Iditarod Fever!

We just love this time of year in my house...Iditarod time. And it was doubley exciting this time around, because we had two favorites to cheer for. Martin Buser is always our favorite musher, because, of course, his wife is Sam's teacher. :) Not only that, he's one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. Always smiling, always taking time to talk with the kids in Sam's class.

Martin ran a great race this year, coming in 5th place, in a wild sprint to the finish from Safety to Nome. Go Martin! Martin is tied for the highest number of first-place Iditarod finishes, with 4 championships under his belt.
This year was truly special, because Martin's 18 year old son Rohn (named after the Iditarod checkpoint) was running the race for the first time. The picture above is Rohn crossing the finish line in Nome last night at about 10 pm, and the crazy lady hugging him is his mom. How cool is that? I get all teary-eyed just thinking about how proud his family must be. Rohn finished in 37th place, out of a field of 95+ mushers. Way to go, Rohn!

And here's the whole family, just after Rohn's finish. Martin, Cathy (Mrs. C, to Sam), Rohn and his older brother Nikoli, who's also named after an Iditarod checkpoint.

All photos are courtesy of Jeff Schultz, Iditarod.com website.

There are still quite a few mushers on the course, and we're cheering them on, all the way to the finish.

One of these days, I'd love to fly to Nome for the finish...I bet the excitement is just overwhelming! The race is 1,150 miles long, with the fastest mushers finishing in just over 9 days. That's DAYS. Wow. Impressive when you think about spending that amount of time, on your feet, behind a dogteam, over some of the most grueling terrain in the world.

So my congrats to anyone brave enough to harness 16 dogs and attempt one of the greatest races the world has ever seen!