Mushing

Today was a beautiful sunny day here in Fairbanks. Luckily not in the mountains. That meant that Martin and Martin did not go down to Black Rapids, and will try to go tomorrow if the weather's good instead. And we could go skiing on the river, all of us together - dogs, kids, adults. Sonja was going to be on her new dogsled, pulled by Cooper. Martin was going to skate ski. I was going to have Emilie in the chariot, and skijor with Saphira. We met Will and Anne at the river. (The river being the Tanana river.)

It took me a bit to get ready, and I did not even realize that Martin and Sonja had already gone. And they went! Fast! Here is a zoom picture of Martin (the tall blobl) and Sonja (the short blob to his right) by the bluff.

Saphira really wanted to catch up. Considering that she pulled not only me but also Emilie, she got a good workout.

A bit further down the river, looking back: Will and Anne getting pulled on occasion by Sam. The river is nearly 1km wide at this point. That same bluff can be seen in the background, this time from the south side, instead of north. The handle of Emilie's Chariot, in which she was riding, is just on the bottom of the picture.

Sam at one point poked his nose into the chariot. Before I knew it, he grabbed the cold waffle that Emilie had been eating, and gulped it down. I think he liked it :). (Anne, you do feed him, don't you?) After that, when I gave Emilie a new waffle, I kept our distance form Anne and Sam :). By this point, I had given Saphira to Martin because he was not as fast as Sonja with Cooper, and I was worried. Martin said "oh, Cooper will stop at some point". (Will was joking that we might have to go to Nenana to find them...) Probably typical mom vs dad mentality on these things. Anyways, Martin took Saphira, and caught up to Sonja, and some half hour later they came back up... So here is the group once we got them back:

And then Martin let Sonja go once again... so that I could take some pictures of Sonja mushing. They went at a good speed.









(We'll see whether getting the dogsled was a good idea or a bad idea a few years down the road... some people warned us that's how it starts... and before you know it, you have a dog team on your hands...)