Coming from Denali National Park on Saturday, we skirted the city of Fairbanks and headed east to a campground in the Chena River state recreation area.  Sunday morning, we saw several moose in ponds along the road as we continued upriver, first to hike the Angel Rocks trail (about 5 miles round trip) and then to soak in the Chena Hot Springs.  If you are ever in Fairbanks, these springs are a must side trip.  There is a large natural style pool with a sandy bottom, lined with big rocks, and kept at a relaxing 106°F.

Returning to town, we spent a couple of hours at the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska.  Outstanding exhibits provided a condensed human and natural history of Alaska, plus an excellent collection of Alaskan art.  The museum is on a bluff with a long-distance view out over the flats towards the Alaska Range.  The clouds were broken, with some sun. The weather forecast still sounded like it was wetter towards Anchorage and the coast.  So our final travel plan was to stay in the interior and return to Anchorage on the last day.

We headed east from Fairbanks up the broad Tanana River valley, with the high Alaska Range visible on the distant horizon..  It reminded me of the Central Valley of California, looking to the Sierra Nevada.  Except, the Tanana valley was all wilderness, not farms, and the air was crystal clear, not smoggy.  We considered camping in the nice state campground in Delta Junction, but decided it was “too noisy” from the occasional car on the highway, so we headed a dozen miles east to the nearly empty campground at the Delta-Clearwater River recreation area.

This had been a long day and we didn’t set up camp until after 10 pm.  Dinner was at nearly 11 pm.  I was still up when the sun set at 11:45 pm, with a bit of color in the broken clouds.