Ice Around Town

Ice Around Town, as some of you might remember, is part of the festivities surrounding The Peninsula Winter Games. The PWG is a whole day of kid-friendly games, tournaments, outdoor activities, even an ice cream social. The Native Youth Olympics are also held that day in case anyone might like to go see traditional games being played. Last year's PWG is where I first saw, and coveted, a kicksled of my own.

Businesses in Soldotna and Kenai can commission ice sculptures that are carved by local sculptors from local ice, harvested from River Bend Lake near Beaver Loop Road. We look forward to seeing them every winter, and are sorry that the day of the PWG the weather was overcast and dreary, and subsequently our photos didn't turn out very well and do not show off the sculptures to their best advantage.

The main events are held at the sports center in Soldotna. The Monopoly tournament, hockey games, ice bowling, snowmachine sled rides, and kicksled rides are there. But perhaps the biggest draw are the huge ice slides. I can't believe we managed to avoid getting a single photo of the entire ice slide setup. AARGH. Trust me, it was awesome. There were two, one small one for tiny tots (which shot the kids out into the parking lot a respectable distance for only being about three feet tall), and the main slide complex. Ice stairs to one side led up to the slide on the other, with saddled sculptures around the base, to keep the kids entertained while they waited their turns.

Approaching the slides from the parking lot, a sculpture of a bear mushing a dog represents the Tustumena 200 race.

A closer shot of the mushing bear:

Nearer the slides was this bear:

OOH!! SOMEONE'S GIVING AWAY A FREE PUPPY! I NEED THAT PUPPY!!

Okay, I didn't bring the puppy home. But I was tempted. Oh, so tempted.

One of the saddled sculptures for the kids to climb on near the base of the slide:

I have no idea who this little girl is, but ain't she adorable? Get an idea of the scale of the sculpture from the adults standing behind its head.

 Some of the sculptures just didn't show up in the photos very well at all, such as this saddled bear:

But by tweaking the colors a bit, even though it's not like in real life, you can see them better. The woman in the background is looking up towards the top of the slide, which you can see on the left. It was a long, tall slide.

The sledding bear at the entrance to the recreation center was one that needed some unnatural tweaking in order to show up much.

Leaving the rec center, we headed to town to check out the sculptures at the local businesses. The Soldotna Visitor's Center never fails to entertain with their interactive sculptures. This year, you could pretend to be frozen in a block of ice like a caveman. 

The Duck Inn has a martini and two ducks wishing they could drink it:

KSRM radio's surfing moose:

 Arby's curly fries:

 Blazy Construction's howling wolf:

Alaska Open Imaging's teddy-bear-style moose:

 An eagle at Soldotna Mini Storage:

A twice-vandalized walrus at the pharmacy was my favorite, even though we never saw it in its undamaged condition:

This photo of the walrus' missing tusks is from the Redoubt Reporter. The tusks were broken off, replaced, and broken off again. What a shame. Apparently it's quite rare that anyone bothers the sculptures.

Surfing puffin at the dentist's office (sorry you can't see it better):

The puffin's face:

 The Cheshire Cat at another dentist up the street:

A polar bear texting on a mobile phone in front of Alaska Communications:

Dairy Queen's banana split:

The Kenai Watershed Forum's slots-playing bear:

Sweeney's leprechaun is showing his penguin friend a shamrock and a gold coin:

The sculpture at the airport wasn't finished yet, so here it is in progress:

And here's the finished moose flying an open-cockpit plane:

I think this catches you up on what we've been doing around here for the past month or so. See you next time!

The Tustumena 200

I haven't done any blogging since, well, since my last post.  Which was a sad one. But it's time to put some smiles back on faces again, and I don't know of a better way to do that than with lots of dogs showing off some serious joie de vivre.

The Tustumena 200 sled dog race, as long-time readers might remember, is a qualifier for the Iditarod. The two-hundred-mile round-trip race begins and ends in Kasilof. This year's race took place on January 29 - 30, 2011, and we were there to see it start!

I know there are some people who don't believe a sled dog enjoys his or her work. Surely a musher is a cruel person who forces the poor creatures to labor for miles pulling heavy weights, right? Um, no. Not at all. And if you have any doubt, check out this video of a team being held back:

Or this video of the same team being walked to position at the starting line. Notice the handlers with the dogs, and the snow machine behind the sled, weighing the dogs down so that they don't start running early:

Click on this pic to enlarge it. You've got to see the expression on this dog's face.

And, if you're still unsure whether or not a dog with pulling in its DNA really enjoys the job, come over to our house. We'll harness Moya up, hand you the lead, and wave goodbye to your rapidly disappearing form as she tows you out of sight in mere seconds.

Y'know, looking through the photos and comparing what I see here to the official start order list, I notice that nine of the fourteen mushers were men. But what has my dear husband decided to photograph?

Kristy Berington:

Her twin sister, Anna Berington:

Zoya DeNure:

And DeeDee Jonrowe, this year's winner:

And [singing "One of these things is not like the others..."] a lone photo of Gary Van Loo.

I admit, I never thought seeing the dog races start off would be much fun. "Yeah. Dogs. Running. Wooo." But I really enjoy it. And I don't think I would as much if I didn't have Moya at home. Seeing hundreds of Moya-alikes all in one place makes me feel fortunate that I only have one.

Having seen the racers off, we took our traditional arms-length self portrait:

But before we leave the race, here's something else for me to show you... A guy in a truly epic fox trapper hat, standing about 15 feet away from the race chute, with a large cardboard box. Of kittens.

The box says "FREE Kittens  You Need to have good intentions or you can't have Them!"

As far as we know, he left with as many as he brought. He wasn't exactly playing to the correct market. But it was worth a try.

After leaving the race, Jim and I stopped at Rocky's Cafe for lunch. I love that the sign is modeled after the Roslyn Cafe sign from the tv show Northern Exposure.

Once we were full of lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the Ice Around Town ice sculptures, but I'll save those pictures for the next post!

Tate

Tate O'Connor

March, 1997 - February 2, 2011

I'd like to sit here and write a tribute to our dog, Tate, who passed away yesterday. But I find I don't know where to start... How do I condense fourteen years of experiences into a few paragraphs? So I suppose I'll just ramble a bit...

She came into our home from a shelter, one of seven boxer/hound siblings. We don't know exactly how many weeks old she was, because the shelter and the vet disagreed on her age. So, we observed her birthday somewhere around the middle of March.

The photo above is Tate with her adopted brother Michael, in the crate she used for most of her life. She loved her crate, and spent most of her time in there as she got older, snoozing. Even when we passed that particular crate down to Moya, Tate still got into it whenever she had the chance. Gosh, she looks so little there.

Tate might technically have been my dog, but she took particular interest in James. They were puppies together, after all. James was just six years old when we got Tate. During the time when James was involved in Boy Scouts, and went camping often, Tate would refuse to eat until James got home. She'd go two or three days without eating a single bite. Eventually we realized that if James explained to her that he would be gone a certain number of days but he'd be back, she'd be fine while he was gone and wouldn't hunger strike.

She was good about letting us dress her up, too. Not that we did it often, but she'd let us. She's wearing the decorations from a luau party here, and we imagine she's singing "Tiny Bubbles" and pretending she's on stage with Don Ho.

We moved to Alaska when Tate was twelve years old. Boxers average out at about 10 years old, so even though she's a mixed breed, I didn't really think she'd survive the move. But she not only survived, she came through with flying colors, crossing America top to bottom, the Canada-USA border twice, and settling into Alaskan living as if it was no big deal. Here she is at a hotel along the way, obviously happy with her "globetrotting."

Shortly after moving here, though, Tate began to show her age, and we brought home two new sisters for her to interact with and give her something new to occupy her days, rather than just lay around and sleep. That plan didn't work out quite like we'd hoped. The new sisters each formed their own largely separate existences, and Tate went back to sleeping her days away.

Moya became a thorn in Tate's side, the older the two became. But it wasn't all bad.

I love this picture. A photo bomb from Tate on the way to the kennel in Sterling, the first time James flew to Pennsylvania for college.

Tate usually didn't mind the snow, but I adore the put-upon look she's giving me on this particular snowy day. 

Many a time, as Tate grew older, weaker, and less healthy, we debated if this was Her Time. But our decision was that as long as she seemed happy, we'd let her continue, but if her health deteriorated too far, there would be no heroic measures. Her demeanor was usually one of contentedness if not happiness, and some days she seemed to have no clue about anything, just a generally senile outlook of being happy no matter what. Health issues restricted her to the downstairs nearly all the time, as the incontinence got worse and her hips got weaker and falls on the stairs increased.

But still she smiled and was glad for the times she got to come upstairs and be part of the pack, or sleep in her beloved old crate instead of her new one.

Then, yesterday, we knew things had changed. She'd been off her food for a couple days, which was highly unusual in itself. She was reluctant to stand, reluctant to walk when she did stand, and even laid down in the snow rather than walk into the yard to potty. She couldn't control herself and made some messes. She looked a bit scared and distressed. Not the happy-go-lucky she normally was.

It was time.

James called and talked to her on the phone and said his goodbye to her. She managed a last meal of favorite foods that had been off limits due to her sensitive stomach - marshmallows, leftover steak, and the oh-so-coveted rawhide treat. Jim carried her upstairs and she spent her last afternoon amongst the family, laying by her water bowl. 

She died in my arms, with Jim at our side, before she had a chance to realize there was anything unusual about this trip to the vet. We petted her and told her she was a good dog. We buried her on the bluff overlooking the lake, wrapped in a blanket Jim's grandmother made, with her face to the rising sun and the view over the water.

She was steadfast, loyal, and even-keeled, and she was a good dog for sure. The house is emptier without her. We loved her.

And she is missed.