Iditarod, House Hunting, and Other News

Greetings from Alaska. I hope you've got a few minutes, because I've got a lot to report.

It's just Molly and me this weekend, because Lindsay is volunteering for the Iditarod at the Skwentna checkpoint. There was a ceremonial start in Anchorage yesterday morning (pictures below), and the official start was this morning in Willow (the namesake of one of Sarah Palin's spawn). Skwentna is the second checkpoint, 86 miles from Willow:

Skwentna if off the road system, so Lindsay flew up there in a small plane yesterday morning. Lindsay has a busy night ahead of her, as about half of the racers have reached Skwentna, including four-time defending champ Lance Mackey, a dashing musher who started 17th but has already moved up to 8th place:

It's supposed to get down to about 9 degrees in Skwentna tonight, but it could get a lot colder. Since Lindsay is staying in an unheated cabin, she took two sleeping bags and this get-up:

I'm very proud of her, and I hope she's having a great time. I joked with her the other night that I was surprised to hear how aggressive Skwentna wolves are towards humans. She apparently didn't think that was as funny as I did. If a wolf doesn't eat her camera, she'll probably bring back some good pictures.

The other big news in our life is that we're looking to buy a place here in Anchorage. Here I am checking out the crawl space of one place:

This doesn't mean that we're planning to stay in Alaska forever, but we are sick of paying rent to our unstable landlord, who I assume is using the money to fund the North Korean government. We'll keep you posted on our progress.

Now that you're up to speed on current events, here's a recap of what we've been up to since our last post in December.

We made it back to South Dakota for Christmas with my family. Here I am with my grandma (I'm the one wearing the stunning cat sweater - which Lindsay made for me):

After Christmas with my family, we flew to Orlando to spend a few days with Lindsay's family. Here's the official holiday photo (as you can see, my sweater made the trip):

O.k., maybe that's not the official photo. Here's a better one from New Year's Eve at Epcot:

Luckily for the Disney folks, this beefcake also decided to spend his New Year's Eve at Epcot:

I can't really explain the angelic glow of his golden mullet, other than to speculate that he is actually an angel.

Once back in Anchorage, Lindsay and I had sushi with some friends to celebrate my 31st birthday:

You can see my six-pack peeking out of the bottom of my shirt. You're welcome.

One of our friends moved to Minnesota in February, and I was one of the presenters at a roast in his honor:

In the wake of my comments, he is no doubt glad to be living thousands of miles away now.

Lindsay and I spent Presidents Day weekend at our friend's lake cabin, which is near the starting point for the Iron Dog snowmobile race:

The Iron Dog is a 2000-mile race from Big Lake to Nome to Fairbanks, and teams of two sled across the state at speeds of up to 90 mph. First Dude Todd Palin has won several times, but he came in second this year (Sarah might be somewhere in the photo above).

Lindsay and I have been trying to do more cross-country skiing. Here is Lindsay navigating (or at least trying to navigate) a turn at Kincaid Park here in Anchorage:

And here I am holding my skis, which I'm very good at:

There was a 50K (31 mile) race in Anchorage today. I was far too busy to participate.

Lindsay has become very fond of Star the reindeer, who lives with her owner Albert in downtown Anchorage. Here's Lindsay with Star and Albert before they all walked in the annual Fur Rendezvous parade:

As long we're on the topic of Alaskan animals, you should know that I walked out of my office building one day last week to find Lindsay taking a picture of this huge moose eating an entire tree:

And that brings us back to the start of the Iditarod. As I mentioned, there was a ceremonial start in Anchorage on Saturday morning. Here are a couple of pictures from the newspaper:

I went to a "trailgate" party with some friends to watch some of the teams go by:

The tall, slender guy next to me took part in the 50K ski race today. To reiterate, I was far too busy with other things. I'm not saying that I would have won if I had participated. I'm just saying that everybody else would have lost.

Here's a close-up of one of the teams on the trail:

PETA thinks the Iditarod constitutes animal cruelty, but I've never seen dogs as happy as those on these teams (though I suppose they might be a bit happier on groomed trails in Anchorage than when they're pulling the sled over a mountain at 2 o'clock in the morning in -40 degree weather).

Finally, in case you were worried that I forgot a Molly update, don't fret. Here she is working on her figure by doing Pilates stretches into an empty cat food bag:

And, last but not least, the Circle of Life pose:

Well, it's time for bed. Molly sort of freaks out when Lindsay's out of town, so she'll probably begin her breakfast screaming a little earlier than normal. I need my rest.

See you soon.