Day 3 - puppies, more mushing and Talkeetna

On this morning's puppy walk, the puppies were afraid to cross a bridge and needed a little help...Once they were coaxed accross, they needed some help getting down...  Looking on is Jessie, the resident border collie who has her hands full trying to keep 6 puppies in line.  She's not the mother, but she seems to have taken on the job as the actual mother seems to care less about her babies.

This evening we all drove to the nearby village of Talkeetna.  It is a quirky, cute little town with lots of eating and shopping places.  We ate at the Wildflower restaurant, which is run by President Bush's ex-whitehouse chef! The food was amazing, I didn't want dessert, but they gave me some anyway, so I had to eat it.  And now I feel like I'm going to explode.  It rained during dinner, but on the drive back the sun came out and we could see the mountains.  Beautiful!

The patio at the Wildflower Restaurant



The... welcome moose??

This morning, I had the opportunity to try on a real Eskimo (that's the English word I learned - what we call Eskimos are actually 2 distinct groups of people: the Inupiaq and the Yup'ik) parka.  I tried this on strictly for educational purposes.  If you knew exactly how many dead animals I was wearing, you would understand my horror... (I know it looks like amusement, but it's not.)

Me - wearing many formerly living animals.

The ruff is wolf fur, and the entire inside of the parka is lined in beaver fur.  Lots and lots of beavers gave their lives so that someone could be toasty warm in -30 degree weather.  I only had this on for about 1 minute and by the time I got it off, I was seriously overheating.

I'm going to try something new here and include a short video clip... let me know if it works!