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Arctic Circle
After we finally finished sliding, we headed over to Santa's Post Office where we mailed our postcards with the Official Santa Postmark (we're standing out front, but Mackenzie wanted it at this angle because you could see Paris and New York). We looked at some of the letters from kids who have sent letters to Santa (we read some too) and saw the area where they keep letters from kids by country.
We ate dinner at this restaurant (so we can say we've eaten in the Arctic Circle). Mackenzie and I ordered regular burgers (well, Mackenzie got her usual Cheeseburger, no meat) and David ordered a reindeer burger. I tried a piece of the reindeer and it pretty much tastes like reindeer smell.
If you don't know how a reindeer smells, then head to Finland.
For dessert Mackenzie had a chocolate doughnut (and David had a toothpick to get the gamey reindeer out of his teeth).
Rovaniemi
Isn't this a cool bridge? It's the Lumberjack's Candlestick Bridge (Jätkänkynttilä), with it's eternal flame and it spans the Ounaskoski River.
People were walking across it, cross country sking along and across it and even snowmobiling across it.
I guess we picked the wrong place to walk across.
This is the next bridge down from the Candlestick bridge. Some of the snow in the places that weren't tracks was pretty deep.
The picture on the right is taken from the point of standing on the bridge in the left and looking over the river towards the Candlestick Bridge (obviously). The guys on the lower right are ice fishing.
Snowmobiling Night Safari
The first snowmobiling trip that we took was the Night Safari. It's a three hour tour, and the weather started getting rough...oops, that's another story. Ok, it's three hours, you start out down the river and the guide guides you (hence his title) into the forest following some trails.
Mackenzie sat on the back of the snowmobile that we were using. Her other option was to ride in a sledge that hooked to the back of the snowmobile, but she wanted to be on the snowmobile.
This is our guide Vasku, a young blond with blue eyes (Mackenzie thought he was kinda cute).
We stopped first at this view point, it was really pretty. Since the picture doesn't quite show it, we could see the town and the light on top of the Candlestick Bridge.
Then Vasku took us to a small wooden lean to and made a fire, brewed tea and roasted sausages. We sat on reindeer rugs (they are incredibly soft and warm) and saw a small showing of the Northern Lights. Way Cool.
Next is the Husky Dog Farm