After we sat and ate in the truck, we got out to visit with the neighbors a bit and watch the snowmobilers glide back and forth in the snow.
Mike came on the radio asking if anyone had seen John and his team after a while. No one had. People started to get concerned about his whereabouts since there were no other radio operators at the checkpoints for the 50-mile course. All kinds of possibilities were raised concerning his whereabouts. See what happens when you leave the radio operators with nothing to do? The weather was getting windier and snow swirled around the truck in a fine powder.
What was originally scheduled as a 1 PM stop time was extended as we waited for news of the team and musher. Finally, a snowmobiler came by Mike's checkpoint and said he had seen John and the team at a location that was off the course trail. There are plenty of places to take a turn and get lost out there in the State Forest land, but Marybeth assured us that he was a verteran musher who typically ran 100-mile races and added that we shouldn't worry. He also had a GPS on him, so we knew he could eventually find his way back. WHat a ruckus when it was announced that he finally made it back to Mike's checkpoint and was on his way back to the Finish Line at Camp Brule.
We anxiously tracked his progress as he went past each radio operator 'till he silently approached out waypoint and Terry stopped traffic as he and the dogs passed by. |
