Sunday, March 6

Thought I had better update you from the last 3 days - I am having trouble with getting connected to the internet and with loading the pictures

Se we left you on Thursday with me leaving with Becky for a fun-filled trip to downtown and some stops at the "thrift shops of Anchorage" (where I got some really good deals!!) and a visit to the Anchorage Museum - which by now you should have seen many of the pictures I took! More to come if I can get them to load properly......
The museum was very impressive and I especially loved all of the dioramas - hope you can tell from the pictures what they looked like!

Friday we did not train dogs as the club's trail was supposed to be closed for grooming the parts they will use for the ceremonial Iditarod start on Saturday. We did see several people come down and train in the morning - one of them being Hans Gatt and his partnere Susie!!!! We were feeding dogs and I said to Randy he should go down and see who all the mushers were and it was lucky he did!! We have talked to them on the phone before because we have purchased 3 of his sleds but it was very nice to meet them in person. From the pictures I took you can see many of his dogs are quite big and all have heavy coats as you would expect. We talked about his experiences on the Quest this year and how his frostbitten hands were doing - he felt until the time he had his problems he really had it won..... The dog that Susie is holding in the picture I will try to post is like pet - her 2 brothers are wheel dogs and she is about the size of a fox!! We spent probably an hour visiting with them and then they had to go to the airport to send out all of the checkpoint supplies he will need on the Iditarod.

After that visit, we went to the laudromat and did a coulple of loads of clothes and then fed supper and got ready to go to Pam and Doug Schamber's home for pizza. Doug came to pick us up and we stopped at the Moose's Tooth Pizza to pick up the order and there was still a long wait even though they had ordered it a hour ago - we were going to stay inside and wait but the place was jammed with people so we just went back out to the car and waited.. Delicious pizza (even had artichokes on it) and good company with Pam and her 2 and 4 year olds and her mother.

Saturday we got up to another cold (they said it was "0" in the news) morning, fed and then noticed that the start time for the Iditarod was 10am so we hurried and put the dogs up and got warmly dressed and our lawn chairs out to walk the 2 blocks where the trail crosses over Tudor road- as I said in the picture, it is the same trail that Randy went on for the Rondy - only there were alot more people standing there for this race!!! When Martin Buser went by Randy reminded him that he had been his best man for our wedding in Nome and he kept talking as he was pulling away and said "So you're still together.......that's good!!" - he remembered! Then we walked over to the other side of the bridge where the Horizon company sets up a tent with hot dogs and chili and ate some lunch and watched as more teams went by. Lance Mackey talked to us briefly and as Sonny Lindner from Newaygo, Michigan went by his team ducked into the crowd 3 times until Randy led them up and over the bridge - his handler tried to tell Randy not to help (they never know what kind of inexperienced people might try to help and cause more harm.....) but I told her he was a musher and she was OK with that.....then Randy said "Newaygo, Michigan, Go Sonny- Randy DeKuiper" and then Sonny turned and yelled "I know you"!! It was truly amazing to see how many people were crowding the trail to shake hands and touch the dogs - most of the teams went by fine but several dogs looked terrified by all of the people crowding them!! Randy said he was really glad it wasn't like that when he came through there with his team during the Rondy!! The rest of the day was just dinner and reading.

Today, Sunday we fed and drove down to the track to train - Randy took my team out to see how slippery/fast the trail was and to be able to stop the team and hook down if he needed to un-block or re-block any of the trails for his to run his big team. He ran 12 and did find out there were 2 that probably he won't race -----getting down there in numbers......... Another guy was here training his kids dogs and while he was out on the "supposedly only dogteam trails" he ran into horses, people cutting wood and a whippet attacked his team!!! No injuries -

Now I am catching you up and will try to post more pictures! Also are going to try to see Paul Herrick, the aviation professor, one more time before we leave Anchorage.