USA Trip - Alaska Memories

So here is a general introduction to places that came to be part of my life whilst living in Alaska.

We'll start with North Pole. Our high school mascot is the Patriot.

Here is one of the 2 oil refineries in North Pole. It pays a lot of taxes that keep North Pole City running, but also has made alleged 'damaging' effects to the area's groundwater, etc. Hmmm...

This is North Pole High School. We honestly weren't the best at much when I was there, but I always thought it was the 'handsomest' of all the high schools in the area....






This is the LDS chapel I attended most of my life. Getting up and going to Seminary at 6:30am, etc.....UGH! ;) But everything happened there - Scouts, getting the Priesthood, my brother's wedding reception.....




This is probably what North Pole is known the world-over for: the Santa Claus House. Back in the day a group of guys wanted to build a toy factory and make money off of toys made in 'North Pole, Alaska'. Well the business never took off, but in the end we got stuck with the name :)

Here is a HUGE Santa that the Santa Clause House bought from the Lower 48 (what Alaskans call the 'Continental United States' - I would like to point out that Alaska is ALSO on the North American continent... ;)

This is the North Pole Chamber of Commerce's 'Visitors' Cabin', aka Visitors' center....I ran this for a summer before I left for London. It was interesting to meet people from all over the world who wanted to visit 'North Pole, Alaska'!!

(I even mowed the roof with a lawnmower.)

Here is UAF - University of Alaska in Fairbanks! Our mascot is the Nanook (Eskimo for Polar Bear). It's the 'local' school and this is where I did my undergrad education.

There is the bookstore (where I spent, total, probably thousands of dollars!) and the Wood (cafeteria) center in the back.

This is the Rasmussen library - plenty of books were checked out from there....I can still smell that 'stink' of old, dusty books LOL!

This is the Gruening building (pronounced Greening, cuz that is Mr. Gruening prounounced his name :) built back in the day when universities were afraid of students, aka the design is 'a la' the FBI headquarters building in DC. You apparently can 'shoot' someone from any point inside of the building, aka no place for student protesters to hide....yeah....that's where the Liberal Arts departments are LOL!

This is Signers' Hall, aka Admin center for UAF. This is where the 'Signers' of the Alaska constitution met and signed our state constitution making us the 49th state! (I still find that interesting that it all happened in Fairbanks instead of Juneau or Anchorage....)

These are two dorms that I worked in as an RA. The one on the right was my first year. I was supposed to watch over and take care of freshmen on the upper two levels, while on the lower 3 levels lived the UAF women's basketball team, UAF men's basketball team and the UAF hockey team! Yeah, whoever thought that one up....GRRR......

This is a nice view looking in an almost easterly direction from UAF. UAF is up on top of a hill and it is really cool to be able to live up there....

This parking lot reminds me of another job I had at UAF - shuttle bus driver! :)

This place is significant in my brother's life. This where he asked my sister in law to marry them....it must be quite a place, because they had 4 kids in 5 years!

Wahoo! :)

This is UAF's answer to 'Guggenheim'. This is the new museum...I went to the old one when I was little, so I can't personally report on its 'worthwhileness', but, I have heard good/positive opinions about it...

This is the Butrovich building and 'mothership' to the whole University of Alaska system. Again, I think it's a bit funny, as far as 'white Alaska' is concerned, Fairbanks is the 'head' of the university system; Anchorage is the business capital/largest city; and Juneau is our capital and head of government.

Here is the Alaska Pipeline! I have some photos with info underneath if you wanted to read about it....quite the 'wonder' and all made to be taken out and removed once it's been used up....

This is an old version of a PIG that they used to send down the pipeline. It's a 'cleaner' and is pushed along to remove 'build up', etc. Why doesn't anyone invent one of those for human veins?! = NO MORE heart attacks!

Goodbye Pipeline! This looking north towards Prudhoe Bay and the 'Arctic Ocean' coast....

Here are my mom and dad and...a very friendly local dog ;) We were on our way to pretty much the BEST place for prime rib - THE TURTLE CLUB!

Here are some of the awards the Turtle Club has received....they probably receive so many that it's crazy to keep up!

Everywhere inside is something 'turtlish'.....

Might look expensive, but worth every bit!

It was SO delicious! I had been 'dreaming' about it when I was in Vienna....yumm....

This was the first LDS chapel in Fairbanks....

I woke up one day in North Pole and just wanted to take a picture. The sun was shining on the newly fallen snow....it literally looked like the ground was made out of diamonds!

And here is the house I grew up in. SO many memories ;)

Thanks Mom and Dad for having me up! IT had been a long time and it was fun to experience Alaska again!