the first team is almost to Nome, Iditarod.

 it's almost ended..at least the first team is headed to Nome.  last night was changing minute by minute. in the end Jeff King has come out appearing to be on the way to victory.  he'd passed up Aily Zirkle.  by the time they hit White Mountain he had almost an hour lead.

 everyone has to stay in White Mountain for an 8 hour rest.  here are friends out at Willow with me.

 i like Jeff King and this will be his 5th win.  was hoping for Aily to win though.  this will be her third year in second if she hangs on to second place.

 Dallas Seavey is approaching from behind though and he may push her out of second.  the top pack is all fairly close

 Kings team is running really well and eating great from all the reports.  it will be tough for Aily to pass him.

 his pace and those in the front of the race will be beating speed records.  it's just been a super fast trail...some of it the mushers were pretty much unable to stop or slow the teams due to icy conditions.  they just had to hang on.

 thought i would put some pictures in now before the winner officially comes in to Nome.  they are getting Front street prepared.  looks like a nice day there in Nome.

 told my friend, speedy, that she is responsible for King winning as she sold him a rowing machine this year.  she made him fit...she was more keen on Aily winning as well.  time for some new blood.

 always love taking pictures of the dog teams at the restart so i'll continue to post those until the teams are all in and done.

 i'm sure i have more pictures than i need, but hopefully it doesn't bore you all.

 the dogs are awful cute!

 almost woke up too late for todays Monday walk.  Blossom hasn't switched over for daylight savings time so she didn't wake me til 9am which a few days ago was still 8 am.  i got up and fed the pups and then proceeded to fall back to sleep until 11:30.  aack! quick shower and then off for the walk.  i was joined by speedy, miss sydney and Lena.

 we did some loops and i'm sure i wore poor speedy out with the hills.  syd is getting bigger and that sled is not light.

 coffee afterwards.   katie joined us as well.

 called to make an appointment for my colonoscopy, no office appointment, they just schedule you in for the procedure.  aack  again.  was hoping to delay as much as possible. i'll have to try and get a day off work as he only does them at prov on Thursdays and the prep will take me out for at least 24 hours before.  so much fun.  it's part of aging....these little annoyances.

 scheduled a massage as well.  so at least i was making an attempt to get a few things on the to do list accomplished.  tonight i'll write a note to the kayak company and arrange to send some deposit money out to them.

 the Seaveys are pretty close.  i think Buser is between them time wise last i checked.

 pretty boots...though he needs to work on the whole matching thing.  his sled is yellow, his coat is yellow and red and the booties are red and blue.  hmm...

 all those happy feet.

 still have time to hit the gym and then i'll return and put in a post for who is the winner...which i've already given away.

 love the faces and those tongues.  never sure how they fit back in those mouths.

 should hit the grocery store as well.

 supposed to get some snow.  not sure if it will accumulate, but i'm all for it.  think tomorrow i'm gonna pack tanya and maddie and perhaps the dogs in the car for some fun outing.  she is without car as hers was declared totaled after a crash.  she is fine, but it's annoying that if you rear end someone it is assumed to be your fault. i've been there...sometimes people in front of you do stupid things and they really are at fault.

 her car did have over 200,000 miles on it so they did get all the use out of it they could.  i like to drive my cars to the bitter end as well.  don't get why folks seem to enjoy making those car payments.

 so i know they are not keen on the idea of a car payment and are down to one car at this time.  not sure exactly where we will end up.  was thinking of Seward but it would be too packed and if it's snowing the road could be questionable.

 action!!

 just 77 miles to Nome from White Mountain.  they stop at Safety which is 22 miles away and the last checkpoint.

 i was able to stop by Safety myself this summer.  if you want to see my pics of Nome from this summer just look back in my blog to this past summer over solstice and you can see them.

 one day perhaps i'll head to Nome for the finish of this race.  now that i've been to Nome though i'm not pushing it. been there, done that i guess in a way.  probably will be a few years before that thought starts to cross my mind again.

 both Jeff and Aily were down to 11 dogs on their team.  the teams start out with 16 dogs and drop dogs as needed along the way.  i believe they must have a minimum of 6-7 dogs on when they get to Nome.

 the Jamaican...he's still in.

 Bejna, the musher who's kennel i went out to and was able to ride the sled, is still in as well.  he seems to be hanging close to the twins...they are cute girls so perhaps he's done that on purpose. haha.

 here is Aily.

 not sure why she seems to always come in second instead of first.  perhaps not as competitive as she needs to be. her strategy is off?  who knows.  the other teams just better?  hard to say.  seems it would be frustrating coming in so close to the win  year after year.  maybe she'll get it together on this last bit and really get a great run in.

 King was happy with his team and the speeds were nuts so i doubt he's going to give up any time on this last run.

soon we will know though.  fastest time ever to Nome.  go puppies!!