Winter Festivities

When your "winter" lasts almost 6 months, you have to find things to do to break up the monotony. So we party. Every February, we celebrate... whatever... at the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous. It started as a gathering of hunters & trappers to trade furs and get supplies. Now, we spend the time with parades, races, food, ice sculptures, sled dog races, snowshoe softball, ice bowling, fireworks and many other events. I know people who spent all day Saturday downtown for Rondy. They got up early enough to go to the pancake feed, visited shops, attended events, and just enjoyed the party atmosphere.

Fur Rondy

It's been a long time since I've been downtown for any of the Fur Rondy events, but this year Greg was part of a team running in the Outhouse Race. While I was too comfortable in bed to get up for pancakes, I did make it down for some shopping, food, and the race. No way I could miss that!

Outhouse Royalty

It started with the Outhouse Royalty walking the "prizes" down the course so the crowd could see what was up for grabs. Then each team took a run for the time trial - and so the onlookers could see the participants. Apparently, this year there were more entries than ever before, and a larger crowd too. One outhouse was done in a Mardi Gras theme, another like a rocket, a third in a mexican theme. There are specific rules about how many runners and requirements for construction - the outhouse has to have a seat, a roll of toilet paper, a rider, and reading material. Some were short, some tall, one decked out like a salmon... people were very creative.

GeoCache Express Racers

Our team created the GeoCache Express - a short outhouse in the style of an ammo can (?!?). I don't know how they did in the time trial, but they were quick and aggressive. Which netted them 2nd place in the open class, and 3rd place overall. Way to go!! Prizes are decorated toilet paper rolls, and the 1st place team got one of those Ed McMahon huge cardboard checks... for $5.00 (that they had to give back after the pictures were taken). They're already making plans on what to do differently for next year.

Time Trials

Competition

Rondy is a week-long smorgasbord of events. Yesterday will probably be most of my involvement - but it was fun. If I weren't content to be at home with things to do, I'd go down for the Running of the Reindeer. I heard that people dress up and act wacky to get the reindeer to run... like putting on a costume with carrots all over so (hopefully?) they'll be motivated to chase you. That might be worth seeing. =)