskan Pipeline.  It crosses a river at this point.

Trans Alaska Pipeline

On the way to Fairbanks we see this moose and her calf on the side of the road.  Ugly, huh?

Moose

We spent the night at a roadside pull-out by a river south of Fairbanks.  It’s legal to do this in Alaska and there are pull-outs everywhere.

Roadside pull-out south of Fairbanks, AK

We stopped at The Knotty Shop south for a break.  It’s a nice souvenir shop with unusual burl wood sculptures out front.  The biggest one is a giant mosquito.  I’m sensing a theme here.

The Knotty Shop

North Pole is a small town south of Fairbanks, population 2,200.  Of course we had to stop at Santa Claus House!  It was a fun stop.  Yes, Santa was there talking to kids and parents.  I bought some reindeer tracks candy and Bernie bought some reindeer meat sticks for snacks later.

Santa Claus House, North Pole, AK

The reindeer are in the back yard.  Did you know reindeer are actually domesticated caribou?

I think this is Blitzen

We are parked in the Walmart lot in Fairbanks now.  There are about 10 other RV’s here with us.  We don’t plan on spending much time inside the RV so didn’t see the need for a RV park.  Our first venture out was to the local Farmers Market.

Farmers Market at Fairbanks

And then on to the visitor center for info where we watched a film on the Northern Lights and another film on what it’s like to live in Fairbanks at -40 degrees.  Just outside the visitor center is the entrance to the Riverwalk.  It begins with an arch made of antlers.

Antler Arch

We saw these two girls in banana suits rafting on the river.  No idea why they were wearing banana suits!

Fairbanks Riverwalk