Favorite Travel Quotes

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts."
-- Mark Twain
Innocents Abroad

"Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and celebrate the journey." -- Fitzhugh Mullan

"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving." -- Lao Tzu

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An Ice Palace Preserved by a Hot Springs? Check Out Chena »

Chena Hot Springs is at “End of the Road”

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Camped beneath stands of spruce at Tanana Valley Campground in Fairbanks.

©Bert Gildart: And so we departed Tanana Valley Campground in Fairbanks, having spent a week there camped beneath stands of black spruce, warming ourselves late in the evening by a cozy fire after returning from long days covering the events at WEIO.

Now we’re camped at Chena Hot Springs in another delightful spot situated along the small creek and again beneath stands of spruce. To get here, we traveled about 55 miles north of Fairbanks along a road that may provide more views of moose (well almost at any rate) than it does of motorists.

NBC SENT LESTER HOLT

We’re here to soak in the hot spring and to learn more about an area that so fascinated Lester Holt of NBC news that he made a special trip to this remote part of Alaska. The owner of Chena has tapped the thermal resources and used them in a way that is environmentally friendly to provide electrical power to all this resort offers. Some of the techniques he’s used her may also be appropriate for powering a number of Native villages located in remote areas of interior Alaska.

We, too, want to learn how he’s accomplished that–and learn, too, how all that is possible at an area that has no ZIP code, no physical address, and no “piped” in electricity. “It is,” says one of the Chena representatives ,”either the end of the road, or if you’re looking at it from my perspective, the start of the road–and we love it.”

To learn about it we’ll be here for several days, and if we don’t get too roasted in the hot springs or frozen in the Aurora Ice Museum, we’ll be telling you about it in our next posting.

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Road to Chena Hot Springs offers frequent moose sightings.

It’s fascinating! We know as once while here on a winter visit we watched as chandeliers moved back and forth as we sat in the dinning room. The ground beneath us was moving and overhead, northern lights blazed…

And now we’re back–and enjoying every minute.

__________________________________________

THIS TIME TWO YEARS AGO:

*Global Warming as Viewed From Grinnell Glacier

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 12:27 pm and is filed under Alaska, Photography, RV Travel, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “Chena Hot Springs is at “End of the Road””

  1. Rich Charpentier Says:
    July 23rd, 2009 at 8:54 pm

    Oh Bert….. I miss Moose! I can’t point to why I enjoy watching them and photographing them so much, but I do! Great capture. I loved seeing them in the NH bogs, pulling up grass and munching away. They’re so odd, and so interesting!

    Thanks for continuing to share great shots of your trip!