Ultimate Iditarod Update

Unlike my Alaskan colleague, I did not have the good fortune to spend a week in Hawaii at the end of September. However, I did get an expense-paid five days and four nights at the Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago. What a trip!!! I got to do everything from attend a conference centered on honors education at the college level to kick back in a blues club on the north side of town. I toured several museums, ate at amazing restaurants, and even caught a magnificent sunset from the top of the Sears Tower. (I took the elevator rather than climb 2,200 stairs.) I will post a few pictures when I get them back from the developer later this week.

As I mentioned before I left last week, I have been east of Wisconsin and Kansas City only once before, and I am relatively inexperienced at the ways of big cities. But cities always amaze me. Cars motor in and out of town in a perpetual serpentine, the 'L' rattles overhead every few minutes, music, talking, and people buzz all around, and the air is filled with energy--an energy very different from the one I am accustomed to in the mountains with a dog team. The city is definitely alive, and I find it a fascinating place to visit. However, I like my visits to be brief, and I find reaffirmed my desire to spend the majority of my life in a more quiet and sedate place where cars stop for pedestrians and the stars are not obstructed by 100-story buildings and the glow of city lights.

I know that to many this desire to be "away from civilization" seems strange. Indeed I have had guests at IdidaRide Sled Dog Tours tell me that I describe their own version of Hell when I speak of the solitude and isolation of the Montana Rockies or the Alaskan bush. I know that a majority of people around the world now live in cities and surrounding urban areas. And the cities are wondrous places that offer many things I could never find in a more rural setting. But to me the moments when the sun rises over the mountains on a cold clear winter day and the independence and self sufficiency I enjoy outdoors are equally wondrous and valuable, and that is why I enjoy my life with the dogs.

Speaking of the dogs, things are going very well with training. The weather continues to get colder, and the frost at night gets harder and harder. We will soon get lasting amounts of snow if the weather patterns continue as they are. Some mushers are driving their dogs in trucks up to higher mountains and running on sleds, but the runs are only about ten miles or so due limited number of trails with adequate snow.

For now, we are still in that transition state between fall and winter where we use the four-wheelers to train. The dogs are running upwards of sixteen miles now--still pulling hard up the hills with the four-wheeler in third gear (no throttle, of course) and then running faster down the hills and on the flats at speeds up to sixteen or seventeen miles per hour at times.

With every run, we get more and more excited about the team. Between the young dogs we have raised that are now getting more and more experience as two- and three-year-olds and the few new dogs we purchased over the summer, the overall quality of the team is the best my family has ever owned. Additionally, I think the team's performance has been enhanced even further due to the harder, slower pulling we started with this fall. The races will be the true test of course, but we are very pleased with what we see so far, and I thoroughly enjoy my training runs with the dogs. They, too, are alive, vibrant, and full of a unique kind of energy.

Well, I better get going. It's late, and I have an Anatomy & Physiology test plus a bit of catch-up from my absence last week. Talk to you again soon, and remember to vote on Tuesday!

This is Salmon Lake just south of Snowcrest Kennel near the mouth of the Seeley-Swan Valley. The golden color on the hillside is from the Western Larch, which is one of very few coniferous (evergreen) trees to lose its needles in the fall. They look like "Charlie Brown Christmas Trees" all winter.