Last Dinner in Anchorage
After the Reindeer Run, we
returned to the hotel (Captain Cook) and rested a bit before heading out to
dinner. Joseph and I decided to head back over to the Glacier Brew House since
it was close and we really hadn’t given it a good try. Remember, the first
night in town we ate here about 0100 hours in the morning (Texas Time) after
having started our day at 0530 that morning.
The place was packed, Saturday
night crowd. We asked if we could try to get a seat at the Bar and were told to
go ahead. Moving around the room, we ran into Dinna, the lady from Dayton, Ohio
we had met on the Dog Yard trip earlier in the week. She and her party were
about to de-table and depart. She pushed us up to the high table and in front
of a couple of guys that were obviously waiting in line for the exact table Dinna
pushed us toward (I’m not kidding you here!). As the table cleared and Dinna
departed, I turned to the guys who had been standing there and ask if they were
waiting for those chairs. They responded that that was correct; and fortunately
there were only two of them, there was two of us, and there were four places
now available—it
all worked out.
More of Dinna’s group joined
us to our right at about this same time. The wife was a retired School
Principal and the husband was a Sales Tech working for a company that made Spiro
drives.
We all struck up a great
friendship instantly as we had many tales and adventures to share with one
another. A contest of “that’s pretty good, but consider this” took the rest of
the evening to work its way out. I’m here to state that Joseph and I held our
own and most likely won the evening’s tall tale contest.
After finishing the dinner and
the evening, Joseph and I went back to the Captain Cook to pack for tomorrow
morning’s drive to the Race Restart in Willow and relocation to the Talkeetna
area for our last overnight in Alaska.
Last Breakfast in Anchorage
0700 hours, and we were
downstairs for breakfast—the
Salmon Omelet. Most of our group were in the restaurant also; all of us
separate tables. This is the way the entire trip had evolved. After breakfast,
we were together for most of the days and then separately for dinners in the
evening. But today would be different.
Wasilla and the Race Headquarters
Our first stop up the highway
was in Wasilla at the Iditarod Headquarters. Before I go there, I want you to
know that I checked; you cannot see Russia from here! One of my High School
friends, Russell Autrey, advised me that I should “Borrow
Sarah Palin's glasses, cause we all know she don't tell no lies!” I looked for
her, but didn’t see her anywhere around. The headquarters is an
interesting place; with all its history and education on sled dogs, in general;
it’s well worth taking time to give it a look over.
Joseph and I
outside the Wasilla Headquarters of the Iditarod Trail Race
Statue
dedicated to the Sled Dog
Statue
dedicated to Joe Reddington, Sr. – Father of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race
Headquarters
Building
After our headquarters tour,
our Driver Bill took us straight over to the local Fred Meyers (the Alaskan
version of HEB, Safeway or Tom Thumb) so we could buy ourselves a sack lunch to
take to the re-start in Willow. I found an Italian Sub packaged in a display
right up front, gathered a bottle of water and a bag of potato chips and I was
ready to go. Others took significantly longer to acquire a gourmet meal for
their consumption.
Willow area and Race Re-start
Back on our way, we were
heading to our main trip destination—the
actual start of the Iditarod—The
Last Great Race! Now the excitement was rampant. Before you could count the
number of booties required to outfit a sled dog team, we were at our
destination and the bus was parking. A short walk later and our feet were on
the biggest ice cube in the area—the
frozen surface of Willow Lake, the re-start line. I reminded Joseph of the time
we had come here in 1971 for the car and motorcycle races and how amazed we
were at the time that we were on a frozen lake along with hundreds of cars and
thousands of people—standing
around with not one thing to worry about. We walked some of the dog trailers
and then went to find us a great vantage point up the shoot.
Willow Lake
(with Denali above in the distance)
Start Line
below the banner.
Race Fans taking
up positions along the shoot
Happy dogs—on their way
to Nome—tongues a’waging!
Dallas Seavey’s
Team reaches our position along the shoot
Dallas Seavey—finally on his
way to Nome!
The Race is on!
We watched the start and saw
at least those we really wanted to see get off and on their way to Nome: Aliy
Zirkle, Mitch Seavey, Dallas Seavey, Jesse Royer, Robert Sorlie, Cim Smyth,
Scott Janssen, and Allen Moore. Man!! What a thrill to see this again after so
many years (1973 & 1974)? They passed by every two minutes (a time difference
that is made up at their 24 hour layover.
While standing there, I met
and talked with a nice young family that was originally from Sandy Point,
Alaska. That’s a 7 square mile island just east of Dutch Harbor, out on the Aleutian
Chain. I didn’t write down his name (I’m sorry!) as I promised him I would send
him a free copy of my just recently published book if he would send me an email
(I gave him my book card so he would have my address—I have yet to receive the email; I hope he sends it
along soon. His wife had insisted that he move the family to the Anchorage area
for their daughter’s education opportunities. He’s an architectural production
schedule and seems to be doing very well for someone that grew up fishing the “deadliest
catch”. I really enjoyed the time we spent watching the re-start.
We soon had to depart so we
would not be the group that everybody on the bus was waiting on so we could
make our way to the Talkeetna Lodge, our destination for the evening.
Still more to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment