We left Wasilla early this morning and drove straight to the Millennium Hotel in Anchorage over the most dangerous roads of the trip thus far, believe it or not. Tim had mandatory musher meetings for most of the day, so Colleen and I took advantage of the down time and slept HARD on the couches in the hotel lobby, despite the non-stop parade of Iditafans shuffling and shouting their way to and through the merchandise kiosks. We all need a really solid, deep sleep at this point, but it won't happen until after the restart on Sunday in Willow. Unfortunately, Tim won't have a good night's rest for possibly another two weeks, but that's what he signed up for. Personally, if I don't get 20-30 hours of sleep per day I'm nauseous, which reminds me of a dog race years ago: we watched a man struggle for 30 minutes to lace up and tie his boots, and he could only do it while looking in a mirror. I don't know why we didn't offer to help him; probably sleep deprived ourselves. Finally, his wife came over and did up his boots, tied his hat under his chin and sent him out the door. Sleep. It does a body good.

Of course the biggest event today was the banquet, which I hear people dread because it goes on for hours and hours and hours. But they did things differently this year and within a few hours it was over and done with. The place was packed, the food was good and some of those big guns were a lot shorter than I expected, like the classic Mick Jagger height disillusionment phenomenon.

Tim drew bib number 64 and is giving it a big, chapped thumbs up; word on the street is the trail is chock-full of snow and will be S-L-O-W this year, but with 63 teams out of the chute before him, leaving towards the end of the pack may prove to be advantageous.