Happy New Year!!!!

Hope everyone's new year was more fun than you hoped for...because ours was a little less. Here goes out story......
Our plans included driving up to Talkeetna (about a 2.5 hour drive from Anchorage) with some friend to ring in the new year with some great Alaska bars and fireworks. Ben and I ended up having to stay at a cabin that was a 25 min drive from Talkeetna itself because they were the only place we could find to allow dogs. Come to find out, they allow them, but you can't keep your dogs there when you aren't.....so we had to tote the pups around in the back of the car for the night :(. We brought in EVERYTHING into the cabin so we'd have room to tote around friends and pups in the Jeep, and headed for the town. After a fun time was had by all in Talkeetna, Ben and I and the dogs headed back to our cabin. As we headed on the really wide back roads eagerly awaiting the warm cozy cabin, a moose came out of the trees. So we slowed down a bit and moved over to the right side of the road.....then WHAM! What we thought was road was actually the 5 ft ditch just filled in with lots of snow, the Commander went in and went in hard (and tilted). After attempting to drive it out, it was obvious there was NO way. We gathered ourselves (ok, just me, I kinda freaked!) outside and LUCKILY for some reason we left our cross-country ski boots in the car, and all our skis were on the top of the car. We only had one pair of gloves and NO lights! It was about 12:35am in the Alaskan wilderness....needless to say, it was DARK. So we attached ourselves to the dogs and headed on the faintly lit (from the snow) road. The dogs were a bit freaked out as well and ended up not pulling as much as we hoped. So 3 hours later, we somehow arrived at the cabin, completely worn out. Then come (later in the) morning, we had assistance from the cabin owner and a couple of friends to pull us out of the ditch.....with chains needed on the truck to pull us! Whew! What a memory eh? We're thinking next year to lay low.

Here is a picture of the ditch where we had gone in, you can't really tell but its about a 4-5 foot difference from the road to where Ben is standing. Now just imagine the Commander there at about a 45° tilt!