Skagway, Alaska

Dog Sledding Day! We got up super early for our helicopter/dog sled excursion only to discover it had been cancelled due to bad weather up on the glacier. Luckily for us, they rescheduled us for later in the day. In the meantime, we wandered around Skagway which only exists because of the Yukon Gold Rush and is probably the town which has most preserved its historical look. Of course, it only exists today to cater to tourists, so it was pretty chatchka, but done in a much more charming way.

Later that morning, we caught our helicopter. I was really scared of it, but as soon as we lifted off, I decided I like helicopters waaaaay better than airplanes. You can barely feel any movement at all in the helicopter - if I couldn't see out the window that we were off the ground, I would never have known that we had taken off. Same with landing. Plus you can see EVERYTHING! There were 6 people in the helicopter plus the pilot, and Jonathan and I somehow scored the shotgun seats, so we got a great view! No pictures, though. I didn't want to be obnoxious and elbow the pilot or something while I was taking a shot.

When we got to the dog camp, there were about 280 dogs who all started barking madly when they saw us. Apparently they recognize the stylish orange safety vests we all had to wear, and they know when people in vests come, they get to run! They were so cute and excited!

They had two sleds hooked together, so the dogs were pulling three people plus the musher. Our musher was named Joe, and he was from Missouri. The person on the back sled got to stand up like they were driving and work the brake. Joe stood on the front sled and yelled commands at the dogs. I "drove" first. It was soooo fun! The dogs couldn't wait to get started and they did not want to stop! When we stopped, I had to stand on the brake with both feet to keep them from running away again!

Once we had gone around the trail, Joe took us over to the puppy pen. This is Chuck Norris. Chuck's a girl. But I bet she could still kick someone's ass.