It's Snack Bag Time - Bet

Howdy Ho Everybodies!

Want to thank everyone that bidded on the Musher Banquet Table stuffs and things!  We hope you have a great time at the banquet, and eat lots of tasty things (and stuffs).

If you didn't win a seat at one of the two tables the Musher reserved, just go to the Iditarod site and buy a ticket to attend... don't worry, the eating part is only a part of it, you can mingle and walk around and meet the Musher, she's very personable, just let her chew.

Go here if you want to go to the banquet and buy from the Iditarod official sitey site.

Now we're announcing the Snack Bag time... I wanted to dress up and asked the Musher to take some pictures of me in my new ensemble... but she made me go outside because "the light was better"... um... the freezing is also freezier out there.

Take the picture Musher... hurry

For some reason she couldn't quite get the focus right...

Seriously... take the mittens off and focus then!

Lens cap.... LENS CAP

Oh great, my po-po is frozen to the ground

Anyhoooooo

SNACK BAGS!!!!!!

For those of you who don't know, all of the Mushers fill up these big bags called "Drop Bags" with stuffs and things they'll need at their checkpoints.

Here is an example of the drop bag process

All of the stuffs and things are placed in rows in the order of the checkpoints and all of the stuffs and things are crammed into the bags.

Every bag is labeled so the Musher knows which one is hers and the name of the checkpoint.

Then all of those bags are loaded up and sent to Iditarod, where they keep them safe until the Iditarod, then each bag goes to its assigned checkpoint.


Then the bags are sent to each checkpoint where they are carefully... um... thrown in a pile in the snow and left there until each musher gets to that checkpoint

The bags contain everything from Pretty Curly Tail foods, Musher goodies, extra this, and that, and the other things... stuffs they can't carry with them on the trail because the sled would weigh a ton and no amount of Pretty Curly Tail power would get it to Nome.

One of the most important things those drop bags contain are SNACK BAGS!  These are little 1 Gallon ziplock baggies of tasty nom noms that the Musher looks forward to and motivates her to get to the next checkpoint (other than peeing in a normal bathroom).

As we did for the 2012 Iditarod, we'd like for you to have a piece of Iditarod fun by packing the Musher's snack bags!  YOU get to pick out the treats, and things in the snack bag.  You can also send a little message to her to cheer her on, or make her laugh.

There are three ways for you to help this year:

1.) Pack a snack bag
2.) Buy some of the VERY, VERY, VERY important goodies that will also go into drop bags
3.) Sponsor a checkpoint of your very own

Just go to the tabbie tab at the top of the bloggity blog (or click here) to find out what you have to do.  We have a very strict deadline of 15 January 2014 for this bit because the bags have to be shipped to Alaska at a very specific time.  Your contact for this mission will be the ever wonderful Kathryn Minion, the snack bag queen.

Here she is in 2012 going to the post office with the snack bags and other necessities

So, get over there and check it out.  If you don't have a lot of money, but want to help out, you can buy some of the odds and ends that may not seem like a lot... but believe me, sponsoring some prilosec tablets for the Pretty Sled Dogs IS a matter of life or death (read about why they are very important here), and the Musher can't do what she needs to do without hand warmers or batteries for her head lamp.

So help us get these much needed items to help the Musher and Pretty Curly Tails one more step closer to the Burled Arch in Nome, and thank you for your continuing generosity, we are all verklempt.

- Bet