Winding down

As I suspected, my flight out of Takotna was followed by a flight out of McGrath to anchorage. While I was a bit disappointed at first, I was comforted to learn that I was not alone. Basically inclement weather had prevented our little Iditarod Air Force planes from flying Into many of the sites down the trail. It was a tough situation, because some of the checkpoints further ahead were a little thinner than ideal on vets, and there was a large group of us who ended up heading back to anchorage early. I ran into Stu at the airport in McGrath and we talked about it. There was nothing he could do about it. The mushers at Eagle Island almost didn't get their food drops for the same reason. Fortunately, the food arrived minutes before the first musher pulled in there.
So, I m back in the Anchorage airport now, ready to go home. I was able to change my ticket in order to come back a couple days early rather than sit in anchorage until Monday afternoon. I would have tried to get out and see something in the area, but I'm hoping Ill have plenty of opportunities to do that in the future. For right now, I am excited to see my family again.
I'm extremely grateful for this experience so far outside my normal daily life. I have learned a lot about working with people very different from myself, and I have enjoyed most minutes of it. It was clearly such a privilege for me to be here, yet everywhere I went, when people saw my Iditarod vet badge or heard why I was here, they thanked me for my service. Alaskans take a lot of pride in this race; it is extremely important to them, and it pleases them immensely to see people coming from all over the world to help out and participate in different ways. Any time someone thanked me, I had to say with all sincerity that it is an honor to be here. And I have every intention of coming back.
I have a few more photos that will be posted within the next day or so, and after that I will sign off. Thanks for reading and for keeping me company on this adventure.