Say hello to the dogfather

Sam comes home tonight! Yippeeee! Unfortunately for some of you, he will not be making his usual stop in Kansas City. This time. But soon. We'd like to be able to make the trip together so I can meet all the fab friends he's told me so much about. I'm also dying to see Jon and Nancy's castle and meet their dogs. So not now, but soon.

Symposium weekend was great fun. Mushers from far and wide showed up to speak and give workshops, mingle and try to sell the latest in mushing trends. I saw the most perfect sled - flexible and lightweight, though sturdy - for just $2,800. I'll add it to my Christmas list. I saw a lot of dog mushers that I knew from Whitehorse and got caught up on all the Yukon gossip. You know, the usual. So-and-so sold this dog to so-and-so. So-and-so's shacked up with this musher...and so goes the drama. The highlight for me was meeting and hanging out with Wes Rau. I call him the dogfather. He's a physical therapist from Oregon who works on sled dogs (humans too, but mostly dogs). I had wine with him and some other musher friends on Friday and I let it slip that I was having ongoing back problems of my own. I have been seeing a PT, went to the doc for many, many tests, had X-rays...the works, but they found nothing. Well hell's bells if Wes didn't flip me on back and clickity click my spine a few times and...no more pain! Unbelievable. I still can't believe it. What a guy. Today I took his spine, knee and hip workshop for sled dogs and brought Bull with me. I found out why Bull crabs to the left when he runs and was able to work on his back and hips a little. Great stuff. Now I can do these simple chiropractic moves on my dogs. Before the workshop was my first member meeting for the Alaska Dog Mushers Association. I got the race schedule and my first event will be a 19-miler on December 3. The ADMA is pretty much a sprint organization, but since we live right on their trails, I figured I should become a member and do some of their races for practice before the long distance events start in the new year. Let's all take a moment and pray for snow.
Ok.
This evening I was invited to dinner by a woman whose book I reviewed for Mushing Magazine. She's a sprint musher and was in town for the symposium. As it ended up, Ken, Gwen and the whole crew were there so we joined them for some great prime rib and lots of funny tails from the trail. It was a great weekend and I resisted buying anything at the auction and trade fair. Now I'm waiting for Sam's plane after having frantically tried to clean the cabin (I'm the messy one).
So that's it for now from dog central.
Peace.

Ken (on the left) talking dogs with Todd Capistrant between presentations at the symposium.