more dogs...

 slept in a bit as i was watching "downton abbey" and couldn't shut it down.  now i have to wait for season 4.  season three ended on an extremely depressing note.  i am beginning to think the writers may be sadists.  two major characters die around the birth of a child.  hmm...how many major cast members can one kill off and cont on with the show.  perhaps they will all die off and that will be the end of the series. if so season 4 could be depressing.

 rio stayed home today so it was just blossom and i.  went ahead and did rovers run loop again.  then i headed out to the airstrip for the last day of sprint races.

 as you can see it was a beautiful day.  first you would see the teams go by at the east end of the airstrip, then into the woods for a bit, then back out onto the west end of the airstrip.  i was at the curve where they turn around and head back up to the west end again before heading back into the woods and head back to downtown.

 a few more better photo's but it's not easy getting fast moving teams.  at least not easy for me.

 this front team passed the guy  behind him on the airstrip.  always exciting. he looks pretty determined.

 it's a fun spot as the curve makes for some cool photo's.

 still have to focus on getting those first pups in focus and then getting a good shot of the musher.

 back up the airstrip.  it's not an active airstrip, more of an emergency airstrip.  i can only really remember being on it once when a plane was landing. it was a skied plane.

 once the teams started up this pack of kids showed up.  i think their parents had parked them in a place where the teams don't go  by so they quickly changed and found this spot.  there were a lot of kids.

 kids have much better eye sight than me so they were very helpful as spotters.  they'd let us all know when a team came out of the woods.

 several teams the musher rode low, one guy was almost laying down.  cut the draft i guess.

 came home and napped before heading to the gym.

 it's time to get back in shape.  plan is to make getting in shape my 50th birthday to me.  i don't expect to be in shape by my actual birthday but it's time to get back on the plan, get more serious about my workouts.

 felt good to be at the gym today.  rower for 10 min, stair stepper for 15, a few free weights then off to the pool.  30 lengths.  i took it pretty easy today.  debated heading out to ski, but i've had my headache for the week and would like to avoid a repeat.

 here is lance mackey.  he came out in next to last place.  i think he had a good time out there though . he's not running the iditarod this year.  jeff king did this sprint race one year when he wasn't doing the iditarod...i think they just miss the whole thing. i see that jeff king is running this year.

 norway has 5 musher teams in the iditarod this year.  well represented.  sweden, austrailia, new zealand and jamacia are also represented.

 71 teams are signed up total.

 really need to do some serious house cleaning.  got some stuff done this morning, which was the other reason i was running late

 rio seems much  better today.  fed her the regular stuff today.

 the olympics have ended.  the closing ceremonies were on, i really only glanced at them from time to time.

 was making turkey noodle soup.  homemade.  nummy!!  some times it comes out better than other times, today was one of the good ones.

 february is almost over.  i have a class this week, then just two days.  i took one day pto for the iditarod.

 the dogs are pretty close as you can see.  thankfully, they stayed on their trail.

 buddies

 there is some talk of it warming a bit and us getting another melt...i hope not.

 may have to pop out before i crash and see if there are any lights out.  they have to be pretty impressive to see them in anchorage, it does happen from time to time.

 it's very clear out tonight. probably pretty chilly too.

 liked this guys face.  looks like he has no ears, not sure what is up with them..cute pup though.

 action

 not sure some of these guys knew there were people lining the trail.  very focused.

 not sure i could get back up if i went down on the runners like this..haha.  there is the handle i guess.

 nice action shot i think.

 whipping through.  sorry.  not much to say.  just dogs today, less opinions..i'm sure many prefer photo's over the crap i have to say.

 the black and whites always come out sweet i think.

 signed up for the iditarod insider...just gets you video's and stuff.  worth it usually.

 i was trying to get the snow to fall off the trees with the sun in background cause it looked cool.

 i was using blossoms chuck it.  of course, each time i threw the tennis ball, in my head i was thinking this could be foolish and the tennis ball could get stuck in the snow in a tree.

 it did

 after trying various ways to get the tennis ball back i was giving up.  then this woman came by on a horse...below.  she was kind enough to try, but she wasn't able to break it free.  poor blossom.  thankfully we were over half way at that point.

well, enjoy the pictures...next weekend more dogs