All photos and video ©Tara Opsteen-Van Dyke
Ceremonial Start + More
Here is some video from the Ceremonial Start that took place on Saturday. We went downtown and mingled with the mushers. We were lucky because we were able to get inside the fence by the mushers because we had our Trail Guard and volunteer badges. Then we headed to our spot near Tudor Road. Here we performed our trail guard duties and had a great spot for watching the mushers! After the start we went to the Native Heritage Center and saw a village with historical houses from all the tribes in Alaska and witnessed some beautiful native singing and dancing.
On Sunday, we headed to Willow for the official start. This is when the timing started and the mushers headed out into the wilderness. As I type this, they are our there in the wild! I have a lot of pictures and video from the re-start as well, but since I have to get up in 5 hours to catch our flight home, I need to get to sleep. I'll work on the pictures and video and share it plus so much more when I get back to school. We're scheduled to get into Appleton at 4:30, but we're supposed to go through Minneapolis, and there's a winter storm warning there, so I'm not sure what will happen and when we'll get home--so prayers are welcome! Hopefully, we'll see you all on Tuesday, and we'll check in our our mushers, watch some Insider videos and I'll share stories! We should probably do some math in there too!
Thanks for sharing this journey with us! You have no idea how sad I am to leave. When the sun went down, and I could no longer see the mountains, I began to cry. This is a beautiful land with beautiful people.
On Sunday, we headed to Willow for the official start. This is when the timing started and the mushers headed out into the wilderness. As I type this, they are our there in the wild! I have a lot of pictures and video from the re-start as well, but since I have to get up in 5 hours to catch our flight home, I need to get to sleep. I'll work on the pictures and video and share it plus so much more when I get back to school. We're scheduled to get into Appleton at 4:30, but we're supposed to go through Minneapolis, and there's a winter storm warning there, so I'm not sure what will happen and when we'll get home--so prayers are welcome! Hopefully, we'll see you all on Tuesday, and we'll check in our our mushers, watch some Insider videos and I'll share stories! We should probably do some math in there too!
Thanks for sharing this journey with us! You have no idea how sad I am to leave. When the sun went down, and I could no longer see the mountains, I began to cry. This is a beautiful land with beautiful people.