What a day! Idette and I slept well after our late night of travel, and awoke to the sound of dogs! Yes, racing dogs were being kenneled behind our hotel. It was great to meet up with Nancy and her husband, Glenn and son, Michael. My friends, Stacy & Diane, and the Antonenkos also arrived from Grand Forks later in the day.
A little background information on Nancy: Nancy and some of her dogs left Grand Forks in October and have been up here training. Nancy is 58 years old and it has always been her dream to race in the Iditorod. She decided 2009 was the year as her son went out east to college and Nancy had more time to devote to this goal. Nancy has kept a blog since she left in October with her journal of training and some fabulous pictures (as she loves photography) at her website: reachfortheskykennels.com. I urge you to check it out.
Our travel itinerary changed today as we had planned to go to Portage Glacier, but it was snowing so hard that visibility would not have allowed us to see it. Instead we went to Earthquake Park and a museum.
This evening we attended the Musher's Banquet. It was very large with over 2000 people attending, including mushers, sponsors, family, and friends. The mushers draw numbers to see what order they leave on their start. Nancy drew number #3! That is supposed to be a good position, as she won't have to keep her dogs settled down when they want to run as the race starts. The racers leave every 2 minutes.