Hello.

It’s been in the 90’s and very humid here recently, but it’s also been impossible not to be thinking about winter everyday. This weekend when entry opened for the 2008 Yukon Quest, mine was sitting on their desk, having been delivered with the $1250 fee to the Alaska office. I was one of only 14 first day entrants. I’m not sure what to make of the small field so far. I do hope it will grow significantly, but like I told Sue, that small of a field will make it a little easier to get in the top 15! (The first day number may yet grow as they get entries postmarked by August 4.) No matter who else is there or not, we’ll do our best to bring the most prepared team we can to the start line on February 9, 2008 in Fairbanks, Alaska.

We’re busy working through a list of things we need to do before leaving home in the beginning of October and heading to train and prepare for the race in the Yukon and Alaska. We’ll spend most of our time at Moe, Jer, Finn and Maible’s homestead about 20 miles outside of Whitehorse, Yukon. I’ll race the Sheep Mountain 150 in December and hopefully Sue will run a team in the GinGin 200 around the first of the year, both in Alaska. I’d like to run the Copper Basin 300 in January, but time and finances will decide that. All of our 27 dog kennel will be making the trip north with us for the six months we’ll be away. Sue has resigned from her job so we all can take part in this adventure together, from start to finish. This is such a major undertaking for us, we need to all be a part of it. We’ve mortgaged our home to make this all work. We’ll both work right up until we leave, and are already counting the days we have left to get things done before moving ourselves and our kennel across the continent. We’re committed, or maybe we just should be…

On Saturday September first, we’re having a fund raiser party here at our home and kennel in Rumney to try to defray some of the cost. We held a similar event last year and hope this year’s will be even bigger and better. We’ll have live music, a multi-item raffle (for which we are still accepting donations), hiking, hot grills, games, a campfire, camping, and fun all day and night. We’ll be accepting dog sponsorships all day too and you’ll have plenty of time to meet “your” favorite team member(s) in the dawg yard. If you get the chance to join us, feel free to add a dish to the buffet line for dinner at 5-6pm. We’ll do the raffle drawing at 7pm and start the campfire up after that. Come enjoy what we hope will be a great day with a bunch of great people hanging with us and our dogs! (Please leave your 4-legged friends at home.) Contact us anytime with any questions. We hope to see you soon.

All for now.
Thanks- Mike.