Puppies

I love hearing the sound of the rain when camping.  Especially if I am not in a tent getting cold and wet.  We have been used to 12:00pm check outs so the fact that we had to vacate the site by 11:00am got us moving earlier than normal.  We wanted to check out downtown Talkeetna before leaving so we ended up parking the RVs at the elementary school across the street and just walking to downtown.  Talkeetna is known as the inspiration for the TV show “Northern Exposure”.  There is Nagley’s Store which sells just about everything.  Many funky shops and restaurants line the main street.  We ended up spending a couple of hours just walking around and soaking up the vibe.  Once we got back to the RVs, we make ourselves some lunch and got on the road.

The drive down the Parks Highway was long, almost three hours.  But three hours of beautiful scenery and finally our first moose sighting in the wild.  I think in total we saw three moose on the drive.  We arrived at the Riley Creek Mercantile just before 6:00pm to check in for the Riley Creek Campground ($24 USD / night)  in Denali National Park.  Just as we were pulling in to park, there was a huge moose right there just munching on some leaves.  Now this is an up close experience.

Riley Creek Campground has three loops … Bear, Wolf and Caribou.  There are signs on each site post indicating where you can park a bigger RV (A site) or a smaller RV (B site).  We needed two A’s and a B.  We ended up finding three good sites in the Caribou Loop (sites 105, 107 and ???).  Because there are no hookups here, setting up the RV was pretty quick.  We did not have much time before we were getting picked up for our puppy encounter, so we decided just to have BBQ hotdogs.  While making dinner, a mama moose and her two babies started to come through our site when something spooked them and instead they just walked back on the road.

After dinner, we walked back to the Riley Creek Campground Bus Stop to get picked up by Husky Homestead for their tour ($59 USD / person).  It was only about a fifteen minute bus ride to the homestead.  Husky Homestead is owned by Jeff King a four time Iditarod champion.  It is the training facility for Jeff’s Alaskan Huskies and in the summer they open it to the public for tours.  As soon as we got off of the bus, we were given a puppy to hold.  Everyone who held a puppy, had a huge smile on their face.

The tour is broken down into two talks.  The first one takes place outside in view of all of the dogs.  Sean one of the staff members who has also raced in the Iditarod, talked about the dogs’ life from puppy to retirement.  Alaskan Huskies are bred to run and they love to do it.  So when some of the dogs were chosen to get harnessed up for a run, all of the dogs just started barking and jumping  up and down basically saying “pick me, pick me, I want to run”.  We saw eight of them run in front of an ATV and then we then came back, they got on what I would call the world’s largest treadmill.  We learned that each of the litters names have a theme.  There was the cheese litter who included Cheddar and Wiz, the ice cream litter who included Ben and Jerry, the designer litter who included Chanel and Kors, the M.A.S.H. litter who included Radar and Hot Lips and the Friends litter who included Ross, Rachel, Joey, Chandler, Monica and Phoebe.

The second part of the tour is where the boys got separated from the adults.  You see anyone under the age of twelve gets to go to a puppy party.  What happens at a puppy party you ask, you play with puppies of course.  Michael and Liam had such a great time.  Meanwhile the adults went inside where another staff member Alex talked about life in Alaska and the Iditarod Race.  The race is 1100 miles which starts in Anchorage and ends in Nome.  Once you start the race, the clock starts running.  Therefore you are running the race twenty four hours a day.  Alex explained that he runs the race for six hour cycles.  He runs for six hours and then the next six hours is spent tending to the dogs and himself.  He spends four and a half hours on the dogs making them food, making them rest and rubbing their paws.  The last ninety minutes is spent on himself and that is when he will sleep.  Then the cycle starts over again, run for six hours, rest/tend for six hours.  There was much more that we learned like the logistics of how they get food along the race and how even though you will start with sixteen dogs, you will likely finish the race with nine to ten dogs.  I found it fascinating.  The tour ended with Jeff King coming back and answering any questions.  We said a final goodbye to some of the dogs and then got back on the bus.

We ended the evening with our first campfire of the trip with s’mores, leftover birthday cake and popcorn.

Today’s miles = 155.3

Total miles = 839.9

Gas = 35.452 gallons @ $3.299 / gallon = $116.96 USD