Hi Boys and Girls,

Good morning everyone.  I hope you all had a good nights sleep and are ready for a great day at school.  All the great photos in the posts have been taken by Jeff Schultz the official Iditarod photographer.

Here is the update:

DATE:  March 4, 2014

TIME:  1:31

 LEADERS:

1.Martin Buser

2.Kelly Maixner

3.Mike Williams Jr

4.Nicolas Petit

5.Paul Gebhardt

 WHERE ARE THE MUSHERS: Martin is iout of Rohn and on his way to Nikolai.  Nicholas, Kelly, Michael, and Paul are all in Rohn.

RED LANTERN POSITION: Ellen Halverson who has left Finger Lake

 WEATHER:   The weather from Yetna to Rohn is 23 degrees and cloudy.  There is a severw weather alert for this area of the trail for a moderate duration of snow. The weather in Nilolai is 16 degrees with light snow.

 SCRATCHED: Cindy Gallea scratched in Swentna due to Musher illness.  We wish a speedy recovery to Cindy.

 QUESTION OF THE DAY:  What is the Dalzell Gorge? Answer tonight.

Answer to last nights question: Kelly Maxiner is currently racing in first place.  But he may not really be in first place- Why not?

When the race starts the mushers are spaced 2 minutes apart.  Can you imagine if all the mushers started at the same time?  What a mess that could be?  So they go one at a time.  It took over 2 hours for all the teams to start.  So the first team out is over 2 hours ahead of the last time out.  So when is this time made up?  When the teams take their mandatory 24 hour rest, the only team to take exactly 24 hours is the last team that started the race.  The next to the last team takes a 24 hour and 2 minute rest. The first team that left will take a rest that will be over 26 hours.  Once everyone has finished their mandatory rest, we will know exactly what place everyone is in. Sounds confusing but it works.

 FAN QUESTION: Thanks to those who pointed out that Kathy is really Kelly.  I think I’ll blame it on my old eyes. My human says I need glasses. I guess she’s right.

 Until tonight,

Gypsy