Alaska
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The Iditarod
Seventy-seven have finished.
One is still on the trail.
Eighteen have scratched.
UPDATE: Tuesday morning.
Deborah Bicknell (the only one on the trail last night) age 62, finished at 8:36:13 p.m. Alaska time, and wins the Red Lantern Award.
Red Lantern Award: Seems to have come from a tradition of putting a lamp at cabins to help mushers find a destination during storms, and has become a symbol of the Iditarod.
A lamp is lit at the finish line when the race begins and extinguished when the last runner comes in.
Congratulations to each musher who finished.
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The Last Edition of Our Trip to Alaska
Day 17 – August 9, 2003
The Era helicopter that took us to see Mt. McKinley.
We saw a variety of landscape scenes during our trip through the foothills of the highest mountain in North America.
One thing I learned on this trip, is that glaciers are not always pretty, because as ice and snow travels down a mountain, they gather dirt and stones.
Several times the pilot took us close to a wall of snow and ice.
Words cannot describe the beauty of flying in this area.
The top.
There was snow everywhere we looked.
We were surrounded by snow – even when we looked up through the window in the roof.
We saw all this as we listened to classical music and occasional commentary from the pilot.
At this point the pilot told us the glacier was 1,000 feet deep.
I couldn’t believe I was here in person, observing this beauty. At one point tears were streaming down my face. I was so overwhelmed.
I so wanted to stay longer!
However, our half-hour trip to the mountain was over.
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From McKinley we headed toward Anchorage.
Our last stop was Iditarod Headquarters – which is where, and why, I began my posts on Alaska – because I love following the Iditarod.
This is my last photo of Alaska for another reason – when getting back into the motorhome after this stop, I tripped and dropped my camera – breaking it.
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It was truly a vacation of a lifetime.
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