Day 6 Thursday, March 12, 2009
Today was tuff for those back home because of the waiting and pacing. Thank God my school has long hallways! Bruce has a way of always calling at the very moment I can’t talk. “Good morning K-Beach, hope you’re having a great start to your Thursday morning! Isn’t the snow wonderful…?” Then Debbie pulls my sleeve – “Melissa, Bruce is on the phone.” And I continue, “K-Beach, we have to do the pledge extra fast today because Bruce is on the phone and I gotta go!” and so the story goes…
Again, he was in good spirits while spouting of run and rest times of his competitors. For those of you new to the sport, it can get really confusing because of the differential start times, runs rests, miles per hour. I still get confused and really don’t care to analyze those statistics to extent Bruce does. I say – run as fast as you can and good luck! I am not the scientist in the family for sure, but rather, I look at the whole picture and experience in a very liberal arts kind of way. I associate Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony with Bruce’s journey rather than over analyzing it. That is just my way…
He said he was leaving at 11:00 and to his word he did. The trail is slow and it showed as he was only traveling at 5 mph for awhile. I want to jump into the screen to yell “Let’s GO” to the little green blip, but it does not work despite my enthusiasm.
The next few legs will be long and lonely. From the GPS tracker, it looks like he found some friends to rest with on his way to Iditarod. You would think the town of Iditarod (considering the race and trail is named after it) would be substantial, but it is an old gold mining ghost town – population ZERO! A small tent with a fire going is all that exists there – nothing more. I am glad the temps are not too cold, but Bruce would be happy if it were about 20 degrees colder. Unlike me, he is comfortable in -10 degree weather. He says it is his Norwegian blood. I am Irish – I clearly don’t have that trait!
On as personal note, it is amazing how I trick myself into believing I will get all sorts of things done while Bruce is on the trail. From a list 20 items deep, I have succeeded to accomplish only those items that pertain to the race. Nothing more… I don’t know where the time has gone, but I am thinking about how to pack for Bruce, Brody and I since I am only allowed to bring one bag on the flight to Nome…praying that I am going to Nome early next week. Thank goodness I have spring break next week!!! One more day of kiddo and 25% percent of them are sick or have left early. I am hopeful for a quiet day…
Anyway, the race is going to start getting interesting now. The two places musher scratch most often are Unalakleet and McGrath.
More tomorrow…
Happy trails,
Melissa
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