Dog-sledding in Minnesota

A majority of my bucket list is just a list of places. Not necessarily “things to do” but more “places to go”. However, a small portion of my list does include things not tied to a specific area, like skydiving. And dog sledding.

I dragged my friend Drea across the frigid Midwest to go dog-sledding in Minnesota. At the time, I was actually worried there wasn’t going to be enough snow in Omaha, so that’s why I looked at Minnesota – to ensure the sledding aspect would still feel like sledding. And while it did snow…the weather was also in the negatives, so in a way it was a win, but also a loss…

First, I want to start off this story with how our six-hour drive turned into a 10-hour drive.

Tire Troubles   

About an hour and a half into our adventure, we heard a really loud popping sound and pulled over on the side of the road. Unfortunately, the front tire of my jeep had exploded. I don’t mean this figuratively; I mean the tire was completely unusable.

The next 3 hours of the trip went a little something like this:

• calling insurance to send help
• waiting an hour, having no one show and calling insurance again
• waiting yet another hour
• after another no-show, calling non-emergency police line
• waiting for a while and then deciding to YouTube how to change a tire
• not being able to get the jack out of my jeep
• calling non-emergency line again
• having a state trooper arrive
• him having trouble getting the jack out of my jeep
• a second state trooper arrives
• combined, the two cops get the jack out and fix my tire

When we did finally arrive in Minnesota, we were exhausted, cold and a little tired. But pulling up and seeing our beautiful Airbnb woke us right up!

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Our Airbnb was a separate back house from the owners and featured a loft, a hideaway bed, heated floors and the finishing touches were absolutely gorgeous (including a handcrafted light fixture).

The next morning was big day!

Sledding and Shopping

We woke up, put on tons of warm layers and drove about 45 minutes outside of Minneapolis to Silent Run Adventures. Located on a peaceful-looking farm, Silent Run Adventures took us on a dog-sled trail through pastures and frozen trees and over bumps and that made it feel like a roller coaster.

Before the trail we got to interact with the Siberian Huskies, and they were all so cute! Most of them loved pets and wanted our undivided attention. Silent Run holds over 15 dogs, six of which will pull you along during the ride.

More about the experience:

• The Trail itself last about 10 mins
• $85 per person

While I think this was a once in a lifetime experience, I will admit it was hard to appreciate it because of how cold it was outside. It was about -20 F and boy did we feel it (my eyelashes even froze!).

When we made it back to our Airbnb, more than anything we just wanted to be warm. With that in mind, we didn’t get to explore Minneapolis as much as we would have liked. However, we did make it to a really cool shop called “I Like You” and even found a city mural around the corner from the shop.

After trying many local chai lattes and putting on a mini photoshoot inside our Airbnb (check out @purelydrea on Instagram) we decided to head back home after a very cold two nights.

**would you go dogsledding?
**do you prefer winter or summer?
**have you been to Minnesota?

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