Day 4 – September 8, 2024 (Sunday)

We had another delicious breakfast at McKinley Creekside Cabins. Once we checked out, we did another quick tour of Denali National Park & Preserve. We returned to the Savage River Loop Trail again and savored the scenery. Since I took so many photos the day before, We focused on being present and enjoying the views as we walked and drive through the park one last time.

We returned to Fairbanks via the George Parks highway (AK 3). We took a brief detour to the car rental at the Fairbanks airport. The Volkswagen they provided was continually giving us tire pressure warning messages. We kept the tires as full as possible and made it back without incident. We traded in that car for another (Mazda CX-30) and explored downtown Fairbanks. Yes, we did a little shopping as well. We took it easy today as we were still feeling the time difference and yesterday involved a lot of hiking.

We viewed the Antler Arch in downtown Fairbanks. Lots of (over 100) antlers from various animals (mostly moose and caribou). This is the world’s furthest north antler arch. The arch was completed in 2010.

Ruth decided to invest in memories for my birthday this year. In addition to the photo tour near Denali, she did a lot of research and found two very interesting restaurants in downtown Fiarbanks. We had supper at one this evening. It is the Soba Moldovan Restaurant. Yes, authentic eastern European food and fine Moldovan wines in the heart of Fairbanks. The restaurant is run by a Moldovan family. I have included a photo of the menu and some of the food we tried in the gallery below. We shared Mămăligă (a polenta made with yellow corn flour) and Colțunași cu cartofi (somewhat like perogis). The food was delicious and we felt quite welcomed. The first course was meatball soup. Although we typically don’t have wine with dinner when eating in a retaurant, we had glasses of Cricova Vin de Colectie Dionis (it is made from Cabernet Sauvignon – Pinot Noir in Moldova). It paired well with our meal and was recommended by the restaurant owner. Although we were quite full, we also tried the honey cake (actually we got that to go). It was very delicious for breakfast the next day. The bill arrived in a carved wooden box. In addition, there were 2 candies. We thought they were mints, but they were hard pear candy from Ukraine.

Here are a few photos from today. We tried to relax and get rested as tomorrow we getup very early and traverse the Dalton highway. Yes, we went above the Arctic Circle. More about that in my next post.