YQ: Start Banquet and Bib Draw

Last night the Quest Family came together in Fairbanks and celebrated the dogs, mushers and the race we all love. There was an repeating theme of the evening – that of family.

David Booher, the Youth Director of the First Presbyterian Church did the invocation and said that prayer can come down to three things: help, thanks and wow. He himself is a dog musher so he likened those three aspects to running dogs. The biggest laugh was ‘thanks – thanks when your swing dog finally learns to poop on the run.”

Fairbanks Mayro, Jim Matherly, welcomed everyone to the city and wished all the teams well. Jim unfortunately suffers from an allergy to dogs and a room full of people covered in dog hair played havoc with his senses.

The trail has always run through Fort Wainwright property and the Garrison Commander Col. Sean N Fisher sent teams off with some good ‘ole army “hooah”.

After dinner and meeting the vet and officials team, every musher came up to draw their starting number and thank their dogs, family, friends and sponsors.

Allen drew bib #23 and he and the Black Team will leave the starting chute at 12:06 local time. He received the tags the dogs will wear to help identify them with the vet team.

One more sleep to go!