Leaving the Kennel :(

Sadly, today was the end of our kennel stay.  I never imagined that living in a kennel for 3 days could be so much fun, but it's time to move on...  I am now in Wasilla at the Grand View hotel where I will be for the next 6 days.  But before we left the kennel at noon today, we had a little more fun with the dogs...  a lot more fun actually.

First we had a group challenge where we had to come up with a winning strategy for running the iditarod, followed by the hands on challenge:  Each of our 5 members had to harness and bootie a dog.  We had an extremely mellow dog, sometimes harnessing and bootieing is like trying to wrestle a greased aligator.  Our dog's name was Ohm, and she had the disposition of a saint. 

First everything goes on....

Then everything comes back off...

And here is our team:  TEAM BLANK STARE. 

The notorious TEAM BLANK STARE with our very forgiving test-dog Ohm, who seems to be camera shy

We got our name because when Vern asked us what our group name was we hadn't thought of something yet and just stared at him.  It was an embarrasing name, but our team totally rocked, and our written plan for running the race was so good that Vern collected it to read it more closely for tips for his 2013 musher. (By the way, his musher this year is a young man from Brazil - he'll be the first Brazilian musher ever in the Iditarod!)

After the challenges, Vern and his wife Susan invited us into their absolutely gorgeous log cabin home, and Vern showed us his belt buckles from the Iditarod and the Yukon Quest (another huge race here in Alaska that happens each February.)

Vern and Susan

Vern's buckles from the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod

And then finally it was time to say goodbye to the 50 amazing huskies, 7 puppies and 1 border collie of Dream a Dream Dog Farm.

And then we were off on another adventure...

He's.... ummmm.... short.

So as we were eating lunch today, one of the women who had joined us - a musher from down the road picks up her phone and I hear her say: "Hi Dallas, do you have any free time today to come talk to the teachers?"  And I think to myself: "How many Dallas's are there in Alaska that she thinks we might want to talk to????"  Later when we arrived at headquarters, who should be there waiting for us but Dallas Seavey!  He was absolutely sweet and friendly and super talkative, and it turns out he's been writing a book and wants all of us teachers and maybe a few of our students to read the manuscript and give him feedback before it goes to press in August! So in the next few weeks, I'll probably be receiving a copy to take a look at.  (Also, I thought Vern's 50 dogs were a lot of dogs - Dallas has 80!)