Day 4 - June 18

We are still in Denali Park. We finally got a little more sleep. The first tour we went on was to Jeff King's house. I didn't know who he was either. He is the winningest dog musher in the world. Cindy did not pick this trip because she likes the sport of mushing, she picked it because she was interested in the dogs.
http://www.huskyhomestead.com/Husky_Homestead_Tour.htm


It was a pretty interesting tour. They talked about how they prepare the dogs for racing and how the dogs get selected to race. They are Alaskan Huskeys and they are trained to do endurance racing. These dogs are well taken care of and love to run. Jeff King's 23 year old daughter who has done quite well in the Iditarod Dog Sled Race herself, told us about her first experience with the race and what was involved with running the dogs in the race. It was really very interesting.

The dogs themselves are very similar to marathon runners. It takes several years to train them and even then, they made not make the grade for racing. They make an incredible amount of noise when the mushers are harnessing the dogs. Once they are given the command to run, they stop their barking and just run. According to the King's, it is much easier to get them to run than to get them to stop.

The next adventure was river rafting. This was not the hard core, wear a helmet type though. It was however, wear a dry suit because you will be getting wet type. Yes kids, your mom did this. We were not able to take any pictures of this event, but we did buy the picture that was taken of us in the raft. Our guide (Dan) was great. He had been doing that river for about five years.

After the river rafting trip, we had some down time before the dinner theater. It was a family style dinner where everyone sat on long picnic benches and the food was passed around just like a family would. We had salmon (of course), BBQ ribs, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, and biscuits. All you can eat. Of course, Rick was the last one done eating.

Until tomorrow.....