Waiting at the airport

Starting where I left off talking about some of my veterinary teammates...
Sterling Thomas, from Oregon, cut from the same cloth as Stu. Lives in the Dalles, Oregon, and he spends a lot of time in Molokai, HI, where he set up the first vet clinic on the island. He is getting involved with the Hawaiian monk seal project out there and wants to do more with them. He has done search and rescue in Oregon and has some crazy stories about rescuing people and unfortunately recovering bodies in the Oregon wilderness. Burly. Not surprisingly he was selected as one of the drs to vet the finger lake checkpoint, which basically consists of a couple tents and an "out tent," ie a tent with a bucket in it. Unlike us slackers at Skwentna, the vets at finger lake had to do everything - set up the tents, distribute the straw, the food, cook the food for the volunteers, and do all the dropped dog management. This is sterling's first year on the Iditarod.
We also have Beth,whose last name I don't have handy, from North Carolina. She is a real spitfire. She has five kids and 17 grandchildren, owns her own practice, and is a real asset to the spirit of the team. She was disappointed that she didn't get to go to finger lake because the other checkpoints are too cushy.
There is Kathy who also is at least in her late sixties and did go to finger lake. When we reconvened back in Anchorage, she told us, " I cooked 72 hamburgers! On a camp stove!" Word from the others at that checkpoint was that she was a workhorse. They worked (not including the setup and breakdown of the site) from 01:30 to 19:30 on Monday.
On the way to the airport just now I met Lee from Maryland, when we shared a front seat of a pick up truck.  After I had climbed into the front seat next to and partly on top of him, he introduced himself and made some commment about how this was like a lap dance and he should have kept a few dollars handy to tip me. I quickly retorted " the same rules apply. no hands." It was a proud moment for me- i usually think of the come back about five days later in the middle of the night. i donte want to give the wrong impression, because he really is not a sleaze bag At all but a very nice guy. He owns a practice in Georgetown and lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland. He is a self described space geek, and he used to work as a marine biologist for NASA, prior to becoming a veterinarian.  He has applied several years in a row for the astronaut program and has gotten as far as passing the physical but hasn't been selected. I'm routing for him.