When we last left the Pretty Curly Tails and Musher, they had just arrived in Ruby for a well deserved rest!
The Musher writes:
"Greetings from Ruby!!! Dogs all inhaled their meal, I inhaled a cheeseburger ... now off for a nap. Will likely stay here 8 hours so I can do a nice cold night run over to Galena.
Was -40 out of Cripple last night, so cold tonight likely won't be too much of a bother!!!
We are having a great time!!! BTW - Tess lead the team in here in single lead!!"
WOWZERS -40 is REALLY cold, but with all of their fluffs and furs, the Pretty Curly Tails are pretty insulated and LOVE the cold. The Musher is also pretty and insulated thanks to her amazing Skookum Brand Anorak.
Skookum brand, a proud sponsor of the Pretty Curly Tails and Musher!
Tess is doing a bang up job in harness and from what the Musher says in her quick checkpoint missive, it appears that she's really stepping up and being a great lead dog. I'm sure her sponsor, Marlene Daniels, is proud and grinning from ear to ear!
The team completed their 8-hour layover in Ruby, where apparently the cheeseburgers are a'plenty, and also snacking on the goodies provided by Shelly Lewis in her snack bag. I'm sure the Pretty Curly Tails enjoyed their soup and got a good rest.
Since we don't have any pictures of the Ruby checkpoint, here is an example of resting Pretty Sled Dogs from McGrath.
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| Thank you for keeping the PCTs warm Linda Birchall!!!! |
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| Isn't it amazing how the PCTs can make straw look so comfortable? |
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| Crunchie demonstrating how to use straw as a scratching aid |
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| He's DA MAN! |
There's 48 miles between Ruby and Galena, and as of 6:40am (Alaska Time) the team has run over 500 miles!
And now we pause for a word about one of our wonderful sponsors courtesy of Helen (who smells like cookies) Handler:
"So often we are looking for fun ‘dog’ things to buy but there are a few of us that do not have the sled dog variety but still want to support sponsors like dogbooties.com.
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| dogbooties.com |
Ok, I added the part about the fashion ensemble, but seriously.... check out their products... and say hi and thank you to owner Louise for us!
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| Hi Louise! |
The Musher and Pretty Curly Tails arrived in the scenic Galena checkpoint at 8:01 am!
Here is all about the Galena checkpoint to read.
Someone mentioned that there is a Starbucks™ in Galena, and we all know what happened back in 2010.
While in Galena, the Musher will be happily snacking on the tasty treats packed by none other than Kathryn Snack Bag and former Handler Minion!
This is also the perfect opportunity to introduce you to a new segment of our show: "Meet the Minions!"
Kathryn Snack Bag Minion
Kathryn was an official North Wapiti handler for the winter 2007-2008 season and as her door prize, she took home North Wapiti's Jelly Bean (aka Mr. Jelly Bean)
This year Kathryn was in charge of coordinating, gathering, organizing, packing, shlepping, and getting all of the snack bag goodies to Alaska so they could be packed in the drop bags. A herculean task of back breaking and organizational wonder, which Kathryn did flawlessly!
Kathryn and her husband have Bean and Nokomis, who recently was registered as a therapy dog. She also misses her other two rescued Siberian Huskies, Dakota (who passed last April), and Sierra (who passed more than 7 years ago)
Lets all give a big round of applause to Kathryn Snack Bag Minion!!!!
Ok, back to the update! The Musher and Pretty Curly Tails are currently in Galena preparing to pull the hook and head out to Nulato. Here's the description of the trail to Nulato. I have to admit that whenever I hear the checkpoint "Nulato" I think of that yummy Nutella stuff... mmmm tasty!
But I digress!
We've had some questions on the Interwebs that I would like to address now. The biggie big question is: How do the race officials handle that whole "Spring Forward" clock changing thing?
Excellent question!
So... while you'll see the clocks changing to reflect the Daylight Savings Time thing when the Mushers and dogs check into and out of the checkpoints and stuffs... and things... the Mushers actually have no clue what day of the week it is, let along what hour, and after a while they probably aren't even sure what planet they are on other than its a cold, snowy, planet, which would rule out Mars because that's suppose to be really super hot, and since they downgraded Pluto so its not even a planet anymore, which I think is totally unfair... oh... where was I?
Oh yes, the Daylight Savings thing... anyhoo, each Musher has a clock that starts when they started in Willow, and stops when they cross that Burled Arch thing, which they actually don't cross it, they go UNDER it, so I'm not really sure why the phrase is "cross the Burled Arch" and what the heck is a Burled Arch anyway???? ... oh... sorry again... so in the grand scheme of things, the whole Daylight Savings Time doesn't even come into play for the Mushers... just people who forget to set their clocks in the "real" world and show up to an important meeting an hour late tomorrow.
I hope that's cleared everything up!
That's it for tonight everybodies. Just waiting for the team to leave Galena.
More updates on the blog tomorrow, but don't forget to follow on Facebook or the Twitters @northwapiti
- Bet
1 comment:
Nutella in Alaska???
I'm German ... and of course LOVE Nutella!
An extra jar for you, Bet, and thank you for the great and entertaining updates that are very much appreciated by our whole family!
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