the news worth knowing................???

 

One nite so far at Alpine and we are very happy with the choice – the parking lot is huge which we knew before we arrived having stayed here 2 years ago when we did this race.  There is much less snowmachine traffic as it’s the middle of the week and plus there is snow in more locations than there was 2 years ago –

Today is “school day” so we are going to the Afton (1/2 hour south of here) elementary school and do a presentation to 120 first graders= Randy seemr s not worried about what to say (he did a lot of those presentations after he did the Iditarod and then we have done some since in Anchorage) and I have little voice having picked up a doozy of a cold!!  So we shall see how it goes!!

We saw the big loader come in this morning and move snow out of the banks to make room for the trail to cut through to the parking lot when we race here in a week and a half- we will train tomorrow so it will be really good to be able to have the dogs finish the run at the same place they will be at the actual race here – (the last time we raced here we had been training coming back to the truck the way the snowmobilers do so when it came time for Yeti to turn gee and use the new path they had made to get to the finish/parking lot, he didn’t want to budge and it seemed like forever before he went the correct way!!!)

Last nite we went over to Ryan and Sarah Beaber’s trailer and had some delicious chicken and noodles that Sarah had made in her instant pot!!!  We were outside eating about an hour and then it started getting dark and colder so we came back to our trailer.  It’s so nice to have other dog people in the lot!!!

 

Tuesday was presentation at the school day!!!  We went to the Afton elementary school and did a 50 minute dog sledding presentation to 120 1^st graders!!!!  We wore our dog sledding clothes and brought a sled and harness into the school while the kids sat on the floor before us!!!  They had lots of question but the most questions were about Randy losing his finger tip while training dogs in Alaska!!!  They wer all very well behaved and are going come to the race to see us next Friday!  The first thing one little girl did was to give us each a piece of her candy and hug us!!!  We told them to call us Grandpa Randy and Grandma Cris!!!

Wednesday was training and deciding who will be in the pool of 14 dogs for Randy to run in the race we took 2 teams of 8 out with the snow machine (and God Bless us it actually worked better at the lower altitude in Alpine) and were reminded of how beautiful scary the trails here are  - lots of the trail in about 3 feet from the ledge of the cliff going down to the river 100ft!!!  Most everyone looked good and Randy made his final decision who to take to race (they will all be in the trailer but you designate who your actual members at the vet check)

This is Thursday and we have driven to Jackson Hole (about 45 minutes from Alpine) with good road conditions though a brutal storm is supposed hit the area tonight!!!  We were cordially invited and are going to a welcome dinner tonite at the Wildlife Art Center – so I will take pictures if I am allowed!!  We have good cell service here so until we move tomorrow nit to the Teton Park race trailhead I should be able to keep up the blog!!!