Friends At The State Fair

Our friends Lance and Nora taking a selfie with us in the skywalk car behind them at the Iowa State Fair 2022.

 

I'm Going To Be Busy!

This is off of the big ol' squash plant that I wrote about here.  There are about this many more out there in various stages of ripeness.  This is going to taste like sunshine in the middle of winter!  We have a couple of acorn squash growing too from a plant that had completely withered away and the wind blew the stem off at the dirt.  Apparently the root wasn't dead.

 

Alaskan Vaca 2022 - Day 5, Part II, The Iditarod Dude & His ATV's

 

This is Justin, the owner of the whole operation, giving us safety instructions, the overall description of what we will be doing and so on.  He also says that he loves the new tires he's found for the atv's and if we ruin any of them,  that we will buy him new ones if we do it why being "donkey's".  Duly noted.

This was taken by Nora right before we fired up our machinery to head out. 

Sadly, before we got very far, and by very far,  we were towards the end of the convoy of vehicles and just to the left of that previous photos when two employees, one on foot and one on an atv went flying down the driveway (it was quite steep!) as a young girl on one of the single passenger vehicles had wrecked just as she pulled out of the driveway onto the dirt road out to our fun day.  We didn't see it so I can't speak intelligently on what happened but it wasn't a good way to start, to say the least.

Looking at Google maps, I can find where we turned off of Highway 3 North of Willow, but I'll be cursed if I can tell where went from there.  The map is similar to when I look at the maps of China to figure out where we were, they actual simulated roads with names don't quite line up with the road that you can see on the satellite maps.  Therefor, I cannot tell you what this little river is. It might be Willow Creek, but I truly have no idea. What I can tell you is that we will eventually be driving in it! 

Note that I put more distance betwixt us and the car in front of us due to getting a face full of peltings from both the rain and the gravel road.

I think that this is the first little "training" river that they had us drive thru to see how comfortable everyone was driving these things.

Same...

This was after we drove thru that "test" area.  I guess since everyone survived, we were going to go on!  The car in the picture is Lance driving, Darwin in the passenger seat with Nora (facing the camera) and Sharri in back.

This "passage" is what's known as Jeremiah's Creek as the guy who cooked our lunch is also our tour guide for today.  He found this little creek (with a sketchy entrance!) and taught the others about it.  It was a bit deeper than our first "test" run and much bumpier as it has a boulder bed for most of it.

And there you can see some of the bigger boulders and you can also see that we are currently going 4mph!

I believe this is after we drove through a river one direction for Jeremiah to show us something that I can no longer recall due to sensory overload, but we were whipping a U'ey to go back thru some deep water to head in a slightly different direction.

Somewhere in this area, we had a personnel shift when Mama promoted Caleb to the front passenger seat.  She was either tired of the constant face pelting of the rain (which felt like ice pellets) or she knows the love that Caleb has for these types of things...  Possibly both.

The timing of these pics are a bit shady due to coming from different cameras...

This is heading out to the bigger rivers and what I refer to as the jungle.

The reason that road closed sign was there was because this bridge was sketchy as h3ll!

Deeper waters...

Lance and Caleb sharing a fist bump and having a great time. 

And right after that, a family style pic-i-ca-ture.

To borrow a bit from Guns n' Roses and paraphrase,  "we're in the jungle, baby.  We're going to get slapped in the head by medium sized branches.".  This was hilarious as you're driving along and hear once of the four of us saying something something like, "OH $H!+", or "OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!", "JEEEEEEEEZ!" or just a good ol', "OUCH!".  Nearly all of the phrases ended with an exclamation point.  Some of them smarted pretty good and others were just really loud on your helmet and scared you.  Good stuff!  

The best pic of Mama and Rob from vaca, I believe, although the one with the puppy earlier is definitely in competition.

Remember getting slapped?  You can see Caleb leaning in from Mama's photo from the back seat...  lol

Our buddy Lance was driving the vessel in front of us for most of the tour.  When we crossed these small creeks of water running off the mountains, I would carefully watch his rear tires to see how smooth, or not, the waterway was.  Most were pretty bumpy and therefor required some finesse as to not buy new tires for Justin.  However...  this one saw very tiny movements of his tires and as such, I waited until they were a safe distance past the waterway so that I could floor it and get the biggest splash possible. I think I did okay.  And, pardon my language but I think my laugh it kinda funny...  Oh, and would I do it again?  You bet!  But, I would have backed up to gain even more speed!!!  Anybody who has been my passenger knows that I LOVE a good puddle.

This was after we made it through that splash.  I was amazed that the machine didn't miss a beat!  That was nothing tho compared to what Lance and I put them thru near the end of our adventure.  If we had failed I would have blamed Lance (wink wink) but we didn't fail but instead got a huge blast of water off the front of our vessel straight into our chest in one of the most exhilarating moments on vacation (and dumb for the Schmitz Mobile Chaos Unit with Teddy in charge!  Lance's path wasn't stupid as it was hard to remember what "side" of the path we came in on, but after I watched him make it with water up to the upper sides of their doors, I thought, "what the heck, with a little more speed, we can do it a little tiny-bit better").  We made it but there was a moment or two of trepidation!  lol

Hey look!  A creek that's swollen from recent HEAVY rains!

Let's drive thru it!  The freaky thing about this is that the water is coming in thru the bottom of the doors and you can feel the current moving your vessel.  And, do I know that a silly little atv is not truly a vessel? Yes I do, but at times while your atv is being manipulated by the high, fast flowing water, you may as well just include it.

And back into the jungle.  This sight in the rear view mirror means that we are the last "truck" in the convoy as that is Lindsay and her now nameless husband (who was one of the two who raced down to take care of the girl who crashed at the beginning of our tour) making sure they don't lose any of their "flock" out in the wilds...  If one vehicle from the group ever got separated out here,  I don't think they'd ever get back on their own.  I am confident that I could not have found our way back.

This was the end of the line.  The SMCU got out for pic to be taken by Nora.  If you cannot tell by now, we all smell like wet dogs and are absolutely SOAKED TO THE BONE!!!  It's 48 degrees at this point.

This is Jeremiah, our fearless tour guide. I have come to learn that if your tour guide seems a little crazy like this fella and our guide for our final tour of Moab Utah's Hell's Revenge tour, you're in good hands!  They are like this because they grew up in this area and they're still alive.  Just relax and have fun!

Another stream.

Another U-turn.

The waterfall pic...  Yes, I know. You can barely see the waterfall but it's the beautiful creatures in the foreground that are supposed to be the focus.  It's more crazy to think of the spot that Jeremiah is standing to take these pics!  I should have taken a picture of that. There was a fella, who was not in our group, who had to pee really bad and delayed our trip to the waterfalls as he couldn't "perform in public" as well as he had assumed he could.  I suppose it's just ultimately another situation of "know your audience".

Our fellow pirates for the day!

And, while we're out here frozen to the core, we might as well document some landscape. Right?  I don't recall exactly where this was taken but once we were back on the road, I don't think we ever stopped until we got back to Justin's property where we picked up the machines.

Our two vehicles made our way back North to Talkeetna where we'll all wash the dog smell off of us and then meet for supper. 

Speaking of my love for a good (great!) puddle, look at this bad boy!!!!!!  This was on our walk from our Airb'nb to the what turned out to be, another supper the Denali Brewpub, which was fine by us!

Let's pretend that this was a road on my way to work (I have to pretend now as I work from the basement now...).  I would floor it to get the maximum splash out of it!. If the initial splash is good enough, I may do a loop and hit 1 or 4 times more!  I have LOVED giving my family this "experience" on our way to the downtown farmer's market...  and back home.  And... everywhere else there is a wonderful puddle to be exploited.  But!  I will not do it with a rental car or if I borrow someone else's car.  I need to own the "torpedo" vehicle that is executing the mission!

We were hoping to hit up Mountain High Pizza Pie but it was packed.  In retrospect,  we probably should have done that from the Schmitz Mobile Chaos Unit's perspective.  

Finally got one!

We had a LOT of fun at supper and I laughed so hard that I chapped my ears! On our walk back to the AirBn'b, Rob said, "Why are we going the opposite direction from these people? This would be a lot more fun if we were just doing the vacation together!".  Caleb made a similar remark shortly after we got "home".  That's a good time!

We played a game or two of Blitz before calling it a day.  

Alaskan Vaca 2022 - Day 5, Part I, The Iditarod Dude & His Dogs

Today is the fine, fine day when we cross paths with our good friends, Lance and Nora Demers along with Nora's brother Darwin and his wife Sharri. But not only are we meeting up with our peeps from Iowa, we are spending nearly the entire day together. First, it's the dogsledding with hounds who have ran the Iditarod, then lunch, and finally we drive Northeast from Willow, Alaska to get on ATV's and do silly stuff!  This post focuses on the hounds...

So let's get started!

I woke up around 3:30am with the light shining in under the blind in our bedroom and hopes that it might be 4:30 - 5am.  No dice.  I went back to sleep for short times for the next hour or so...  

Regardless, we were up in time to get the critters organized and on the road in time, despite my brides ordering of a crepe that must have taken 40 minutes to produce!  On top of that, if I recall correctly, it was some nonsensical lemon thing and not something with eggs, bacon and sausage in it.  Useless...

I did my best on the road to make up time for the "lost crepe" and we got there a minute or two after the Demers and their travelling crew.

Silly as these things are,  we missed the driveway the first time by.  We drove down to the next driveway to turn around.  There was a large tanker coming down the road so I just waited before I backed out.  It turned out that when we located the correct driveway, and proceeded up it, the Demers clan was walking towards the "check-in booth".

For the lads in the Schmitz Mobile Chaos Unit, today, as with most every day on vacations, it's a mystery and therefor somewhat exciting as Mama plans everything and we have very little clue as to what is coming up.  Today is even more exciting due to the recent rain.

Alaska has been getting some much needed rain as the wildfires have burned around 2.7 million acres as of July 13th, 2022.  As a result of that rain (and weather reports!), I was worried a bit that the excursion would be cancelled.  If not cancelled, I was then nervous about driving the ATV's thru swollen rivers as I am not all that experienced with these things.

We start with the sled dogs.  We get some blue'ish rain gear to put on and we first meet Lindsay.  She was originally from Ohio but her and her hubby moved to Anchorage.  They both quit their jobs as teachers and went to work for Justin at Snowhook Adventures.  Justin has over 60 dogs does the Iditarod every year.

We, as a group, talked with Lindsay for a while until Justin, who owns Snowhook Adventures, showed up and gave us some instructions about what we were about to do and answered any and all questions.  He also taught us how to approach the dogs when we FINALLY get to meet them and how he feeds them when he's doing on the Iditarod.  

FINALLY,  he took us "out back" to see where the sled dogs live and we were turned loose to go pet/meet all/none or some of the dogs.  This was such great therapy for the SMCU as we were greatly missing our two dogs back at home!  Caleb fell in love with Hutson while George won over Rob's heart.  Each dog had their own personality (like kids!) and it was simply amazing to experience. 

And, somewhat stinky, unless you love wet dog smells.
 

Look at that smile!!!

Lance, Nora, Mama & Papa Chaos.

Organized chaos as the dogs were ready to go!!!

Our crew minus the driver.  Mama and I in the front seat.  Lance, Sharri and Darwin in the back seat and Caleb, Robby and Nora standing in the back.  Shhhhh...  don't tell OSHA.

The dogs know the whole drill and when they recognize the near launching of the run, their energy increases ten-fold!  You can tell by their back legs that they're already "pulling".

Mama, Lance and I are happy and ready to ride!

And we're off!  Although, the second pair up both want to run on the right side and it takes them a while to work that argument out.  This is part of the preparation as they need the best team of dogs working together when they head out on the Iditarod.  These tours help resolve those issues.

We've been pulled for quite a while now and notice that the second pair from the atv is STILL trying to run on the right side of the lead. 

The shack in the middle is where you check in and do your paperwork and get your gear to wear on the adventure.  The building that you can kind of see behind the white van in the right of the picture is where we had our grill cheeseburgers for lunch. 

This is back where the dogs live and now we're in the puppies pen.

Great picture of Rob and Mama!  Rob caught himself one of the pups.  That dog was a sweetie!!

At this point, we were back at the check-in building where we turned in our blue coats for bright orange coats while still wearing the same pants.  This is when Jeremiah grilled us cheeseburgers.  They had buns, fresh tomatoes, lettuce and onions for toppings.  It was fun to sit in the tiny "shed" with our group including Lindsay and hubby (danged if I can recall his name...).  We learned that they had originally purchased a house in Anchorage that they're now trying to sell so they can move closer to Willow to live in a yurt...  In Alaska...  with a dog and no plumbing.  Ok, then.  As we like to say, you go and be you!

That's it for this part of our day.  We'll pick up with the ATV tour in the next post.