Yentna Station Roadhouse 2.27.11, 4 degrees

Iditarod Air Force plane

 Temperature Updates Wasilla 2.26.11, 12 degrees, windchill -1 degree

The Junior Iditarod started yesterday at Knik Lake, (say ka-nick) near the homestead of Joe Redington, Sr., Father of the Iditarod. The 14 -17 year old mushers, 14 total, raced to Yentna Station Roadhouse to spend their 10 hour layover around the traditional bonfire. Race volunteers (timers, HAM radio operators, vet, race marshal, and support volunteers) traveled to the roadhouse on the frozen Yentna River by plane and snowmachine to provide race support. I flew in with an Iditarod Air Force pilot, Phil Morgan, the musher with whom I rode as an Idita-Rider in 2005. People traveling on the Yentna can get a meal or a place to sleep at the roadhouse, buy gas and oil, or get their snowmachine repaired.

The photos today are of different transportation modes that I used at Yentna yesterday. Some ideas to use these photos: order them in chronological order from oldest mode to most recent mode of transportation; use a photo for a writing prompt; write a story from the snowmachine’s point of view; describe the musher’s trip to get to Yentna Station; research gas mileage of snowmachines and calculate how much gas is needed for a 75 mile trip; research airplane history.