Hooray!!! Another trip milestone.......made it to Anchorage!!

Left Fairbanks right after the appointment with the surgeon (it was nice that he and the PA agreed with me that Randy should not have put band-aids on his fingers.......causes the tissue to get "macerated" and won't heal well......all those years as an occ health nurse and he still won't believe me........) He said the finger looked good and he wanted Randy to keep a splint on the middle finger - the one that is fractured and slightly bent. I am to take the stitches out in 14 days since we will be in Anchorage then. He didn't blink an eye when Randy told him he probably would race this weekend!

Took off from Fairbanks in 13 degree weather at 12:30- sl cloudy and roads good - ran into snow and increasingly snow-covered roads the farther south we went - the roads got ice-covered again and thankfully we were out of the mountains. As we neared Healy we saw a sign that warned for caribou and bam!!! there were 10 or 12 out in the field right next to us! As it got to be dusk we saw a moose on the side of the road! Can't figure out why we are seeing so much more wildlife this year than last!!

I thought as we went thru Healy I was seeing McKinley but today as I look at the map it must have been another peak - as we got past Healy and it got darker it almost was misting and we saw one bank that said it was 37 degrees!! About 7pm made it to Willow where we spent the nite at the same location that they have the re-start of the Iditarod! The night was uneventful and short as we fed as soon as we got there, waited 1 1/2 hours and then dropped and to bed.

Up this morning to foggy weather and headed to Anchorage - it almost felt like rain again but snowed also intermittently - in Wasilla we stopped at the Iditarod Headquarters and Randy bought a Lance Mackey book to read (Iditarod 4 time winner) and we got the tel number for Leo Rasmussen from Nome to see him if he comes down for the Iditarod (and maybe could get us passed to be in the race area like he did the year we got married up here). We asked if anyone there knew Cheryl Cheadle Mativa and someone did but did not have her phone number - so we left a note for someone that might. The roads after were clear and dry and stopped at Fred Meyer store cause Randy broke his watch band - bought donuts for the guys at the lube shop across the street from the Tozier dogsled race track so that we can get hot water from them while we stay here and got the water and now we are sitting at the track and I am delighted to find they have wifi here!!!! Don't know if I will have it all the time so thought I should post as soon as I can!!! The driver's meeting/draw is tonite at 7 in the clubhouse and tomorrow who knows what we will do!!

Say, I have another interesting phenomenon for someone to explain to me - when we were in Fairbanks and I was looking up at the sliver of moon, it looked like 3 or 4 of them layered on top of each other......like I was having double/triple vision....and that was without any "chemical influences"!!!! I can only think it must have to do with the cold temp.......or maybe a "northern lites effect"?????