Sunday, July 28th-Dogs and Denali!

We hooked up the camper today and headed to Denali National Park with one small detour in Wasilla on the way. The Iditarod Sled Dog Race, in case you haven’t heard of it, is an annual race of sled dog teams of 14 dogs from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska. This is a looooong race! Anchorage is Southcentral Alaska whole Nome is in NW Alaska near the Bering Strait across from Russia. The organizers claim its a thousand miles along the trail. Since there are almost no roads in the Western half of Alaska, the racers follow the TRAIL!

Anyway, the headquarters of the Iditarod is on the way to Denali and worth a stop! There is a museum about the history and a lot of memorabilia about the race. Those things were interesting even to Claire and Ryan but the real attraction was the dogs, and especially the puppies! Take a look at how much Claire and Sara love the puppies:


After holding and petting the really, really soft puppies, Claire and Ryan got to let the sled dogs pull them around a track built there. You can’t  really see their faces in this pic but they loved it!

Then it was driving to to our campground near the park and a couple of short hikes. We have to get our legs warmed up for what’s comin’!

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