Skijoring and Iron Dog

The past few weeks have been very eventful. I have a new hobby. I love cross country skiing. It all started a few weeks ago when I asked a friend to take me skijoring. I had never been before and she goes every weekend to give her dogs some exercise. She runs dogs and works every winter to take her dogs on a mushing trip to Salmon Lake.

Naturally my attempt at skijoring was terrible but so much fun! I had a lot of problems trying to stand up on my skis. The harness that went around my waste had a dog attached on my right hip, giving me a weird center of gravity. While on a pair of cross country skis, I had a teather attached to the dog and my harness. My problem came not only from the harness but my lack of skills with cross country skiing. I have skiied many times before but it was always downhill skiing on groomed paths. Skiijoring or even cross country skiing is about as far away from that as you can get! It was a great experience never the less. I have included a picture of my friend skiijoring with both both dogs because the dog was getting tired of me falling. Ever since then, I've been skiing to get the practice, its a good workout, and it's a lot of fun!

The city has been busy the past week with Iron Dog activities. KNOM has regular updates on the Iron Dog. We go on the air at 9am, 12pm, 5pm, and 10pm with updates. It is been a great experience so far. The first racers came in on Tuesday night. Laureli was reporting live from the half-way finish, Leah was on the board, and D was spotting the racers before they got to Nome. The next day was busy preparing for the banquet at the mini convention center. We also reported live on the red lantern team, a female team, who came in that night. Thursday was the best day of the Iron Dog. I was sent to the restart line to report on the teams who left. Eventful doesn't begin to describe the restart. We had 2 teams come back to Nome after they left for Fairbanks. The first team came back for potential mechanical reasons. The other team had one of the team members, break a leg about 13 miles outside of town. The part that still boggles my mind is the intensity of the entire trip. People ducktape their faces to prevent windburn. It is so cold that anyone would be out of their mind to be outside longer than 30 minutes. It was minus 8 degrees this afternoon, with a wind chill that might have lowered the temperature to about 20 below. I can't imagine how cold the interior is compared to here. Not to mention, it takes a lot of strength to be on a snowmachine for an extended period of time, fix a machine, and pull these machines over snowdrifts. I have a strong admiration for everyone who participates in Iron Dog.

Christmas, New Years, and Dogs!

During the winter months there are many blizzards, as one can imagine. Here is a during and semi after picture of a blizzard to give an idea the visability of the streets outside our front door.

The City of Nome changed the lyrics of a Christmas song and I have to say I strongly agree with it. There really is no place like Nome for the holidays. Christmas is a great time in Western Alaska. The town really wakes up, not that it was sleeping but Christmas certainly brings excitement. All of the Christmas parties leading up to Christmas day really helps build up the holiday. In addition, I was given the project to write and produce a Christmas play for the radio station. It was the best project I have ever done! It was so much fun not only doing the project but seeing a large production from begining to end.

Personally, I couldn't have asked for a better first Christmas from home. We woke up on Christmas morning and had all of the roomates get together for a family breakfest. After a large pancake and muffin breakfest, we exchanged presents. The rest of the afternoon was spent talking to family and going to work. All of the volunteers went to Ric's house for dinner. As always, Lynette made a fabulous meal. There was somewhere between 15-20 people celebrating Christmas at the Schmidt house. We did a Pink Elephant gift exchange where we all received some interesting items. After all the celebrating was over, the Schmidt kids and the KNOM volunteers played broom ball.

As opposed to Christmas's family environment, New years was more of a friend celebration. We went to Nikki's house were many friends were there for a formal dinner party. As many great Nome parties go, several people brought their instruments and we had a jam session!

One thing I am very proud of, I got the nerve to walk out on the sea ice. Granted the only walking I did was on a previously made trail, left behind from snowmachines wo go out to catch crab. I figured walking on that ice had to be safe. If it can hold a snowmachine, it can hold me. Here is a picture of one of the trails I followed.

Since it is January, dog racing season has started. Our first race was last weekend. As my first race, I didn't know what to expect. The K300 started on Friday, January 15th and it was a 3 day long event. Since the event was in Bethel, we had to rely on alot of outside information. This was more of a practice race to prepare us for the Iditarod. We had updates at 9am, noon, 5pm, and 10pm. During these updates, there was a first mic individual who gave the update on where all the racers are and evaluated their strategy. The second mic individual created color in the report and gave weather updates and background information on the musher. It was a blast learning about this tradition. I can't wait til Iditarod!