Well, I made it to Anchorage! We left Vermont on Saturday morning at 9:30 and arrived in Anchorage about 15 hours later! Sure was a long flight. The weather here is a lot like in Vermont, about 18 degrees yesterday, and sunny.

My first big adventure was to go to the Alaska Native Heritage Center. This is a museum that houses a small collection of Alaska native artifacts and gives presentations on their crafts and culture. My favorite parts of the museum were the demonstration on native games and the tour of the shelters used by natives. The games were challenging, and painful! The One-Foot Kick is a game where you try to kick a small ball suspended about three feet off the ground. Does this sound easy? I didnıt tell you the hard part yet. You have to use one foot and never put the other one down. You stand on one foot, kick with that foot, and land on that foot. Try it. It is harder than it sounds. Volunteers were crashing to the ground because it was so challenging. Thank goodness there was a mat under them.

The other part of the museum I enjoyed was the models of the different types of houses the natives used throughout Alaska. They used different techniques depending on the environment in which they lived. Here are a couple of examples of the houses.

This is a Yupik shelter.

This is a shelter from some coastal tribes.

Today promises to be an exciting one. Iım heading off to a kennel to try taking a team of dogs out on my own. Iıll tell you more about it tomorrow. Wish me luck, and no broken bones!

I hope you are enjoying Mr. Starr! Did he wear his funky glasses yet?

Iım thinking of all of you!