It's all so relative!: Iditarod

I have been at the Iditarod re-start on the first Saturday of every March since we have been in Alaska. The first year, I went by myself. It was at what is now the Wonderland park in Wasilla. I don't know how I did it, but I ended up in the musher's staging area behind the starting line. That was pretty cool. Lots of barking dogs, and icky smells!

We have also been to the ceremonial start in Anchorage once. It is okay once, but the real racing starts at the re-start. When we still got good snow in Wasilla we would go to Knik lake. It was the first checkpoint. It was neat to see some race strategy. Mushers had to stop to check in. Some of them fed their dogs, some adjusted harnesses, some dropped a rider, and some just moved on through.

This was the second year we had a real set-up. We loaded up the 4-wheelers and the trailer with lots of stuff. We had a lots of wood for a fire, propane stove to cook chili and hot chocolate, other junky foods, and we took a tent in case it was breezy or we had to change Mary's diaper. Seems like a lot, but we were pretty comforatble. I'm pretty sure we will try to do it every year.

The re-start was on Willow lake, and we set up on Crystal lake. There were a lot of people there, but everyone was pretty spread out, so it didn't matter.

Clara was the official firepit digger, but once she was done, she also tried to bury Mary. Mary loved it!

I must say that it was a stroke of genius of me to put a little shovel in the stuff for Mary. It was the only thing she played with, and it kept her very entertained.

I'm trying to get Mary to look happy, but she just wants to get back to digging.

This is Lance Mackey. He was the winner for the last 2 Iditarods. I just missed a great shot by milliseconds. There was a line of 5 kids across the trail from us getting high 5's from the mushers. It is pretty neat because at this point it is a race, and these are athletes. They don't have to be cool and slap kids high 5's, but almost all of them did.