catching up post iditarod...

 loved this day after the snow.  blossom was coated eats to paws in snow balls.  of course, this is a final photo of this beloved frisbee.  soon after i took a video and clearly wasn't paying attention to the subject matter.  blossom set the frisbee down and then rolled in the snow and the frisbee fell into the one open section of the creek.  i have ordered a new frisbee in hopes of allaying my annoyance at losing this one.

 the first 25 teams are already into nome.  still lots of teams out there.  a few are falling back, the california adventurer, abbott is one of those. apparently she was stopped at eagle island for a long time. long enough that the trail sweep crew went back to check on her.  i'm kinda hoping they ask her to withdraw at kaltag.  she has climbed everest, but she no doubt had guides to lead her through the trek.  in this trek, she is responsible for a team of dogs.  i always worry when someone does this race for the wrong reasons.  you have to love the dogs, love the land and love a challenge.  i always just worry that someone in the rears like her will fight through for themselves and not take heed of the dogs.  luckily there are lots of veterinarians and volunteers on the trail who will be thinking of the dogs first.  i'm sure they will make the right call.

 these are from a day at the beach out of kincaid

 the fog eventually broke.  these are actually from the day of the ceremonial start.

 today i woke to a very chilly house. it was in the 50's.  brr.  my heater can be a bit tempermental at times.  it likes to stop working on days when the temps drop.  the outside temp when i woke was about 5. since it's nearly spring and the sun is out for longer and longer, the temps eventually came up into the 30's.  the heater finally kicked in and it actually feels too hot now.  when this happens i usually change the filter. i'm pretty regular on filter changes, but apparently my heater filter should probably just be changed q month so this doesn't happen?

 these are from another day out on the coastal refuge.  i'll just go through the pictures over the next week that got left behind as i posted iditarod pictures.

 a bit windy.  rio has walked all my days off.

 the lost dog mae, was found today.  she had apparently left the rohn area and headed back to big lake.  she was found near there.  so she had traveled at least 150 miles on her own. pretty impressive.  guess she didn't want to go to nome afterall.  just happy she is safe.  so far all the dogs are doing okay.

 there were kite boarders  out there the day i was at the refuge.

 i had thought of going to seward or hatchers today, but with the heat out i wasn't sure what i would get done or if i'd be having to wait for the heater people.  eventually, i got the dogs out for a walk , we did rovers run. seemed like a nice easy walk for the day.

 there were a few close battles coming in to nome over the night.  it's not all about first place. there are little battles going on all over between mushers.  lance and ramey smith went back and forth on the way into nome with lance coming out ahead.  buser made it in as did deedee, she snuck into the 10th spot.  everyone was happy and it's nice to see other mushers who have finished come back out and greet those who come in after them.  it's just a good spirited race for the most part.

 watched some live shots, which can be a bit frustrating as the live feed doesn't do much but have set camera's on the burled arch.  besides, there is a live stream of conversations.  this morning i made the mistake of answering a question someone had only to have some random stranger get all snarky with me.  why are people so mean?  there was no call for that...did he just need to be the one who had the right answer?  so strange. stuff like that always bothers me.  i think living alone i just get used to a drama free existence overall, so when little things happen, i'm not sure how to respond.

 read this little yahoo blip today.  a fb friend actually wrote it.  i say fb friend because you have your real friends, aquaintances and then people who have friended you on facebook.  i think many people friend you just cause they are curious about what happened to you...for me this means, what happened to me after i left the mormon church.  other people friend me to see my photo's? some people just collect friends so they can feel like they have a lot of people in their lives

 anyway, it was kinda about if she regretted not having kids. like me she just didn't meet someone she wanted to marry and have kids by.  i thought it odd though that she felt it necessary to put in there that she'd had marriage proposals in the double digits.  really.  over 10 people proposed to you?  that seems strange that one person would have so many people ask for their hand in marriage.  i will admit that nobody officially ever asked me to marry them.  you'd think that in most relationships a marriage proposal shouldn't be some total surprise event. i mean that by the time someone proposes they usually are pretty sure of the answer they will get so to have 10 different serious proposals seems odd.  were these men led into thinking the relationship was more serious than it was?  were they just fools?

 or does she feel that the fact that she married so late and never had kids will be more accepted by society if she can say that she had loads of opportunities to marry, but she just turned them all down.

 i dated a lot, but when i knew it wasn't going to work out for me, i bailed.  some may say i bailed too early.  i'd guess that i probably dated people that just weren't marriage material.  i remember one friend commenting that i dated  a lot of great looking and fun guys, but they were never going to be able to keep me interested intellectually.  it's probably true looking back.  my 20's especially, i was exploring and trying to figure out who i was and what i wanted, so i don't think that i was in any place for a serious relationship.  that doesn't mean that i didn't think in my head that i was.  but i probably totally avoided the possibility by whom i chose to date...and hell, i had a great time.

 do i regret not having kids? if i would have met the guy that blew me away i would have married and i'd have been fine with kids.  i never didn't want kids.  i never had that maternal drive that makes women have a kid no matter what. guess i say way too many people make poor decisions just so they could have kids.  eventually i realized that being a single parent was tough and being single could be fun.  so it was either marry a guy who i really felt i could make a go of it with and have kids or don't have kids and enjoy all the perks of being single.
sometimes i'm curious how my kids would have turned out or what sort of parent i would have been.  those aren't enough reasons to get knocked up though.  my dogs have turned out well.  i'm sure some of those skills are transferrable.

 more from the coastal refuge. turned out to be a beautiful day that day.  i like clouds.  the past few days the clouds lifted and then there wasn't a cloud out there.  that makes for flat pictures.

 i need to get cracking planning summer treks.  nome is the solstice plan.  not sure who is game to go with me, but it shouldn't take much planning.  would me cool to check out the options while there for a winter trek there to see the end of the iditarod.  it's on the list.

 sounds like you have to book a year in advance.

 curled up this morning and read since it was cold in the house.  that book i started on the kindle is turning into an interesting read.  so strange that governments can go corrupt so fast and cause such damage to a nation.  all that you own and think you have can be taken away just that quickly.

 lives decimated at the hands of those in power.  people think they are predicting the future and protecting their families only to find out they chose wrong.  

 it's always hard to read others  stories about these horrible events in history because it reminds you how fragile all our lives are.  so dependent on others.  i always feel like i owe it to people who have lived through these events to read their words and try to grasp what they survived, out of respect for the memory of those lost if nothing else.  to learn, to understand what people around the globe are still dealing with.  my life is so safe for the moment anyway.  it's just not that way in so many other parts of the earth.  the horror lives on in the lives of others.  they are faced with the challenges that i can't even imagine on a day to day basis.

 i'm always reminded that my dogs live better than most of the people i share this earth with.

 to be grateful for all the gifts you have seems prudent.  it can all be taken away.

 here are my girls at the coastal refuge.

 these are from the dog park.

 we ran into a baby doodle...so cute. i just had to get a few pictures of her with blossom.

 almost makes me want a baby doodle!  almost.

 finally started to get the taxes together.  my next stretch off...for sure.  i also am scheduled for an oil change and car wash.  my car looks bad.  not that it will improve after a bath...the spring will just mean more and more muck.  plus my windshield has a crack.  i want to wait til after spring to fix that.  no point.  would hate to change it only to have another rock hit it.

 a few from out bivouac way.  i think these are another day on rovers run right after the last snow.

 it's actually been hot out there despite all the snow.  i tend to take off the hat and gloves when i get hot, but it was actively snowing so...oh well.

 the fresh coat of snow always looks so pretty.  most of it had dropped off the trees by today

 a moose induced traffic jam.

 the snow was the wet kind, perfect for snowman making.  it's been a long time since i have made a snowman...not totally sure i ever really have made a bonifide snowman.  i didn't have any coal or buttons for the face so i used food colouring.  that turned out to not really work well. by the morning my happy snowman had morphed into a scary clown.  oh well, i decided if we ever have a good snow at halloween it would be perfect in the front yard!!

 he was cute while he lasted anyway.

 getting my big bang fix in.  may have to watch a few episodes before i fall asleep tonight if i'm reading that book about wwII.  don't need to have bad dreams.

 blossom checks out the snow man on the back deck.  i kept putting the twigs in for arms and she kept removing them and chewing them up.

 oh....here is scary snowman!

 these are from the monday walk...attended by me and the dogs.

 somedays i prefer actual phone to texting. maybe it's living alone.  when i'm off and i have little to no human interaction a phone call is just better, an actual conversation.  it's not as rewarding to just text someone.  it's detached.  i know those younger than me prefer texts to talking, but i'm still a talker.

 i was so proud of rio.  she crossed this log bridge over the creek.  that is impressive for a blind dog in my book.  guess these loaded backwards though.  oh well. you get the idea.

 more of blossom with her toy that is no more.  we did gasline to powerline to tank to the meadows and stumphenge.

 denali peeks out under the clouds....eventually the clouds burned off and denali was totally clear.

 top ten finishers for the iditarod...seavey, zirkle, king, dallas seavey, redington jr, petit, ulsom, jake berkowitz, lindner, and jonrowe.

always sad to wrap up the iditarod year.  will still put quips in if i see some fun ones and will note when all are into nome safely.  still keeping them all in my prayers.