Blog (January 23, 2019)
With the warm weather the last few days our trails have, as the saying goes, gone to pot. I’m not sure what that saying means in the State of Alaska these days, but probably not what it meant in colonial times. In that era, I’m guessing “chamber pot.”
This requires a lot of grooming – and I don’t mean my beard. Icy, gravelly, rough trail reminds me of the Iditarod Race in 2014.
Any mushers remember 2014? No, of course not. Your subconscious mind has blocked it, or your memory still suffers from multiple blows to the head while crashing. There was no snow on parts of the Iditarod trail in 2014. So, almost no control of a dog team or sled. Like here, now.
A couple of days ago, running a fast, eager team over an icy sidehill with rocks and trees, I slid into the tree and wedged my foot between sled and tree, twisting my ankle. I limped in and told my wife, Janine, thinking this might be good for some special attention.
“Oh no,” she mumbled, not looking up.
“Yeah, that’s almost what I said.”
“About what?” she asked.
“Oh, the 500 pounds of cut dog food snacks thawing in the yard.”
“Get your own snack,” she offered, frowning at Amazon Prime.
“We should’ve believed the weather forecast this time,” I exclaimed. “They’re never right, but if they say it’s going to be 35 degrees, I can count on it hitting 40!”.
“Did you put all that meat in the freezer like I said?” she mumbled. “It’s supposed to warm up.”
“The freezer is broken, and my ankle might be broken too.”
“There,” she said, snapping the laptop shut. “I got all that stuff for your Iditarod food drops coming. Second day air. Seems like you want more junk every year. Heated socks? Really?
Now, get out of the way in my kitchen while I put your dinner on the table. Why are you limping?”
