Dogs, dogs and dogs with a little ice thrown in

Well, the sunlight has come pouring back and daylight savings time has certainly helped. We are gaining about 6 minutes a day and now it gets light-ish at about 7 am (I don't have to wear a headlight whent aking Fred out for his morning walk) and dark-ish around 8:30 pm. And it was getting warmer. We were waking up int he teens and then hitting mid-twenties during the day. Until this weekend when it went back to the mid minus twenties.

During the "warming spell" folks actually broke out their sleeveless tops to wear indoors under sweatshirts outdoors. Saw many kids in cut-offs and even a man in sandals and socks. But now it is cold again.

The Yukon Quest, the Best long distance race, started on February 14 in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada and ended in Fairbanks around the 27th. Since this is the organization I work for, I had a ring side and back stage seat for all the activities. What an amazing adventure. 1000 miles of back-country sledding day and night averaging about 3 hours sleep every couple of days...and the first and second place finishers came in within 2 minutes of each other. It was quite an exciting race and all about the dogs. Each time a team came in and stopped at the finish line, and teams of "petters" were assigned to each pair of dogs. Then after a few minutes, the dogs would settle down and curl up for a rest.

After all the musher have come in, including the Red Lantern (or last place finisher) who came in about 5 minutes after the next-to-last place finisher, the only thing left was the finish banquet which I was responsible for.   400 guest, losts of awards, great stories, and even two rare steaks for the winner's lead dogs. The Quest office used this as a fund-raiser and one of the things we tried to sell was this fur coat.



Now that the Quest is over, things have quite calmed down since I am now working only one job full time at the University. That is quite wonderful since I no longer have to run from one place to the next every day.

David had the chance to go on a survying trip to Tok for a few days, but ended up getting a "stomach thing" which took all the fun out of the chance to be away.

The Iditarod started out of Anchorage on March 7 and David and I were there. We left Fred home and stayed in Anchorage both for the ceremonial start on the main streets in Anchorage on Sat. and then the real start on Willow Lake in Willow on Sunday. The ceremonial start is like a big party where each musher loads a paying customer (the Idiar-rider) into his basket and drives them a few miles out of town. They bring snow in to make a trail down the main street of Anchorage and there is a lot of festivity. / The dogs are all transported in "dog trucks" which are pick-up trucks with boxes on the back with compartments for each dog. Dogs are hauled out or shoved in depending on their needs, then curl up and wait for the next activity.

The favorite musher of the Yukon Quest was Newtown Marshall, from Jamaica, of all places. Here we are at the ceremonial start of the Iditarod.

Then on Sunday morning everyone packs up and goes about 2 hours down the road to Willow Lake where there is a whole different ball game. Now there is no party, just serious mushers, many, many barking, jumping dogs and a real race. Every two minutes one of 67 mushers is sent off for his 9-12 day journey. Wow! Here is a shot of the staging area where all the dogs will get attached to their proper lines.





And they're off! The weird thing is that this is taking place on a lake!!



Back home we now have the Winter Carnival with the highlights of the Ice Carving Contest and the sprint dog races.  We have a world class ice carving competition here with single block and multi block competitions.  The carvings are all displayed in an RV park and lit up at night.  A large part of the park is devoted to ice slides, and climbing things for kids.  Lots of fun and quite beautiful.  This attracts carvers from all over the world.                



                   

     

Now it has gotten cold again...a bit windy and in the -20's once again.  And its the middle of March!  Brr!