At this point the dogs have travelled for 700 miles and have 500 to go.The day before- for the past few days, bags of food and supplies have been air dropped in town . The mushers will pick them up when they come through
Many people anxiously await the lead mushers- this was taken 12:30 am Monday
Lance Mackey- last year's winner- is the first to arrive.
After having little sleep due the basketball tournament ( I will do a separate blog on that) everyone kept their eyes on the Iditarod website all day Sunday to track the leading mushers. Many can be tracked by GPS so we can predict when they will arrive in town. It is neat to watch their signal move on the computer. By midnight Sunday many people had gathered at the checkstation. Fortunately it was not a bad night- above zero and little wind. Around 12:45 we saw a light in the distance from a musher's head lamp. We knew Lance Mackey was in the lead with Jeff King two miles behind him. Lance pulled to cheers at 1:15 and spent 1/2 tending to his dogs. I was glad he was staying awhile- last year he checked in and kept going. Half an hour later Jeff King arrived. I did get their autographs and everyone stayed around until after 2 am- then left so they could rest. They each stayed about 4 hours, then headed out.
Mackey and King getting some rest.
Martin Buser arrived later Monday morning.
Another musher arrives.
The dogs are bedded down and after being checked by vets, go to sleep. They need to rest up for the last 500 miles to Nome. The lead teams should arrive in Nome by the end of the week.
No comments:
Post a Comment