Santa shopping for the Serum Run
Nov/30/08
With the 2009 Serum Run on the wish list this year, Santa started visiting early. July and August brought sled parts and booties and his latest delivery came last weekend. Recent Serum Run correspondence had mentioned sightings of Spot Satellite trackers at Costco. I rushed down to my local Costco, left a substantial portion of my pay check at the register, and brought home a shopping cart full of hand warmers, toe warmers and one Spot Satellite Tracker. I have hopes the tracker will be effective at leaving a series of waypoints that are uploaded in real time to view on the web page as we make our way to Nome. As with all electronic gadgets, it will take some time for me to figure out how to work it. As I muddle through, I will put up some “trial and error” training runs on the web page to be sure they are viewable.
Planning and training for the Serum Run is progressing along. In order to have enough time to travel, train dogs and complete the Serum Run I have applied for a 3 month leave of absence from work starting 1/1/09. Margaret is only able to get 6 weeks off so after the Serum Run she will fly home from Anchorage and I’ll drive down with the dogs.
We had high hopes Bill Daugereau would be able to join us again as Margaret’s snowmachiner but he is unable to go. Fellow Musher and good friend Von Martin applied and was selected to participate, so Washington State will have three teams in the run this year. Over New Year’s weekend Margaret, Von and I are going to meet at Mt. Adams and do a three day, two night camping trip that will qualify as his shake down run. Following our shakedown, I will head out to Elk River, ID and camp for a couple weeks. This is about an hour drive from Margaret’s. With her limited amount of time off, she will bring her dogs out, train and semi commute to work. Her six weeks off begins 1/31/09 which will also be our departure date to Alaska. As soon as we get up there we will have to scramble and get our drop bags put together for delivery on 1/10/09. After that we will focus on getting the dogs mile’d up and making final preparations for the trip to Nome.
Well I started this on 11/30 and it has taken more then a week to finish. I am going to send this to Cheri to get posted and start #3, hopefully it will be done a little faster.
Happy Trails,
Don
Planning and training for the Serum Run is progressing along. In order to have enough time to travel, train dogs and complete the Serum Run I have applied for a 3 month leave of absence from work starting 1/1/09. Margaret is only able to get 6 weeks off so after the Serum Run she will fly home from Anchorage and I’ll drive down with the dogs.
We had high hopes Bill Daugereau would be able to join us again as Margaret’s snowmachiner but he is unable to go. Fellow Musher and good friend Von Martin applied and was selected to participate, so Washington State will have three teams in the run this year. Over New Year’s weekend Margaret, Von and I are going to meet at Mt. Adams and do a three day, two night camping trip that will qualify as his shake down run. Following our shakedown, I will head out to Elk River, ID and camp for a couple weeks. This is about an hour drive from Margaret’s. With her limited amount of time off, she will bring her dogs out, train and semi commute to work. Her six weeks off begins 1/31/09 which will also be our departure date to Alaska. As soon as we get up there we will have to scramble and get our drop bags put together for delivery on 1/10/09. After that we will focus on getting the dogs mile’d up and making final preparations for the trip to Nome.
Well I started this on 11/30 and it has taken more then a week to finish. I am going to send this to Cheri to get posted and start #3, hopefully it will be done a little faster.
Happy Trails,
Don