Our dining room has reopened and the food is better than I have had the entire time since I got here. The guy in charge of it is bound and determined to provide quality meals and try to make everyone happy with their selections. We always have soup for lunch and dinner (yes it is cold enough to enjoy a good bowl of soup!), fresh salad and fruit, and vegetarian main courses, along with non-vegggie food. Cookies have now started appearing also! Apparently they haven't been available for about a week. Breakfast is always bacon and sausage, eggs, plenty of different breads, yogurt, fruit of some kind, either grits or oatmeal, and cereal.
The meal hours are long enough that a person does not have to get up in the dark to get fed (oh wait, there is no dark right now!). We generally have a two-two and a half hours time frame for all meals. This way all employees have plenty of time to eat during their shifts and generally are able to sit and converse with friends until time to clock back in. Because often different departments work at different times this gives people a chance to catch up on what's going on with their friends or acquaintances who are working different hours.
Friday night I went to the kennel that started my obsession with sled dog racing. It was raining but I didn't care- I wanted to see the older dogs I was introduced to four years ago and of course meet the new puppies. Our bus driver and outdoor presenter is a teacher during the school year and wife of a guy who runs the Iditarod among other races. She gave a great overview of how dogs are trained, what a musher looks for when selecting who will breed with whom, what makes a husky a husky, and she kept everyone awake with her excitement and knowledge. While she did this the musher took the dogs on a short run which makes for one loud dog yard until the ones selected to go out have left the yard.
Next we went to the indoor classroom (for lack of a better term) and listened as Jeff explained why he raced for as long as he did, what he had to do to prepare himself as well as the dogs for the Iditarod, the summer training he does, and what a musher actually does before and during the race. I had heard most of this before, but actually got a little new information to add to my lessons. He talked about the dangers on the trail and took us on a slight detour to explain how caribou lose their ANTLERS, complete with a re-inactment of how a caribou prances about with huge antlers before they fall off. This whole routine of his was quite hilarious, but the message was clear about how dangerous animals can be to sled dogs if the musher is not paying attention.
I was quite glad I was able to take photos of his trophies because my students do not have many resources to use when researching awards and now I have up close photos to show them. There were only a few I did not get, mainly because he has not won them. Red Lantern, the last place finisher's award, is a red camper's lantern so those are not hard to find in a catalogue or store advertisement. I did forget to ask about the Spirit of Alaska First to McGrath mask. Guess I'll have to go back out there!
Now that my twisted ankle is well on the way to recovery I'm able to get out more, but for the past three days I've been icing it for most of the day. I missing walking everyday and I have a goal of walking at lest 100 miles before I leave in July. There's a T-shirt with my name on it (not literally) that I want to get for finishing this goal. I'll just have to be more careful while I'm walking the highway, playing music on the guardrail with a stick!
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