Alaska Fun

And oh what fun we had. A few weeks ago we found an activity that we thought the kids would enjoy and decided to go on Saturday afternoon. The afternoon outing started eventfully as we were driving on the freeway toward its first stoplight in town. I spotted a moose right alongside the road (the first for the kids and I). It was fun to finally see one. There was just one problem. It had a projectile hanging from its side. Yes, some wily hunters had decided to pull over on the freeway and shoot it with their bow. I actually saw their cars before I saw the moose. Then we saw them climbing out of the gully. I think they were probably going to go after the moose again. Interesting start to the day.

After that we drove over to Pioneer Park to watch the pulling contest at the International Sled Dog Symposium. They had some neat dogs there. One lady even got her three dogs out so the kids could pet them. We cautioned the children that these dogs weren't really pets and that they shouldn't try to pet them without permission from mom and dad AND the dog owner. They LOVED petting the dogs. I was surprised to see the variety of dogs they had there. I guess the husky in my mind is the representation of sled dogs. Not so.

The kind lady and her biggest dog.


Her Siberian Husky named Shadow. She was really nice and spent quite a bit of time talking to us and letting us pet her dogs.


I just loved this picture of Kim and the dog looking at each other. Both of the kids thought the dogs were really cool.



We got in on viewing the mid-weight dog weight pull. Two dogs made it to the end. The dogs had 60 seconds to pull the weight a certain distance. They also kept time. Each round they added 120 lb. to the wagon. By the last round, the wagon weighed 2,240 pounds. After that, both dog owners called it. Can't blame them, the dogs must have been exhausted after pulling and pulling with more and more weight. It is impressive how much weight these dogs can pull.

Here's the winner, Minnie, because she took less time to pull the last load.


Here's the runner-up, an Alaskan Husky named Dozer. It was fun to watch him with his owner. They seemed to have a good relationship.



After that, we decided the kids needed some fun, so we walked around the park and found the playground. We thought this swing was cool, especially considering the episode at the beginning of our day.