Good Morning all,
Sorry for no updates earlier today. The computer was in use most of the morning here and then I was running around all afternoon taking dogs to the vets for another musher, dropping Ken's dogs off with fellow musher Kelly Griffith who will take care of them now until after the race, and having my first prison experience to pick up dropped dogs. Dropped dogs that cannot be picked up immediatley upon arrival at the Millenium are taken to a women's prison in Eagle River where the inmates are trained to take care of the dogs. They have a very nice set up for the dogs and all the dogs looked happy when I arrived. It has been a very successful program for both the Prisoners and the Iditarod. Then it was back to the Millenium to await the next group of dogs which always seems to take awhile. Each dog must be microchipped and identified first and then the vets check over each dog and then they are fed and then the handlers are allowed to take the dogs with them. When 100 dogs arrive all at once, the process can take quite awhile. It did give some time for the first real meal of the day which I enjoyed with Karen, Kay and Marilyn.

So, while I was doing all that Warren and the team  were running to Ruby. Though the website has not been good at updating information today,the gps tracker is our friend today as it has been allaying my fears as to where Warren is and why he is staying so long in Cripple...  he wasn't in Cripple as long as we thought from the website. And now the tracker has him parked in Ruby next to Michelle Phillips, though the website has him not there yet. I have some friends who have been volunteering in the phone /communication room at the Millenium and they said that Ruby has not had internet access so times/dog numbers are really slow getting to them so don't worry if the website doesn't change much for awhile. I am also not sure about his number of dogs. I did find one surprise at the dog drop area at the Millenium this evening when we were looking for Tom's three dropped dogs - my Caper was there. It appears he dropped her at Cripple, but no one else was there so not sure about that since they are showing him leaving with only ten dogs? She has a sore wrist but was very happy to see me in Anchorage and even happier to see her dog truck. She is also in heat so the boys on the truck were especially excited to see her. 

 We were hoping not to have to go into Anchorage again tomorrow and to have some time to set up the dog yard in the trees and clean out the trailer and comper some , but we may have to head to Anchorage if someone else from the team comes in. I can say we again as my wonderful friend Karen has now arrived to help with the dogs and accompany me up to Nome this year.It is great to have her here! Frank was especially glad to see her. We just got back here to Willow from picking up dogs after midnight and Karen has already headed to bed and I am soon to follow. I know Warren is planning to take his mandatory 8 hours in Ruby so we figure there won't be any movement from the team until early in the morning. Our firend Tom Thurston scratched today, his dogs were sick I believe so we expect him back sometime tomorrow. He and his handler are staying here at the Woods as well. Hopefully we will hear some trail stories soon, so may have some interesting things to share with you all in the near future. We are sending our support out to you Tom. It is not an easy thing to have to scratch after putting so much into the preparations for this race and never easy to see your dogs not well.

More later in the morning. Sweet dreams to you all. Kate