There was a room in the Museum called 'The Place Where You Go to Listen.' The idea is that the natural vibrations of the earth change the sounds you hear and the colors you see in the room. Daylight is yellow and orange and red. Night is deeper blues. When the aurora borealis is out you hear bells. When the earth quakes, even the times you don't feel it, the walls in the room vibrate and rumble. The picture below on the left explains it all, if you can make it big enough to read. It was such a neat overwhelming experience.
This was a really interesting exhibit at the museum. Not totally sure what it was all about but this gives you a little glimpse of it.
After leaving the museum we headed for food. Lonnie ate a reindeer hotdog and I had a buffalo burger at the Loose Moose Cafe. Still no sign of a real moose.
Now, there were a few things we knew we wanted to do in Alaska and one of those things was dog sledding. We did some research and booked an appointment with Black Spruce Dog Sledding. They are the nicest people. They have beautiful property with an amazing view. We spent the first half hour with them just getting to pet and play with the dogs. They are super friendly and love human interaction. Jeff and Kattie take time to explain how they train and take care of their dogs, even how they choose what dogs are leaders.
Though this dog does look like he may be trying to eat me, he's just playing. This was one of their bigger dogs and he just doesn't know how to play gently. Such a sweet, though.
This is one of the dogs that aren't used to pull. She is really small and so is allowed to just run wild. (I wish I could remember all their names.)
So the actual sledding part was a little different than we were expecting. They teach you how to put on the harnesses and then allow you to do it alone... They tell you which dog to get, you go to that dog, the dog acts crazy and tries to lick you (Simon saw my moment of weakness while i was leaning over and licked me in the mouth) and play with you while you try to hold the dog down in the correct way and slide the harness over the neck and pull their feet through. Then you have to take the dog down the hill to the sled. That's the tricky part. The ground is slippery and the dog is pretty much dragging you all over the place. You're trying to gently make them go where you want but its almost impossible. An hour later (not really) you finally get them to the sled and then you have to hook them up. Which again is a feat with a really hyper, playful dog.
Eventually the dogs are all ready and we loaded.
I let Lonnie stand on the backsled for the beginning of the ride. There was a high chance she could've fallen off and though I didn't want her to be hurt, it would've made me laugh a lot if we lost her on the trail.
This picture makes me laugh hysterically every time I look at it. Once we started there would be no way to prepare for the cold so she had to get all this stuff on her head and face before we started.
My turn on the back. I had very little chance of falling off so was able to see this picture happening.
Jeff took this picture of us with the dogs at the half way point of the trail. Looks like I may be killing Simon (yes, this is the dog that licked me), but I'm not. As soon as we stopped they just dive in the snow and roll around. You can se the one crazy dog in the background. But Simon refused to stand, just kept rolling around...
After getting back to camp, we unhooked our dogs, walked them to their spots and then took off the harness, and left them in their little dog houses.
Jeff and Kattie were the sweetest and most helpful. Dog sledding was so much fun!
We had heard that the northern lights on Saturday and Sunday night would be a level 5, so no hunting for us yet.
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