Monday

The Iditarod Race is getting really exciting.  Both Aliy Zirkle and Jeff King are in White Mountain, and Jeff was ahead of her only by an hour.  All mushers are required to take an 8 hour rest in White Mountain, so they won't be leaving that checkpoint right away.  They are now 77 miles from Nome, so the race will probably finish in the middle of the night.  The people in Nome won't be getting much sleep tonight.

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The Iditarod Trail is probably most famous in modern times for the sled dog race, But there are numerous other events on the trail  A club out of Fairbanks has an invitational bike race every winter, just before the dogs run.  I believe they go from Big Lake, AK to Nome, then to Fairbanks.  And there is a snow machine race, called The Iron Dog.  In the past, the snow machines have been out of favor for tearing up the trail so badly.  They did it on purpose to make it more difficult for the ones following them.  But I haven't heard that lately. 
 
Only parts of the trail are passable in the summer because of bogs, etc.  And the mosquitoes are almost life threatening.
 

 

One of the media guys who is following and reporting on the race took this picture of two bikers on the coast.  As that race is supposed to be over, these guys must just be out having an adventure. Notice the lack of snow.  

There are quite a few things I wish I had done in my life, but this isn't one of them!

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Yesterday I made a loaf of bread and two pizza crusts in my bread machine.  Today I am going to make an attempt to make pretzels.  And it's not because I'm bored.

 

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I just spent 99¢ on the James Michener book "Hawaii" for my Kindle.  I read it many years ago, and think I would enjoy it again.

 

Just looked up how to make the cents symbol - it is Alt 0162.  FYI

 

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Someone must sit around thinking up strange things to research and study.  Here is an interesting one:  Cows can suffer from PTSD

Unlike cows that haven't ever had a run-in with wolves, ones that have can experience stress-related illnesses and have a harder time getting pregnant – meaning decreased profits for ranchers, according to a new study by Oregon State University.