My growing Iditarod family

Barbara L. and I have become good friends, and she and her husband, Jerry, came by our house last summer to have lunch with Ken and I. We stayed in touch and made plans to go to the race together in 2007, but the sale of the family farm, closing in January, and buying our small dream Deerfield farm made that time too busy. With disappointmet, I postponed my dream for one more year. As it was, Ken and I fell in love with Deerfield, a very remote mountain valley in western Virginia, and were there every weekend working to fix the fences and the house, and I was hitting the auctions for used equipment and furniture. That was also a dream come true, and the timing was perfect, with Ken being in his 1st year of partial retirement. I am so in love with our Deerfield home. I am feeling more and more at one with the earth. To pack both dreams in one year would have lessened the thrill of both. Now we are settled in our farm house, nestled between two gorgeous mountains, with no buildings behind us for miles and miles, and have had a year to share it with many renewed friends from childhood, and others who love the country as much as we do. With this as my 'nest', I am settled in to plan this Iditarod Dream!

I am one lucky person! I have make 275 booties this year. Mine have been mailed to Mike Williams, a native musher who mushes for sobriety. I also made some purple booties for Jessica Royer's ceremonial start. I called Jessica's mother in Montana when I got the idea, and she was wonderfully friendly with suggestions. I made 4 matching bandanas for the lead or wheel dogs, with a "J" on them for the "J-Team".

Now a bit about last year's experience. Having DSL brought me closer to the action, and I signed up for the ITC Insider and became an ITC member. I could catch videos daily, along with web cam of the entire starts, ceremonial and Willow. I never missed a minute, even though I was at my Sister's for dinner during the actual start at Willow on Sunday (sorry, Ellen). It was almost like being there, and sharing the excitement with Cabela's Talk and Idita-support made it more fun. My family ignored me and thought I had gone over the deep end. Throughout the week I followed the action from checkpoint to checkpoint, and this year took the risk of guessing and predicting strategies, as I am beginning to know many of the mushers better. It was so fun to talk to Ryan Redington, Tyrell Seavey, and Mr. Burmeister, the ITC President on the talk forum. Everyone is so down to eath. In 2007, some of my favorite experiences were Frozen Chosen's Iditarod History posts, Sam-a-Tuck's native heritage 'eye view' of the race, and beginning to know the folks on the forums better as real people.

From the beginning, the excitement about the possibility of Lance Mackey winning the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod in the same year intrigued me. I had to choose him as #1 on my Top-Ten-Picks (TTP's). Every day, I couldn't wait to get to work to watch the last video, and could scan and post so quickly, I could hardly imagine how frustrated I had been with dial-up.

Toward the end of the race, I got hooked up with BSSD, the Unalakleet School children's site and their 'lively' live chat. Daniel (This Space For Rent) helped me get the BSSD live chat, and the live feed web video from Nome and the Cabela's talk all open and spaced on my screen. (I'm still a bit virtually challenged). I felt like a computer whiz, and was in Nome Heaven! As it became more and more evident that Lance was going to win, and with bib 13, and in his 6th year, just as his Dad and brother, Rick, the excitement built until I thought I would burst. The nervous excited chatter on BSSD was exhilerating! Here on the east coast, the ending looked to be middle of the night, so I went home to get my comfy clothes and sleeping bag, and back to the office and my DSL for the finish with my Idita-bud Armchair Mushers!

Ohhhhh! What a finish!!!! There was a large bunch of us bantering back and forth on Cabela's and BSSD, but I finally gto the hang of the live chat on BSSD and stayed there for the finish. I has so much sympathy of those folks who had dial up, or weren't getting a good feed. Mine was coming in perfect, so as I watched Lance come across the sea ice toward Nome, I began calling the 'play-by-play', describing every scene, starting when he stopped out on the ice with Nome in sight, got down with each dog, and hugged and thanks them, wanting to do that privately, before re-entering civilization. I typed as fast as I could, with cheers and laughter, and tears running down my face, what Lance, the dogs, the fans, the family were doing and saying as he came into Nome, down Front Street, and under the Burled Arch, running beside his team, and pointing to the 13 on his chest with both hands, tears and laughter on that wooly frost-red beaming face above that 'krusty with dirt and dog doo' red snowsuit he wears, cheering in celebration and embracing to the ground his brother, then Mom..........."I did it, Mom! Life will never be the same!"

Throughout the next hours, on Cabela's, we collected 'favorite Lance quotes' (It's Lance, Not Chance!)....There were so many. I went to Lance's web site, and left him a cngratulatory message, telling him that the finish sealed my resolve to be there next year. He wrote me back the next week, to come see him at the start or finish line. Yep. I'm a group. By the way, I never did use that sleeping bag...........up all night.

Plans to attend started immediately, with me asking those who had gone for advice. I got great information, but this time, mostly from the Idita-Support group. It was so hard to decide when, and how long, and which activities to include. It soon became evident, you can't do everything in one year. I decided to forgo the Nome trip, as it would add a lot of time and expense, plus I really enjoyed the ending on the Internet from home. I knew I wanted to do both starts, the Banquet, the Vet check, some open houses, and a fly out to at least one checkpoint. I wanted to volunteer, but also wanted some free time to explore and meet other peopled I have come to know and love on the groups. I kept all three groups abreast of my plans. Pat Schue described a tour, and that caught my eye, but I can't imagine being 'hooked' to a tour. I'm too spontaneous for that. But, after talking to other who have done this tour, I signed up, then immediately booked my flights, and chose dates. Two weeks sounded like plenty of time, I thought then! Not now! Wish I had opted for at least three more days! Oh, well.

Shortly after I committed to the tour, Karen F. (Idita-S member I had not talked to previously) announced a need for roommates. We exchanged information about ourselves, hit it off immediately, and within no time there were four of us (we now call ourselves 'The Gang'). Pam V. and Mary C. were the others.............two west coast and two east coast. We quickly exchanged pictures and information, and we have all been amazed at the instant commaradarie. We are all married (for years) to guys who are not much interested in the Iditarod, who don't want to go, and are hesitant about us going alone because they care for us. We are all nuts about the race, Alaska, and the dogs. I can't wait to meet these girls. We are going to have so much fun.

The end of December, Cabela's announced their talk forum was ending, and I was meandering through the threads, reminising. I decided to bump up the thread 'going ot the 2008 race' and ask who else was really going. I looked through the posts there back to last March, and realized that Gatekeeper was still planning to go. I followed his thread (always thought Gatekeeper was a guy) and noticed mention of Oregon, and Corvallis.............and thought...........Pam lives in Corvallis! Is Gatekeeper Pam? Sure enough, and she had no idea I was JeanieB. Small, small world. Shortly after that, I got the wonderful news that Laurie (Mith) and Spirit are going too!!! It will be so great to meet her.

In three weeks I will be in Alaska! It sounds like a long time, but the last month has gone quickly. There is a constant blitz of e-mails as we revise our schedules to pack more and more into the trip. For me, planning and anticiption of a trip is almost as much fun as the trip itself, and nothing could be truer now. I'm having a ball. Every day there is something I think of the check out (like how do we pee in Willow with ski bibs and a bunch of layers on) or purchase (when Karen said there were a few insulated ski pants at TJMAXX and I made a quick lunch run to get the last ones) or a bright idea (like checking I-tunes and finding a bunch of Alaska, dog, and Iditarod songs, and making a CD for 'The Gang' for Christmas -- that was so fun). Never a dull moment. I'm living the trip in my head 24/7. Wonder if my last Cabela's order will be here next week? Got to have that heavy silk underwear!