Kuskokwim 300 Dog Sled Race

My First Dog Sled Race

What a fun night! After work today I volunteered at the annual Kuskokwim 300 dog sled race (the name of the large river that runs through town, a.k.a the "ice highway"). The mushers and their dogs travel round trip (300 miles) to Aniak, our new home, and back.

So, tomorrow around 9:00 a.m., Ian will be watching the teams come in. He will also be volunteering for the race, possibly feeding the very hungry dogs. There were about 22 teams total, most training for next months Iditarod in Anchorage.

It was exciting tonight! Even though it was -40 degrees out, I was laughing like a little kid. Unfortunately I did not get very good pictures because of the cold. I was wearing my "super" gloves and coat (thank you Lisa Engel for that amazing love gift!) which kept me extremely warm...But I unfortunately had to take my gloves off for the pictures. I am not exaggerating when I say that I had less than 5 seconds to take the picture before my entire hand went numb. As a matter of fact, there were warnings out today. Apparently any skin exposure in this weather could lead to frost bite in a short amount of time.

 Here is another picture I took tonight. With most things, pictures just don't seem to capture the moment. Believe me when I tell you it was very cool! Dad, you would have loved this! The dogs were so excited and ready to run, it felt like the dog sled ice-capades with all the jumping around and barking. So fun! 





To eliminate doggie jams they space the start to 1 team every 2 minutes. As these dogs are running on the frozen Kuskokwim (very slick ice), they wear special little booties with tracking on the soles. Most of the dogs are also wearing heavy nylon coats.

This picture was taken this morning as I got to work. I couldn't stop laughing. In Sturgis I was used to wooden beams in the Walmart parking lot for the Amish to tie up their horses. In Alaska, they use their beams to plug in their cars. In just about every parking lot they have these "electrical outlets".... If you don't plug it in, it won't start!

This last picture is the hospital where I am doing my training. I like to call it my giant submarine. Like everything else, it too is on stilts. Thankfully though, unlike my house, this building doesn't shake.