(Chase and Phyliss's house)

 

After breakfast, I visited the museum, which is on the university campus. Although small, it had some interesting displays, and I learned a bit more about the history of Alaska and the Fairbanks region.

 

On leaving the museum, I saw Christian again who was cycling out of Fairbanks and on towards New York. As all good cyclists do, we headed to McDonalds, and had a bite to eat. We probably spent an hour in there chatting about the world in general and swapping stories. He's interested in cycling through Africa, and I was picking up valuable 'road wiseness.' When you've been on the road for a while, your instincts become finely tuned to getting the best bargains, ceahpest places to sleep etc. I am at the beginning of my trip, so it was good to listen to him and get up to speed on certain things. (ie - On Mondays, you get a free Mocha with anything ordered, and that the menu has an 'economy' sub -menu, where a 'McDouble' is the bargain at $1.50 each.). That, combined with the stealth camping tips, are going to prove useful. We left McDonalds and went to Fred Meyers, where again Christian proved useful in pointing out some good foods and deals for the ever hungry cyclist! Stocked up, we went our seperate ways, and I headed back to Chase's house.

In the afternoon, I packed all my stuff up, and its not as heavy as I feared it was going to be, although I am going to leave a few kilos of stuff behind and collect it when I come back through this way in a couple of weeks time. In the evening, I treated Chase and Phyliss to a meal at a Cuban restaurant as way of thanks for their help over the last few days.

And so, tomorrow, I get up early and cycle down to the Dalton Highway Express office, where I catch the bus to Deadhorse - and that's where the real adventure begins!!