Saturday was the unofficial start of the Iditarod. The mushers with their teams traveled (not in race mode) down the same route the sprint teams raced last week. It's a publicity event to help raise funds for the race. We like to take the children to it every year.
Usually Matt and Mark go with the trio, but Matt was out of town until Saturday afternoon, so I went with Mark and the children. We did not take Lincoln because I knew we'd be outside in the cold for an hour or more and that's too long for a nineteen month old. His nose has barely recovered from last weekend.
The children like to attend this particular event because they can collect dog booties, do high five with the mushers, play in the snow, and eat free food. I'm not sure what it is about Viva and hot dogs, but she will go just about anywhere they serve hot dogs.
Bentley and Jake are avid high fivers. Viva joined them on and off, but she spent most of her time sitting in snow banks playing with snow.
The children were given too many dog booties. They kept two each and gave away the rest. (Somehow we ended up with seven.) Viva found a neon green bootie buried in the snow. It had two pieces of candy in it which she wanted to eat, but I threw them out because the dog bootie smelled like dog. It was an authentic, used, dog bootie. YUCK!
My favorite musher is Martin Buser. He's won four times, but not recently. He drew #2 and since #1 is an honorary position, that means he'll be first to hit the trail on Sunday. I wanted to see him and his team, but we just missed them. We saw his dogs' tails on the overpass when we were driving there. Bummer. We saw last year's champion, Dallas Seavey, and other notable mushers such as Jeff King, Lance Mackey, John Baker and Paul Gebhardt.
After just missing Buser we had to wait and wait and wait for the next teams to come down the trail. A team leaves every 2 minutes from downtown Anchorage, but since they aren't officially racing they go slow, maybe even stop and chat to a fan.
The children scored booties on the south side of the trail and high fives on the sunny, north side.
Some mushers didn't do high fives with the crowd.
Even if you wore pink!
Nicolas Petit was a good sport and did high fives.
Jake taking a break.
Viva scores a dried plant.
Jake scores a high five.
Bentley takes a quick break to find a plant of his own.
He's back on the trail in time to high five with Dallas Seavey.
Food and drink time!
Hot dogs...YUM!
After refueling Viva went back to the snow banks.
And now for a few dog photos!
Here's the Jamaican musher, Newton Marshall.
Kristy Berington (above) and her identical twin Anna moved to Kasilof a few years ago to seriously pursue dog sled racing. They are not the first women to make a career of sled dog racing, but Kasilof?!
Linwood Fielder of Willow is yet another crazy, avid dog musher.
There were 66 of them in Willow today starting the race to Nome.
Orchid (l) and Cinch (r) are leading Cindy Gallea's dog team.
The real champions of the Iditarod are the dogs.
They run the 1000+ mile trail in 9-11 days.
Two years ago John Baker's team of dogs ran the Southern Trail in
8 days, 19 hours, 46 minutes, and 39 seconds setting a new record.
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