So today I decided to walk to Ivory Jacks instead of driving. Was meeting up with the usual crew for brunch. It was a great day, very sunny and a touch cold for a t-shirt and fleece (-8 F) it turned out, but not to bad. I was trading texts with Johnson and almost there when this dog sled goes slowly past me. It quietly passed just to my left on the road. Pretty cool. Nobody was driving though! I drank it all in, enjoyed watching the dogs running, and then turned around to see no one chasing it.

Once I snapped out of the appreciative daze I started chasing after it but even with four dogs it was a touch to fast. Just barely to fast but close doesn’t count in this foot race. Soon I was to the end of the road where a guy had corraled the dogs. They were pretty freaked. We assesed the situation together and I suggested he drive up the road looking for the owner and I would stay with the dogs. He asked if I was familiar with dog sleds. Uh no way dude, duh! So he showed me how to work the brake and headed up the road.
A few minutes later he returned without a dog owner. So just when I think I’m the new owner of a good but slightly used dog team the owner drives up. He and the team got attacked by a moose up on the ski trails by our house here. He had a loose dog running, too. They came hit a hard turn and the moose was right in the middle of the trail. It started kicking and he bailed. The loose dog got the moose off the team and eventually him and the other dog got back to the road. So everything worked out.

Coincidentally, I nearly got attacked by a moose out skiing two weeks ago on the ski trails. Jessie and I were headed down to the lake on the campus ski trails. I was leading by a fair distance coming around a hard corner at the far end of this thing we call the potato field. Off to the right in front of me is a momma and baby moose. I stopped quickly but spooked the baby. Spooked, the baby ran across the ski trail in front of me. The momma started to follow but started breathing heavy and took several steps towards me. I just tried to talk her down. Not like I could run anyplace with skis on. After what seemed like forever she followed the baby off the trail and I could signal to Jessie. The mooses were only ten to twelve yards away so it could have gotten ugly fairly quickly. Situation resolved peacefully though.

So anyway, pretty good day. Wrapping up things, when I got across the road to Ivory Jacks finally I saw that weird deal in picture 2 in the back of somebody’s pickup. Couldn’t begin to speculate on its origin or use. Looks like there’s a good story there someplace though…

The runaway sled