You must think I have totally forgotten to blog........

The fact is that no matter where I have tried to get on the internet the last 5 days have not worked so here we are at McDonalds!!!

By now you have probably been able to track the results of the race each day and know that Randy is the "proud??" recipient of the "red lantern award" for coming in 16th of 16! We were kind of prepared from the Rondy for not being able to place high, but we weren't "quite that prepared"!

Friday was one of those beautiful sunny cold Fairbanks days. We got to our parking spot which we were assigned to at the driver's meeting because we are sooooooo big - we actually had an alleyway pretty much to ourselves and it was only a good 2 blocks to the start line and not to hard to get there - the first day there was a truck parked right at the corner we needed to turn with 13 dogs on so it was a bit challenging and we used all the help we could get turning around that right angle corner!! Randy got off without a hitch and as soon as he was off I hopped into Gary Frank's rental car with Doug, his son and his brother and we buzzed over to the spot on the trail where the teams come back to town having run through Creamer's Field and go down an incline onto a "slough" (like a river running thru the city with 12 foot concrete walls on both sides - you will see a picture of (I did get to yell "go Carolyn" as Carolyn Johnson went under the bridge I was standing on) cause I didn't want to not be there when Randy came back in and with all the traffic we didn't know how long it would take to get back to downtown and the race site - we did make it back in plenty of time - in fact we could have stayed quite a bit longer........

Randy didn't have any problems except Paula Cinerio having trouble getting her dogs to pass our team and having to stop and untangle her team from our sled.....so that took a few minutes. Andy, one of our yearlings, ran in lead for the first time in a race (nothing like pressure for your first time.....) and he did good until Randy said he lost interest at about 16 miles so he ran Birdie back single the rest of the way - she sure is a good dog!

On our way out of our parking spot we got stuck in the snow they put down on the streets for the race and had to put the chains on....took us a little bit longer to get back out to the track to feed and settle in for the nite.

That nite just pooped from all the activity and went to bed early.

Up Sat morn and got to our race parking spot in good time - he ran 11 dogs as he thought Andy had enough trying to lead the day before and Red had not pulled for most of the 20 miles so he was out - you will be able to see many of the pictures as I post them, but a guy that lives near the musher's hall on Farmer's Loop road had stopped by to visit last week and said he would like to help us on Sat - well not only did he help but he took about a thousand pictures!!! He is up here by himself (his wife and son were here last week for spring break) working at a new job for Honeywell as an engineer - just before he had been working in Afghanistan - what a change in temp!!! he said it was 135 degrees and then came here to -40!!!! It was very nice to have the help and really nice for someone to do such a great job of documenting both Sat and Sun! pictures are something we never seem to have time to doi!

Before the race started Joey Redington Jr. asked us if we wanted a dog - one that had not run well for Jason Dunlap the day before - so he gave him to us ... out of his breeding and John Perry - kind of special to have a dog out of the stock developed by the starter of the Iditarod, Joe Redington Sr.!!

As you know by the results, Randy came in last again - not a big surprise but we were hoping he would gain some time not having trouble and may be someone else would be slower - it turns out that this is the first race (ONAC) in memory when nobody scratched! just out luck - if someone had, Randy would have been "in the money".

Sat nite we went to dinner with Gary Frank, Doug and Gary's brother to the Chena Pump House - Gary had said it was "pricy" but a fun place to go - so he picked us up in the rental and it was a very fun antiquy, Alaskan kind of decor - we ordered halibut because we were both dying to have some good halibut while we were here - not so good an idea......the rice came to us crunchy, the replacement potatoes were cold and the halibut was more like cold cardboard - we had a great time but were very disappointed in our "pricy" meal!!

Sunday was more of the same.....steady but slow - dropped 2 more dogs so he was down to 9 for the day. and Birdie, Bless her heart, was in single lead! They made it all the way without problems!!

Went back to the hall and fed and then changed clothes to go to the awards banquet in town at the Westmark Hotel. Randy was asked to vote for the fellow musher he felt was the best sportsman and we then had a fabulous meal with really good halibut, prime rib and something that really surprised me......fresh aspargus!!!!! I ate my fill and more!!!! RAndy was hoping that they would actually have red lanters for the last place "winner" (someone had told us they were now giving flashlights......) and they did have a lantern for us!! next they announced the winner of the sportsman award and we were totally shocked to have him win!!!! He received not only a moose stained glass award but a beautiful framed print that was signed by all the mushers in the race!!!

What a nite! I am so proud of him - Ken Chezik told him everyone felt he had had a bad year but kept on plugging away with a good attitude!!

Monday was training dogs that had not run in the race and spent some more time with the Hartum family. We had made arrangements to meet near Mike and Darlene Stephens home on Chena Hot Springs road and so we did at 5:30 - and Darlene brought us to their home - a work in progress, 2 story cabin in the woods with a dog yard as Mike races too. Darlene has the whole upstairs loft for her art work - beautiful and she gave me one of hers - she does "bars relief" out of wood so that you might use them for a "stamp" and then paints around them to make them art- and many other things made with granite, wood and paints........ I wish I had that imagination!

Tuesday we spent training more dogs and made a brief trip into town for fuel after we changed the belt on the generator one more time............ we have it down to only taking 2 hours so that's a new world's record!!!!!!

Today trained all the dogs for a short 5 mile, exercise , fun run and now are in town to use the McDonalds!!!!

Plan to stop and buy more groceries before we leave Fairbanks because this will be the last time things will be priced kind of reasonable (the other nite we got a gallon of milk at a convenience store and I was flabbergasted to have him tell me it was %5.69!!!!!) We are going to leave probably Thursday morning and stop at Jan Fairbanks' house on the way to Tok for the race this weekend -

Sorry I haven't been able to keep you caught up on our activities!!! will keep on trying!!!