Target Iditarod Teacher on the Trail^™ Moving on Down the Road

by Jane Blaile

I didn't get to help with the dropped dogs again because we flew out of Ruby before lunch and touched down in Galena. There was a real spirit of excitement there - like the whole town came out. In fact, Jon Korta's family was out there, his wife running the checkpoint. The mushers come into the community hall parking lot and then down a short hill to the parking area. Their drop bags and other things were at the top of the hill, so the volunteers loaded toboggans with their drop bags and slid them down hill. I helped with a few mushers' bags: Aliy Zirkle, Hugh Neff, and Rohn Buser.

At the parking area, the drug testing team was there collecting samples. They are checking for steroids, analgesics, performance enhancing drugs, and others.

We headed off to Nulato next. That is a really neat place. There is an old section and a new section. The school is located just off the Yukon River and the mushers are led to the ball field to park. Lance had left already, but Jeff King, Paul Gebhardt, and Mitch Seavey were there. The gym is open for mushers to sleep and eat in, and there are signs all over the walls supporting the mushers. Rick Swenson showed up and Jeff King left as we were there.

Next stop, Kaltag. We watched Lance and Jeff traveling along the river on our way. We are staying at the school just up the road from the checkpoint. Lance blew through, taking abut 5 minutes to grab his things and go, with Jeff not far behind in coming in.

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