Iditarod 2011

I don't even know how to start this post. I feel like I have so much to say and explain and so many amazing pictures. So I guess to start off, the Iditarod is...

"A race over 1150 miles of the roughest, most beautiful terrain Mother Nature has to offer. She throws jagged mountain ranges, frozen river, dense forest, desolate tundra and miles of windswept coast at the mushers and their dog teams. Add to that temperatures far below zero, winds that can cause a complete loss of visibility, the hazards of overflow, long hours of darkness and treacherous climbs and side hills, and you have the Iditarod. A race extraordinaire, a race only possible in Alaska."

You can't compare it to anything else in the world... its just the musher and their 16 dogs racing to the city of Nome in 10-16 days. The actual fastest time is 8 days. Jeff and I both can tell you that we got so choked up with emotion as we watched the teams take off one by one every 2 min from downtown Anchorage. These are the most amazing dogs ever. They live for this and their mushers rely on them so much. If you haven't heard of the story Balto, I suggest looking it up. But to sum it up and to give some back ground as to how the Iditarod started, back in 1925 Nome was hit with severe diphtheria and the only medicine available was in Anchorage. The weather was so bad that the probs to the planes were frozen and trains don't reach clear to Nome, so they only option to save the town of Nome was by dog sled. Balto was the lead dog for one of the teams offering to make this trip. At one point the blizzard was so bad, the musher couldn't even see his hand in front of his face, and they missed the check point to trade off with another team, making Balto and the team travel twice as far in the dangerous weather.

I wish that the Iditarod race was as famous world wide as it is in Alaska. These men and dogs face some of the toughest conditions and I feel they don't get the credit they deserve. I could mention the name Lance Mackey (how has won 4 straight years and is racing to break the record this year), Susan Butcher, Rick Swenson, Jeff King, and no one would know who they are, unless your from Alaska or you follow the Iditarod. Jeff and I look forward to the many years of following this great sport.


This is just a glimpse of the amount of people that came to watch... they were even watching from roof tops and the parking garages

This is Lance Mackey (and his amazing team)... I was soooo excited to see him. Last year he set the Iditarod record with 4 straight victories and is aiming to tie five time champion Rick Swenson as the winningest musher in race history. Not to mention he is a throat cancer survivor where he lost half of his neck muscles.

This is the guy I'm rooting for... he came all the way from Jamaica!!! He was so excited and pumped up. I wish I got him on video cuz he was just dancing the whole time on the back of his sled. And if I'm not mistaken he is either using some of Lance Mackey's dogs or he trains with him. Soooo cool.




Later after the Iditarod festivites were over, Jeff and I went and watched the Running of the Reindeer. He were going to participate but at the last minute decided that we actually wanted to watch the hundreds of people dressed up get speared by the reindeers antlers... it was a lot of fun!!!











To end our amazing day together, Jeff and I drove out to Girdwood to eat at the Double Musky. After an hour and twenty minute wait (which is actually quite fast) we finally got seated and enjoyed a very nice dinner. No pics to show but I did get some of our ride out and the beautiful Alyeska ski resort lite up.




And here are some randon pics...
This is Chewbauca, we first met him a few weekends ago at the Iron Dog races, and everytime we see him we can't stop lauging!!!


This is a little Toy Pomeranian that someday, I WILL HAVE!!! She is 8 years old and only weighs 3 lbs... she was sooooo cute!!! Jeff and I wanna start a breading farm. We want Alaskan Huskies and little pomeranians.... I know that would be a site to see.


And here are our little boys!!! We went to dinner over at our friends house and we took the dogs to get them use to Sam, their black lab. Ryan and Kari are nice enough to volunteer and babysit for us while we go to Florida, so we wanted to break the dogs in... obviously as you can see Sam could care less about them, and our poor dogs.... well they don't know what to think of Sam the giant.