Thursday

Up at 9am and Kukal's here at 12 - dropped dogs and off to Iditarod Headquarters - tried to contact Leo Rasmussen at the front desk but he must not be registered under his name so a coordinator for the Iditarod was going to give her a note I wrote to Leo at the Iditarod banquet tonite. While we were there we saw many Iditarod dog trucks - one of them John Baker's - we saw Rick Swensson, Colleen Robertia, Aly Zirkle, Mike Santos and Pat Moon and probably more but didn't recognize them!
Then we went to the famous Gwennie's Old Alaska restaurant and had lunch - expensive ($6 for a cup of chili) but very good.
After that we drove by Lake Hood and saw all of the privately owned float planes - hundreds of them!
Then we went to a park near the ocean and saw all of the landmarks located on the sign but it was too cloudy for us to see Mt. McKinley.
Driving from there we saw a guy get out of his truck with a shotgun and come to find out he shot at the ravens that were flying around and figured out that it was because they were near the airport runway and they were trying to shoo them away!
Next we stopped at the Alaska Fur Company - they have tons of mounts of all kinds of game including a lion!!! I found a purple dyed fur ruff to put on the jacket Cindy gave me that is black with purple trim - I have been wanting it for a long time but today I noticed this one at 1/2 off for $10!!!
Now we are back at "the ranch" and waiting till 5 to feed dogs - tomorrow we see my brother Mark's friend, Paul Herrick who is an instructor at the U of Alaska in the aviation department.