Day 5 – Seward to Tok
451 miles
Too soon it was time to make our way up the Alaskan Highway towards Canada and the
long ride home.
We knew that if we didn't do anything but ride for the remainder of the trip...
...it would have been one of the more memorable adventures we’d had. Of course, there was a lot more to the rest of the journey besides riding.
Our motel for the evening even featured a pen of – you guessed it – sled dog puppies!
Sean knew one of the more colorful mushers had his dog camp
in the area, so after getting settled, we walked across the street to a local
tavern, and asked the barkeep if he knew the musher, Hugh Neff.
Of course he did. In fact, Hugh was probably doing a
presentation across the road with one of his lead dogs. He picked up the phone,
called the hotel where Hugh usually makes his appearances, chatted and while
and hung up.
“Yup, he’s starting in about 15 minutes.” We quickly settled
our tab and promised to be back afterwards.
Hugh’s presentation about his various trials and challenges
while dog sledding were fascinating.
His dog, Walter (after Sweetness himself, Walter Payton) was incredibly friendly (probably from all the socialization as a puppy).
His dog, Walter (after Sweetness himself, Walter Payton) was incredibly friendly (probably from all the socialization as a puppy).
Afterward, we chatted with Hugh for a while and mentioned we
were going back over to the bar we’d been at early…and would he like to join
us? It sounded like a good idea to him, so Sean and I headed across the street,
soon to be joined by Hugh and Walter.
We talked all things Iditarod and mushing, and then moved on to a lot of other subjects.
At the end of the evening we felt like we’d made a new friend and learned amazing amounts of information about sled dogging and the people who make up the sled dog community.
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