Info on the Ceremonial Start

Hi -
In case any of you want to watch the start of the race, you can view it live here.  Note that the race starts at 10:00 a.m. Alaskan time which means you'll need to tune in at 2:00 p.m. Oxford time.

Look for these bib numbers:
Anna Berrington = 10
Kristy Berrington = 26
Ed Hopkins = 33
Joar Leifseth Ulsom = 28
Emily Maxwell = 18

Here's what the bib number means ... the musher with bib #1 will start at 10:00; bib #2 starts 2 minutes later, bib #3 starts 2 minutes after that and so on.  So if you tune in at the very start, you'll see Anja Radano (#2), Matt Hall (#3), Mats Pettersson (#4).

Who has bib #1 you might ask?  Well, that is an honorary number given to someone who has been important to the Iditarod in some way.

Joar Leifseth Ulsom

In other news, I was able to meet a lot of mushers last night - here are a few pics:

Emily Maxwell

Ed Hopkins

Unfortunately, Anna and Kristy Berrington were not at the meet-and-greet so I didn't get to say hello to them.

The youngest musher there was a 21 year old named Martin Apayauq Reitan

Last thing - here's a link to an article in the Anchorage Daily Newspaper that I thought was really interesting

A few pics from Thursday

Hi, everyone - 
I realized that I was way behind in posting pictures from Thursday, so here are just a few highlights:

At Iditarod Headquarters where the vets were doing their checkups with the dogs:

The sign says "Dog team crossing"

The trophy on the left weighs 97 pounds; the Red Lantern award is on the right

And from the 17th Dog Kennel visit:

You may not know this, but I really love the music of Bon Jovi ... the dog above is named Bon Jovi so I had to get a picture with her!  Interesting fact: mushers often have a theme when they name their puppies. Bon Jovi had litter mates named Billy Idol and Van Halen.  One year they used candy bar names!

Matt Failor, owner of kennel and Iditarod musher

Getting close!

Well, the Iditarod is only a day away from its ceremonial start!  I'm so excited to be able to be there tomorrow!  I'll post pictures as quickly as I can, but it might not be until Sunday since we'll be flying most of Saturday afternoon and evening.

Meanwhile, here's a link to an article in the local paper, The Anchorage Daily News.  The pics were taken at Iditarod Headquarters in Wasilla on Thursday; I was there that morning but am not in any of the pictures.  There is a pic of Joar Ulsom who is one of the mushers we will be following and who won the race last year.

https://www.adn.com/outdoors-adventure/iditarod/2019/02/28/final-dog-physicals-draw-mushers-to-iditarod-headquarters/

Last night we went to the Mushers Banquet and meet-and-greet beforehand.  It was fun to meet many of the mushers even though I only had a moment to say hello because there were many other people waiting.  At each musher's table I explained why I was having them sign the poster that Mrs. Lombard made for us.  Everyone else was having them sign "official" Iditarod posters and autograph books, so we really stood out as being a little different!  I think they enjoyed that.  Woof Waldo enjoyed meeting everyone too.

Pics will be posted later today - poor Mr. Redfern is sick and hasn't had a chance to download the pics yet.

I've truly enjoyed reading everyone's posts on this blog - thank you so much for following along!  

Enjoy your shortened day (I saw that you had a delayed opening today!) and I'll post again a little later.

I really DID see them!

Oh my gosh ... last night was truly amazing!  I had hoped to see a little light show and got SO much more.  I'm running to my conference, so I'm just posting a few of the pics.  I'll explain more later ...

It started small ...

And they danced ...

And it got bigger .. and more beautiful

More details to come!!

Lights, camera, action!

Hey, OCS -
It's 3:00 in the morning and we just got back to our hotel from Palmer to see the Northern Lights.  How do I describe it?  Stupendous, amazing, fantastic ... who's got a thesaurus??  Give me some other words to use ...

Sorry I don't have a picture yet ... but did I mention it was 3:00 in the morning?!  I just wanted to let you know that our hunt for the lights was successful and that we'll post a few of the pics when we get up in 3-4 hours.

P.S. Woof Waldo enjoyed it too!

To my OCS Hawks family -
What an amazing day I had ... and it's not over yet.  It's 8:00 p.m. right now and we're heading out in less than an hour to try to see the Northern Lights.  Because I'm a little short on time, I'm going to post just a couple of teaser pictures of the 2 places we visited today.

First we went to watch the vets check out some of the musher teams.  Do you recognize these women?

Anna and Kristy Berington - two of the mushers we're going to follow!

We spoke to a few mushers and got to pet their dogs - some even brought their sleds!

      

In the afternoon, we visited a working dog kennel, met loads more dogs and got to hold the newest puppies - they only just opened their eyes!  

I'll post more pics tomorrow - wish me luck in seeing the Aurora Borealis (also known as the Northern Lights)!!

Did you know?

I'm a big fan of fun and interesting facts, so here are a few for you:

Did you know that Denali is the highest mountain in all of North America?
http://www.softschools.com/facts/us_national_landmarks/denali_mount_mckinley_facts/2233/

Did you know that 4th graders can get FREE access to hundreds of federal parks (and that includes your family!)?  https://everykidinapark.gov/

Did you know that earthquakes are incredibly frequent in Alaska?  On Monday, throughout the state, there were approximately 55 recorded quakes!  They are generally very small, so don't worry about me!
  https://earthquake.alaska.edu/earthquakes/recent_list

Did you know that the strongest earthquake (a whopping 9.2) in North America happened 74 miles south of Anchorage in 1964?
https://www.history.com/topics/natural-disasters-and-environment/1964-alaska-earthquake

Did you know that out of the 7 teens that ran the Junior Iditarod last weekend, 6 of them were GIRLS?!  (yaaay!)
 http://jriditarod.com/race/2019/mushers/

Did you know that for this Iditarod, out of the 52 mushers, 17 are WOMEN?  (Math bonus - what percentage is that?)
 https://iditarod.com/race/2019/mushers/list/

Do you have any "did you knows" to share with me?