We stayed at an old hotel in Fairbanks. It has been somewhat remodeled in the last decade, but it was still clearly an old hotel. In general, Marc will take the girls down to breakfast while I get ready for the day. I'm not a big breakfast eater, so they will usually just bring me a muffin or something back. Apparently it was pretty interesting. Marc said it was like eating at the Cheers bar all by themselves.
Our first stop of the morning was in North Pole, Alaska. This girl is always wanting to pose on cute benches.
Santa wasn't in, but that didn't stop these girls from creating their own photo opportunity.
Santa's reindeer were resting today as well.
We ate lunch at East Ramp Wood Fired Pizza. It was super yummy and it overlooked the Fairbanks airport. It was fun to watch large and small planes take off and land.
We headed back to downtown Fairbanks to walk along the river.
We rode out to see the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
It was finally time for our adventure! We drove about 45 minutes outside of Fairbanks to a home that was off the grid. We were going to meet Derek and KattiJo Deeter, owners of Black Spruce Dog Sledding. Derek has raced in two Iditarod races and is scheduled to race again in 2020. We loved getting to learn more about the race and their dogs.
The dogs were so excited to see us!
After spending some time talking with the Deeters and meeting the dogs, we helped harness the dogs up.
They were so good about letting the girls experience so much about dog care and racing.
After we got the dogs all ready to go, we were off for a ride! When there is no snow on the ground mushers use ATVs to train the dogs. The dogs are able to easily pull the vehicle on straight paths or uphill, but then they can push the accelerator when needed to help them get uphill. This method allows the dogs to still do what they love when they can't use a sled yet. These dogs seriously LOVE to run. Their excitement was unreal.
These dogs get hot when running at 40 degrees. They prefer to run when it is quite a bit below freezing. We stopped a few times to let them cool off, and this one loved resting in the mud puddle to cool off.
When we got back from our ride we were able to visit the newest puppies that were about a month old! They were so adorable!
We had a jam-packed, exciting day. We all agreed that the dog sledding adventure was one of the best parts of our trip. We returned to our hotel all worn out, and these two even fell asleep while watching their tablets.
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