Wednesday and Thursday.........Sorry you guys are getting the short end of "the stick" with me being sick!

Hey that rhymes and I didn't even plan it!!
Back to dinner on Tuesday nite with the Stitt family - up here in Willow for 8 years now with an interesting story as to how they ended up in the house they did!!! the details are probably not right but it was a trade for Mike doing some carpentry work and "Divine Intervention" (my words, not his!)- The family was wonderful to us.....met us on the road and showed us the way to the Community Center parking lot (the same place where all of the Iditarod teams take off from the 2nd day!) and then Mike took us on a whirlwind tour of Willow, their training trails (same trails as Vern Halter, Egil Ellis and Bill Kornmuller use) and a cabin they are building for a 76 year old guy up on the mountain (Mike and his 2 sons and the guy) and then to their house on the mountain......perfect Alaskan house!!!! 25 or so dogs in the yard, milk cows, they raise 20 pigs and I think over 100 chickens per year on 5 acres overlooking Mt. McKinley (it was snowing so we couldn't see it!) They have an unusual stove - a "toil stove" I think Chris the wife called it - runs on fuel oil and is only hot where the heat comes out the front - you can put knick knacks on the top of it! - lots of fur pelts they have hunted, red salmon with homemade cranberry preserves (they use it instead of catsup because it's hard for them to get/grow tomatoes - so it's not sweet like cranberry sauce) for dinner and lots of stories from them - about the Jr. 100 mile race they put on every year now - almost as big as the Jr. Iditarod! - about how Mike and his Dad -now passed- knew Randy and how Randy is like a household legend having done the dog sled racing and the Iditarod and being a rodeo clown!!! - the kids even asked for his autograph on a sweatshirt and on the book called "Training Lead Dogs" by Len Fishback where a picture of Randy is on the cover(we have one too without his autograph!) - and Randy told them about the run at the Rondy and they listened intently!!! all of them Mike Chris and the 4 teenagers!! and so polite and kind! Just after dinner the boys got a call and they were out the door running - they are junior firemen and often get to a fire before the actual fire department - it was the neighbors house and the family was quite upset but also knew that the kids there are often left alone and have set fires before - it ended up to be a tree fire and I never did hear how exactly it started but the boys had it out before the actual fire department got there! Mike brought us back down to our mobile home and stayed for thenite - early knock on the door - Mike had brought us a dozen brown eggs and a bucket of sand (cause we got stuck coming into the unplowed parking lot)! Fed dogs and got on the road to Fairbanks - again, people up here don't remember what "flat" is cause we asked and were told it was pretty flat up to Fairbanks! Half the time I was lying down in the bunk I could tell for sure we were not driving on flat roads and the other half I was peeking out the front and seeing an awful lot of "very not flat" road!!! Past McKinley (snowing still and couldn't see it) and got into Fairbanks at the Studdert dog race track just in time for the draw meeting - I was having a worse day sick than the last 4 so Randy went in to the meeting and potluck without me - I am supposed to go out 8 of 15 but I think Randy is probably going to be "Cris" cause I am going to be the "wise" decision maker and think that being out racing for 3 days will make me sicker - Today Randy thought about training and went out on the trail with the race marshal and got so cold on the snowmobile and thought better of it - Oh I forgot- we were very surprised to see Steve Long and Jerry Mulvey friends from out east up here!!! We also saw Greg Sellentin (next door neighbor to the Stitt family and owner/publisher of "Mushing Magazine" training at the track along with Buddy and Terry Streeper on their way to Yellowknife to race. Went into town to get diesel for the generator (don't want to run out with it being 5 degrees during the daytime) and to Coldspot Feeds to buy dog meat - they had just sold the last of their meat but found some for sale in North Pole for us - we did buy some probiotics because I am not the only one sick.....several dogs have the "Hersey Squirts" as Randy calls them - and this is supposed to fix it right away! Tonite just going to lay low and rest up for the race tomorrow!!