The Last Great Race

Our move here to Alaska has been ripe with good fortune so far......great weather and cooperative kids and cats during our travels here, a mild winter to ease us in, amazing northern lights. Speaking of the northern lights, last week a severe geomagnetic storm produced what they are saying was some of the best aurora activity in the past decade.  I have no idea what a geomagnetic storm is but man, was it phenomenal!  The sky was lit up with bright green and pink lights that streaked, swirled, and danced before our eyes.  Even the boys were speechless as we watched.  It was the definition of amazing.  My neck started hurting from looking up at the sky for so long that I was tempted to lie down in the snow to watch after a while!    Tempted being the operative word.  The spectacular lights lasted for several days, but here's a few pics I took on St. Patrick's Day.  Please excuse the poor quality as I am quite the amateur aurora photographer.  Someday I'll figure it out.  As you enjoy the pictures, I'm going to take a moment to go find some wood to knock on, as I have now jinxed my family by gloating about our good fortune.

Jason and I call this "The Eagle".  Do you see it?

Sigh.  I wish you could have seen it. 

As I mentioned earlier, Alaska is having a mild winter this year.  Seems crazy to say that, being that we've had 30 and 40 below temperatures, snow, and freezing rain, but evidently the cold spells have been much shorter and more infrequent than what is typical and there have been fewer storms.  This is a good thing I suppose.....better to ease into living in Alaska with a mild winter than having a serious reality check right off the bat.  As a result of this milder winter, the snow accumulations have been lower than normal, which resulted in yet another piece of good fortune for us! (More wood knocking).  For only the second time in history, the Iditarod restart was moved to Fairbanks! Yay for us!

For those who don't know what the Iditarod is, where have you been all your life?  I'm pretty sure most everyone has heard of the Iditarod, but if you haven't, it is an annual sled dog race and the most popular sporting event in Alaska.  Normally the Iditarod has a ceremonial start in Anchorage and then a few days later restarts in Willow, which is 80 miles north of Anchorage and 309 miles from North Pole (where we live).  The restart is really the official start of the race, which takes mushers and their teams of 16 dogs over a pass of the Alaska Range, through the state's interior region, along the Bering Sea coast and finally ending in Nome, for a total of over 1100 miles.  It is known as the Last Great Race and for good reason.  The conditions these mushers and their athlete dogs have to endure on this race are treacherous to say the least.  Since there was not enough snow on portions of the usual route, race organizers moved the restart to Fairbanks.  This meant we could attend without having to travel 309 miles and we could mark another item off the bucket list!  And cooler still, the restart just happened to be on Justin's 12th birthday.  It also happened to be on a Monday, so the boys got to miss school.  They didn't mind that at all.  

What a fantastic experience!  You could immediately feel the excitement in the air as soon as you arrived.  The city had shuttle buses running from two locations to ease parking at the event, which was extremely organized and worked perfectly.  At the race itself, it was very refreshing to find no commercialization of the event; no souvenir, food or beer stands anywhere like you normally see at major sporting events.  There was one little tent where they were serving free, yes free coffee and hot chocolate.  That's it. People were not there to eat, drink and buy stuff.  They were there to cheer on the mushers and their dogs as they embarked on the race.

It began with the singing of our National Anthem

At two minute intervals, the dog teams were led into the chute by volunteer dog handlers and the mushers.  An announcer introduced each musher and gave a little background information on them while the team got set up and waited for their turn to take off.  Most of the dogs were super amped and there was a lot of barking and jumping going on, which added to the excitement. The mushers went around and stroked each dog, giving each one what I assume was a pre-race pep talk. We were all very surprised at how small the dogs were.  For some reason we expected them to be bigger, but they were actually quite small.  

Let's go, let's go, let's go!

You guys ready back there?

When the announcer yelled "GO", each team took off to cheers from the crowd.  It was very exciting!

Here's a little video clip of one anxious athlete and his team taking off.

The teams raced down the spectator lined chutes before heading out onto the frozen Chena River and the rest of the race.

Here are a couple of ninjas taking in the excitement at the starting line.

Jason

Justin

It was a little chilly, 1 degree above, so we were all bundled up.

Us

Justin, always ready with his trusty phone to get pics!

I can honestly say that experiencing the Iditarod start was everything I hoped it would be and more!  It was a great bucket list item and if it's on yours, I hope you get to see it some day.

Speaking of bucket lists, I had a little contest on my last post.  I asked you guys to leave a comment about what was on your bucket list.  And the winner is...........Barbara Leath!

So all this talk of good fortune has me wondering what good fortune you've experienced lately.  Leave a comment letting me know.........and then go knock on some wood.