This morning we went grocery shopping at Safeway and stopped at the post office near the campground to buy more postcard stamps and to mail our postcards.
This afternoon we drove over to the Great Alaskan Bowl Company near the campground. They make bowls from birch trees and we've seen their commercials on cable TV here. We were able to watch the bowls being made and learned about their drying process. We even sampled some of their reindeer sausage.
We would have liked to have a set of their Family Tree Bowls which are made from the same block of wood, but they are expensive. The 3 bowl set was $199 and the number of bowls in a set goes up and so does the price.
This afternoon Mike took photos of our campsite. As you can see the sites are close together and the campground has been pretty full most of the time.
There are 2 5th wheels next to us that are parked so that their doors are facing each other. They have fenced off the area between the RVs to give their children a large area to play in. We've enjoyed watching the kids playing and have really enjoyed the mothers trying to get all the kids into a van to go somewhere. No sooner do the mothers get a few of the kids in the van and go to get the smaller children than the kids in the van get out and the mothers have to start over! It's been really hilarious to watch (I'm not sure the mothers were as amused as we were).
Mike manage to get a photo of some of the kids and there are at least 2 infants and a couple more children that aren't in the photo.
The campground is next to the Chena River. It would have been nice to have one of the campsites with a view of the river which are $3 more than the full hook-up sites, but I'm sure those are taken first.
There are a lot of cottonwood trees in the campground and the ground is littered with their seeds. There is always some white "puffs" from the cottonwoods floating through the air.
I did laundry this morning and I had quite a lot of clothes to do since it's been 10 days from the last time I did laundry. I also washed the beach towels that we used to protect the windshield & front of the Vue from dirt and rocks when we're towing it.
The laundry here at the campground has about a dozen washers and even more dryers and is very busy. There are over 170 campsites here and everyone seems to be trying to catch up on their washing. By the time I finished with my 8 loads of clothes & linens, I had spent $26.
After lunch we drove over to the University of Alaska campus to visit the Museum of the North. We paid $2 to park at the museum and $18 for 2 senior admission tickets.
The first thing we saw when we entered the Gallery of Alaska was Otto, a 8'9" tall brown bear.
We saw exhibits of some of the early animal inhabitants
including Blue Babe, a mummified steppe bison, who died 36,000 years ago near Fairbanks.
We also saw exhibits of the current animal inhabitants.
There were displays of tools used by men and women
and carvings made from tusks, antlers and teeth.
We saw examples of clothing and woven baskets
and this beaded collar.
Before leaving the museum we stopped at the Museum Cafe for some coffee and then bought postcards at the Museum Gift Shop.
We really enjoyed our visit today at the Museum of the North where we traveled from prehistoric times to today. We learned about the lives of the different Alaska Native cultures and the development of Alaska through time.
It dawned on us tonight that we still haven't taken any photos here at the campground! Tomorrow for sure we will take photos.
