Shoot, I forgot to take my camera with me this morning.  I wanted to take a picture of the Millenium Hotel which is the Iditarod Headquarters here in Anchorage.  (I'll add it tomorrow and edit this posting - some will never know.)  It's a great hotel that happily they are finally upgrading as it was looking rather worn last year. 

Ad view

Front view

So, what did I do today? I worked at the registration desk from 9-1 where the volunteers sign in, sign the liablitly/insurance paper, pay $10 if not a member of the Iditarod Trail Committee, get the badge, lanyard, volunteer hat/baseball cap, and a coupon for a free meal at the Golden Corral.  Data entry of all the information is also done.  We answer a wide variety of questions regarding the race, the mushers, the dogs, banquet tickets...well, you know how it goes. We do sell the tickets for the bus ride out to the real start in Willow on Sunday.   After my shift I went with a couple of other volunteers to the Fancy Moose for lunch and had an Alaskan White so that I could get this year's Iditarod beer glass...hey, it only costs $3.00 that way; if I buy the glass alone it costs $5.00. 

For those of you who are new to this, there are three big events over the next four days.  Thursday is the Mushers' Banquet at which the mushers draw their bib/start number.  This number gives the order in how they line up for the Ceremonial Start in Anchorage on Saturday and the real start at Willow on Sunday.  On both days the mushers start exactly two minutes apart.  More later.