On the Bering Sea Coast

Sorry for the lack of updates over the weekend - no computer at home which also gave me two days off from checking the Iditarod stats every five minutes. I did get a call from my Mom on Sunday morning to say Hugh was in 5th place. I was a little suspicious when she said he spent only 1.5 hrs in Kaltag. Usually a team will either spend 5 minutes or at least 4 hours otherwise the dogs rebel. Anyway a couple of hours later they fixed the stats - his out time was actually his in time. It looks like the computer is going to give me another heart attack this afternoon. Hugh is apparently still in Unalakleet. Fortunately I talked to Hugh today (yippee!) and he said he was just about to leave (around 1:30pm). He had taken a long break there after the hard run in through high winds and was planning to make a long run. Being as though they missed Lance leaving I'm hoping that they've missed a couple of other teams leaving. Hopefully I'll find out soon. Anyway, Hugh said he was feeling good, the dogs looked great and the weather had cleared up. I found out I was wrong in my last post about dropped dogs. The first two dogs dropped were Snow (sore foot) and Friday (tired). Before the race I would have picked these two as the weakest links as they were last minute decisions. We got Snow and Friday in December and they had the least miles and least experience. Pretty amazing they made it to Ophir and Cripple. We're not sure yet who the other two dogs are. One photo of Hugh on the Iditarod site has a photo of Hugh with Dozer in the sled, so I'm guessing he may have been the last one dropped at Nulato.

So in other news Hugh was finally mentioned as being in the race. It amazes me how much attention they spend on the two front runners and how little space they give to everyone else in the race. Anyway, Jon Little wrote: "I did meet up with Hugh Neff this morning, and he seemed relaxed and happy as he cut up chunks of red meat and fed it to his dogs. Neff reluctantly scratched at the halfway point of the Yukon Quest this year over the health of his dogs, and he said that, from a physical standpoint, it was the best thing that could have happened to his Iditarod team. Most of the Quest dogs are here, he said." Here's a photo of Hugh looking after his dogs at sunrise in Unalakleet. In front is Titan, and no Mom that's not blood on his hands, it's Provadone cream :)

So I'm off to look after our dogs at home. Hopefully Hugh will shake things up tonight.

-Tamra