March 18, 1998

The boys, dogs and I arrived back home in Big Lake yesterday after our short and eventful stay in Nome.

The finish of the race proved to be exciting with Martin coming in immediately behind Rayme Smythe, also of Big Lake. Our team had one of its fastest runs from Safety to Nome and the dogs raced under the arch very proudly, Blondie and White Out in lead. Fearless had been dropped in Shaktoolik because of sore wrists and weight loss. Calvin and Ingot were in swing.

After arrival, the dogs went directly to their dogloos at Pat and Sue's house. They rested on straw and got fed like babies, every few hours.

They were happy to be home as it's been raining intermittently in Nome since Monday.

After Martin crossed the finish line, we waited for many of our friends to come in. Many teams have dogs that were bought from us or dogs related to our dogs so it was great to see so many cross the finish line. Of particular interest was when Sonny King came to Nome with IBM, a full brother to D2. He also had Hillary in lead. Hillary was one of our former lead dogs. She's a bit of a prima donna and not quite fast enough for Martin's pace. She had gotten quite dirty along the slushy trail and was busy licking the dirt off and looking for a clean spot of snow to roll in as she is quite vain.

In Nome, Martin had his traditional reward of fresh king crab. Pat had gone out a couple of weeks before on snow machine and caught some crabs through the ice of Norton Sound. It seemed Martin ate a mountain of them.

Martin with Nikolai and Rohn at trail's end

We took all the kids in the house bowling one day and yesterday Martin drove out toward Safety on a snow machine to watch his future champs come into town with Matt. Matt has done an excellent job of caring for and resting the yearlings. Martin was happy with what he saw and has lists of "things to do" for next year in his little yellow notebook.

Thanks for following along with us. Martin will provide you with some race details later on. We appreciate all the good wishes and positive vibrations!!!!

Happy trails from NOME!!!
Kathy

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Additional sponsorship thanks go out to Big Lake-Susitna Veterinary Hospital, Mrs. C.V. Whitney, Homesteader's Hardware and Lumber, Northern Outfitters, Wes' Small Engine Repair, the Buser Booster Club, Trapper Creek Sausage, Maurice Cocquyt, Jr., Bill and Pamela Wood, Char and Jon Van Zyle, and our kennel crew, Larry Fisher and Matt