After meeting for our buffet breakfast today we headed back to the airport to pick up a rental car for the day. Today is a free day since our tour really starts tomorrow. After driving around Fairbanks downtown we stopped to snap some photos at a small memorial park. Tomorrow is Memorial Day and there were flags along the bridge.
Next up was our first planned excursion....Tails of the Trail with Mary Shields. She was the first woman to finish the infamous Iditarod dog sled race. She also did the Yukon Quest 3 times and raced to Siberia.
I really looked forward to this excursion and it did not disappoint.
We basically went to Mary's cabin and listened to her talk about her experiences, living in Alaska, and met the dogs. It was VERY interesting. First she talked about her gardens....
Then we met the dogs. At first she had them all chained up but once we were in the pen they were let loose. She currently has 4 dogs, the oldest is 14 and one is going to give birth to pups in July. This was a great experience and THANK GOD we had the bug wipes. The mosquitos were crazy and HUGE!
After meeting the dogs, we sat around a circle while Mary explained the musher's sled, how she got into racing, and how to go about taking part in a race like the Iditarod.
We then went into the cabin where she served refreshments and told us more stories, showed us on a map where she traveled, and shared more of her life experiences with us.
I highly recommend this excursion!
After visiting with Mary we headed to the North Pole to visit Santa. We stopped for lunch at Little Richard's diner where I had the best grilled cheese! Then we went to Pioneer Park, which is a local park that has small original cabins from the early 1900's and a bunch of museum type items. It was free and a nice place for families to hang out for the day. Then dinner once again out by the river.....
The time change is finally catching up with me....It's 8:30/9pm....off to bed for another early busy day tomorrow.
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