Iditarod - "The Last Great Race on Earth"

































Tomorrow (March 3, 2007) is the big day! Early in the morning all 83 mushers will be ready and waiting to start the Iditarod on 4th Avenue in Anchorage, Alaska.









Hailed as "The Last Great Race on Earth", the Iditarod has become an iconic event, with epic tales of adventure and survival on the trail. The Mushers are household names in Alaska, and the dogs themselves are legendary. This year's event should be another amazing race to follow. The Iditarod (pronounced eye-DIT-a-rod) consists of teams of 12 to 16 dogs pulling a sled driven by a man or woman, called a "musher."









At the Ceremonial start on Saturday morning, 4th Avenue in downtown Anchorage turns into an Alaskan festival. Men with cougar head hats & fox fur jackets walk down the street, children line up to get the autograph of their favorite musher, and families get downtown early to make sure they get a good spot to view the day’s activities.









Mushers leave downtown Anchorage in the same order that they will depart onto the trail on Sunday.









At 10 am, the first musher will leave the start line. This year the first musher to leave the start will be an honorary musher dedicated to Iditarod Legend Susan Butcher, who pasted away last year of Leukemia.










The annual dog sled race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska covers an 1150 mile course in roughly 10 to 17 days. A track and field race through wide-open spaces for the four-legged, gold-medal athletes of the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race! Mushers and 1,000 dogs dash toward the Bering Sea coast through rugged remote mountain ranges, snow-capped forests, and frozen lakes. Dodging bear, moose and host of other elements – its 1,150 miles of pure adrenaline!











How would you like to be in a race that is more than 1,000 miles long, involves treacherous climbs, and lasts for nine to 20 days in sub-zero temperatures, much of it in darkness and blinding winds? Sounds incredible? Well, that is what some people do every year in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska.








The journey takes the mushers over mountains, through dense forests, and across frozen rivers and tundra. This year 83 mushers leave the starting gate, and for many of them their main goal is just to complete the race. The Iditarod is the ultimate test of humans and animals against nature.








Good Luck everyone as we wish the competitors a safe and exciting adventure in “The Last Great Race on Earth”









Happy Trails to you!


Ice

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Morrison Springs - Ponce de Leon, Florida

Image
Morrison Springs Ponce de Leon, Florida County road 181 Morrison Springs was one of our favorite dive spots on many of our Florida trips but it also had the most danger to it.  One of Northwest Florida’s best-kept secrets was known to more Georgia and Alabama folks than Floridians.  And they weren’t talking.  It had to do with the jewel of a Panhandle spring, a turquoise pool surrounded by stately cypress trees whose aerial roots stand taller than a man. Below the surface, clear, 68-degree water wells up from a spring cave source over 90 feet deep. Morrison Springs is just far enough off the beaten path in this sunny pine and cypress country to be special for any diver lucky enough to find and dive the site. The shallow pool reflects the overhead blue sky and if the water is clear and the bottom clean of silt, it resembles a giant sapphire.  Unlike some springs with a deep, black hole source, this one takes visitors gradually into its shallows from a gol...
Read more

Are Showing Your Nipples Appropriate Work Attire?

Image
Let me first say that personally, I have no problem with it at all. This has been kind of a weird week here in the north land with the first of many winter snowfalls’s to come and the landscape once again beautifully covered in the white stuff. It looks like the kids will have to put their Halloween costume on over a snowsuit again this year as the cold snowy stuff is here again. That is not what I wanted to write about tonight but was necessary to set up what I did want to write about. “Frosty nipples” are quite common here during most of the year and when things cool down on the cusp of winter probably more so. Work attire with tight shirts or low cut blouses that ‘make a statement’ during colder weather could be taken several ways by co-workers or visitors to your place of business. While you may not always be taken seriously by others in the office and some may have trouble looking you in the face, I say it's a freedom of rights issue. If you want to show o...
Read more

Biscuits and Whores

Image
Some of the best things about life I learned from Lonesome Dove. Great movie, excellent characters, and tells a story about how to live life. Augustus McCrae “It ain’t dying I’m talking about, it’s living.   I doubt it matters where you die, but it matters where you live.” I'm just tryin' to keep everything in balance, Woodrow. You do more work than you got to, so it's my obligation to do less. “Yesterday’s gone and we can’t get it back.” “I'm sure partial to the evening,' Augustus said. 'The evening and the morning.   If we just didn't have to have the rest of the dern day I'd be a lot happier.” Hat Creek Cattle Company Well we don't rent pigs and I figure it's better to say it right out front because a man that does like to rent pigs is . . . he's hard to stop. Biscuits “I never knew you to get excited about anything except biscuits maybe . . . and whores!”    Captain Woodrow Call to Augustus McCrae in Lonesome Dove. Whores L...
Read more