Pioneer Park and Salmon Bake, Aug 24, 2010

Pioneer Park is Alaska's only historic theme park.  The Park was opened in 1967, marking the 100th year celebration of Alaska being purchased from Russia.  The admission is free, although there are a few exhibits that do charge a fee.

This is the RR car that Warren G Harding rode to Alaska in 1923 to drive the golden spike for the Alaska RR.

  The interior of the rail car, taken through the window, looks like they are redecorating.

The sternwheeler Nenana.

Next we visited the 40 Below Room.  We went in paid our $8 each, were loaned winter parkas and gloves, given a cup of warm water, and told to proceed to the 40 below cold chamber.

  I bet you are wondering why I have a cup of warm water, well, we were told to just throw the water across the room, and when we did it just vaporized into the air.

Here is Bob pounding a nail with a banana, yes, the banana was frozen hard.

After coming out of the –40 room, our glassed steamed up and took quite a while to come up to temperature.  While in the room our legs felt cold, my face felt very cold, and Bob said his uncovered hand didn’t want to work when he was taking photos and trying to put the camera in his case.  It was fun for about a minute, but to live day in and day out in this temp, you have to be tough!

Before we ate dinner, went to the car to unload some of the things we were carrying.  Well, I got tangled and Bob had to come to my rescue, only after he took my photo.

Dinner was the Alaska Salmon Bake located at Pioneer Park, all you can eat, grilled salmon, prime rib, deep fat fried halibut and cod, plus a wonderful salad bar, plus cake with blueberries.

  One of the park employees told us that usually by this time of the year they have had their first frost, but not this year.  I sure do enjoy seeing all the flowers blooming.