On to Wasilla and Palmer!

On Monday of the Van Zandt's trip we went to Wasilla and Palmer, to us locals "The Valley," and had a fabulous time exploring those two small towns. It was very sunny and pretty warm on this day which was really great. We stopped by Lake Wasil and there were TONS of children swimming and lots of people lying out. It was a bit comical how joyous the occasion and yet the water was still quite chilly for us from NC!

We stopped by Sarah's (Palin, that is) old stompin' ground. Dede was in heaven!

I thought this pup's eyes were beautiful! He is a sled dog that has run in the Iditarod. When we stopped by the Iditarod Headquarters we actually met the son of the man who started the "Last Great Race."

In Palmer we stopped by a reindeer farm. I was really amazed at how the antlers on all the reindeer were so different ... almost like their fingerprint; I shouldn't be surprised, but I was because the racks were all so different! We touched the antlers of an elk (not pictured here) and they were velvety, very unexpected.

These are reindeer hooves ... click, click, click!! They were just so strange and unique to me. The reindeer do actually click when they walk because of a tendon in the back of their leg.