Let's Rondy!

Stephen and I went to the Jim Beam Jam last night at the Egan Center. It was a last minute plan as I got a ticket to it at work yesterday afternoon. We bought the second ticket online for $25. The JBJ is the kickoff party for the Fur Rendezvous festivities which began yesterday.

Fur Rondy is one of the landmarks on our family calendar. It's one of the few times where you can potentially get frostbite on a ferris wheel. In addition to the carnival rides and games, there's a lot of live entertainment and some not so live, like the fur auction. There's a blanket toss which is the traditional method of scouting out game by the arctic hunters. The hunters stand in a circle holding the edges of a blanket. Someone gets in the middle of the blanket, stands up, and those holding the edges work together to toss him into the air. He spins around to check all the horizons for game. It's a lot like a labor intensive trampoline.

They have a snow sculpture competition and this year will mark the second annual Running of the Reindeer, which is modeled after the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain. Apparently, reindeer are considerably less temperamental than a herd of angry bulls. But it's still pretty fun to watch. We're heading back down to Anchorage on Sunday to partake in the festivities.

Oh, I should mention that the World Championship Sled Dog Races are held during Fur Rondy. These are timed, sprint races. The dogs which run this race are not stamina runners like those who'll be running in the Iditarod starting next weekend.

Rebecca arrives Tuesday night. We'll try to get her to as much chilly fun as we can during the course of her stay. We're laying out a fresh draping of snow this weekend so everything looks nice and white and tidy. Big fluffy flakes are falling outside the window right now.

Before the Jim Beam Jam last night, we went to Tess's 2nd to last game. They beat South by quite a bit. And the girls played a pretty good game. Tess wasn't happy with her performance, but I thought she played well. The refs kept giving her fouls which rightfully belonged to other players, so she came close to fouling out. But I'd told her ahead of time if the game looked like it was going to go late to try and foul out by the 3rd quarter so she could go home and babysit Alicia while her dad and I went to the Jam. :o) As it was, the game got over around 9pm and she drove Alicia home in the van while Stephen and I took the truck into Anchorage.

The Jam drew an interesting group of participants. You had folks of all ages (over 21), ethnicities, sizes, shapes, and walks of life. The one thing they all seemed to have in common was their enjoyment of alcoholic imbibement and the level of behavioral freedom that provides. This, of course, holds almost no enjoyment value for me. So I settled for a pleasant night of good music and people watching while trying to avoid getting corraled by drunken strangers.