Yesterday my parents and I went up the Steese Highway to see the scenery and pick blueberries (mom said we were going on an adventure haha). We could see the Stuart Creek Fire had flared up again (it's been hot again..most of it's contained though) and saw another new fire further in the hills. When we got near Chatanika Lodge we could see more smoke close to the road..we hoped it wasn't the lodge! Luckily it wasn't..it was this old dredge across the way from the lodge. A guy said it was really historical and was sad to see it burning. He said fire trucks had come (which passed us) but they said it wasn't worth saving and were just gonna let it burn. He thought two GIs might have caused it (later the newspaper said these guys had pulled on a pulley which caused a spark. They ran to the lodge for help but it was too late). We walked up to see it. It was definitely interesting to watch it burn. There's only like 10 of those dredges around the Interior, and someone said that one was the best preserved. That's too bad! After watching for awhile we went down the road a little and picked blueberries. There were a ton of them! It looked like no one else had discovered that patch yet. After that we drove further to check out the Chatanika River. It got smokier too as we got close to that other fire. The river sounded so soothing..I wish I could sleep to it every night! <3 I wanted to see the other fire, but dad didn't want to drive "so far" (and it was late). Later I learned it was only like 5-7 miles further! Aw mann..though the firefighters didn't want people there anyway. We had dinner at Chatanika Lodge (the food took forever to get to us..they were messed up from the dredge fire and people calling and stuff) and drove home. I didn't expect that on the drive up there haha..guess we got our adventure. :P I posted one of my pics on the News-Miner's Facebook page and they posted it on their site! I'm famous! ;) Hehe

( pics from the day )