Handler #2 arrives
and the Musher's Meeting
Around 12:30pm Wayne, JJ's dad, arrived and we chatted a bit before the two
of them stepped out to grab some lunch and I grabbed a bit more shut eye. I
didn't sleep very soundly as I was a bit excited and nervous. Around 4pm we
dropped the dogs once again, fed them, and then loaded them up before all heading
to the Glennallen Elementary School for the musher and handler meeting and the
banquet immediately following.
About 15 minutes into the musher/handler meeting, the handlers were all excused
since there was no more information specific to them and they had no more questions.
At that point it was just the mushers, and I casually looked around the room
to absorb whom I was sitting with: quite a few CB300 past champions and lots
of mushers who had run the Iditarod and Yukon Quest (another 1,000+ mile race).
They were mostly veteran mushers - some with almost as many years mushing as
I was old. The race organizers went over the rules and then we spent most of
the time talking about the trail. Every comment seemed to be "compared
to last year…" or "well, like last year's trail…" or
"different than last year…" It was a little frustrating, but
I finally just gleaned what I could from the info and didn't stress about trying
to remember the specifics. I was resigned to the fact that I would have to trust
that the trail would be well marked and that I would have enough skills handling
the sled to get me through the challenging sections.
At the end of the mushers
meeting they kept all the rookies for a few more minutes giving us a chance
to ask any questions we didn't want to ask in front of all the veterans. Not
many questions came up so we fairly quickly transitioned into the drawing banquet
and getting one more big dinner under our belts before the start of the race
the next morning.
