11th Anniversary

I decided to suprise Jake with an anniversary gift this year. All I told him was to dress like he was going skiing and that we were headed to Park City. He thought he we were going snowmobiling but when he got there he said in a suprised questioning voice.....

"We're going dog sledding??" Yes baby, yes we are.

Jake and I cozied up on the sled while our musher Fernando got the team ready. It's true. We had a Mexican musher who loves snow and his dogs nearly as much as he loves running. He's a professional runner and comes from a long line of runners. His grandfather was a Tarahumara. I had just finished the book "Born to Run," which is all about the Tarahumara tribe and their history of long distance running, so it was awesome to meet someone who came from that line.

We couldn't believe how beautiful it was that day. Sun was in the perfect spot, the air was a little crisp, and the snow was perfect.

The ride was exciting down hill, relaxing on flat ground, slow going up hill, and often funny because he was training a new lead dog that just wanted to go off and play. We did tip over once as the dog landed us in a sunken in hole. That was awesome.

Our musher was awesome. I hope we can go back someday and do a full day adventure with him.

I kept trying to get a picture of the dogs beautiful faces but seriously all I could get was butts. Butts and more butts. If you notice, one of the butts is a lab butt. Fernando got into mushing when he was a kid after he saw a cartoon on mushing. He found a plastic table, glued some ski's to it, and started mushing his lab. His wife got him this lab to represent how he got into it. He said all the other dogs get annoyed with the lab and he's constantly getting tangled up but it's a good way to get the labs energy out.



Here's a clip of us getting settled in. As each dog gets hooked up they get more and more excited.

Here's a little clip of us running. You can hear our musher talking about his grandpa who was a Tarahumara Indian and how he used to herd the goats by running and wake up with snakes sleeping next to him for warmth. Can you imagine?