Mom meets Martin Buser

As the week progressed for Mom, the cold weather continued. But Mom was a trooper. Not once did she complain, so I continued to take her everywhere I could think of. We went all over the city of Anchorage. We took the city tour and talked about the great earthquake of 1964 that nearly leveled the northern part of the city. It is amazing that only 33people died. We went to earthquake park and stood at the memorial were you could look straight down and see where the cliff dropped about 30 feet into the sea.

After that we went to Alaska Wildberry. Kelly worked there for a summer. Mom was able to see the largest chocolate fall in the United States, maybe even the world!

Mom made many friends while she was here. I think Loretta had high hopes mom would find a new boy friend while she ws here. I don't know, mom seemed a little leary of a long distance romance, but she did seem partial to this one guy... but here, judge for your self.

I do beleive that the highlight of Mom's trip was Saturday when we went to visit Kathy and Martin Buser in Big Lake, Alaska. We spent the afternoon with Martin and Kathy just chatting casually about the iditarod, his family, our family, what it takes to be a musher and 4 time iditarod champion. Mom was so surprised to learn not only how long the race is in miles (1,049 miles to be exact), but that it can be won in under 9 days! She was also surprised how small the dogs were too. She came home with such appreaction for Martin and for his dogs too. I think that this next year she will also be glued to her T.V. for the start of the race! Below is a picture of Martin with Mom.

Also while we were with Martin, Terry and I had the opportunity to officially invite Martin to be our main guest speaker for the 2009 Citizen's Police Academy National Convention. Here is Terry giving Martin one of our local chapter's T-shirts. It was so much fun for us to give Martin a t-shirt, because he has given me several of his shirts over the past year, so it seemed like a good trade!