Day 3 in McGrath

There’s nothing like the smell of wet dog early in the morning. Setting up shop at the washeteria has been alright… However, today, as soon as we walked in to start off our day, a waft of that smell hit my nose. I looked at the dryer and inside were a bunch of dog harnesses spinning around. Yep. That’ll do it! Unfortunately, we can’t escape it. All of our equipment is in the washeteria that I need to use to log my video (which means type out verbatim the sound bites from interviews) and write my story. I’ll admit – after sitting there long enough, you get used to the smell… and it wasn’t so bad.

The washeteria isn't that comfortable of a place to work. The only place to sit is on top of the empty equipment boxes. It's either that, or stand all day. I'm pretty exhausted from these past few days, but am having fun.




Scott doing laundry while we work.


The focus of our story today is on a rookie musher who's the son of a longtime Iditarod contender. Chad Lindner & his father, Sonny Lindner, took their 24-hour break in McGrath. We caught up with Chad before he left.







Here's how the story with Chad turned out:


This is our last day in McGrath. Tonight, we load up all the equipment and head for Unalakleet. I'm not sure what's in store for the next stops along the trail... but I can't wait! Hopefully no more standing up while scripting stories! Haha!





After a looooong day of work & loading equipment / moving it from the washeteria to the B&B... all of us except Kevin walked next door to the local bar to have a drink. A woman behind the bar took my order, brought me my drink, and said, “That’ll be $4.50.” I turned to Shirley and said, “I can’t believe how cheap drinks are here! In Anchorage that would be 10 bucks if not more!!” She pointed out that the cheap liquor could be the reason why everything else in town is expensive – a bottle of water (small bottles) will set you back $2.

We each had a couple of drinks and went back to the B&B. Shirley, Ian & Scott had spent the previous nights sleeping on the floor at the washeteria. Tonight, all six of us were in one room – some sleeping on the two full size beds and some on the floor. Here we are just before going to sleep. As soon as all the lights were turned off, someone started cracking jokes and Shirley and I started laughing and couldn’t stop. Then Carolyn joined in. It was great. All the guys were like, “Alright already, go to sleep!” And just like that, we were out.