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I got word last night about the 6th dropped dog of Travis. It was Willie-Charlie, as I was sort of expecting.

We got Willie-Charlie 3 years ago, about 6 months after Travis and I started dating, he was 7 months old at the time. He was always shy. Back then we actually just called him Willie. He was a skittish dog who didn’t like people. He’s still wary around Travis and I and almost always dartsaway from strangers or lies down flat on the ground. Although he’s a bit of a spook, he is really well behaved and we’ve never had issues loose dropping him or letting him go on dog walks. He’s a happy, excite dog as soon as he is in the team, usually jumping 3 or 4 feet in the air…unfortunately, I can’t seem to find a good picture of him to post

That summer when we got Willie-Charlie, Travis worked for Dallas Seavey up in Anchorage. While almost all the dogs stayed in Seward, Travis chose to bring up Willie. “This is going to be a great dog,” he said. “I need him to like me.” So Willie got loaded in a dog box and headed to Anchorage. When Travis was free, he’d take Willie on walks – if they could be called that – because Willie was stubborn; it took him forever to get used to the leash so for a long time, Travis and Willie simply did a lot of sitting around together.

About the same time, there was a video floating around on youtube. You’ve probably seen it. It got to Alaska a little bit later than other parts of the world, but it has two young british kids sitting together. In it, the older boy puts his fingers in the younger boy’s mouth and gets bit. He laughs. “Ouch Charlie! Charlie bit me!”

Well, long story short, one day when Travis was getting ready to load Willie into the dog truck to head back to Seward, a nearby car backfired. Scared, Willie bit Travis on the tip of his finger as he was getting loaded into the box. “Ouch Willie! Willie Bit me!”

We’ve called him Willie-Charlie ever since…

Two weeks ago when Travis went to vet-checks before the race to do his bloodwork and EKGS, the crew there asked him what Willie Charlie’s name was as they begin filling out paper work.

“It’s Willie-Charlie,” Travis said.
They stared at Travis for a minute. “So is it Willie? Or is it Charlie?”
“Uhhh, It’s Willie-Charlie,” he told them.
Silence. Then: “So would you prefer us to call him Willie? Or Charlie? Which one?”
“Both. It’s Willie-Charlie!”
They looked at him perplexed but wrote it down nonetheless…

If he drops another dog, I’m almost positive it will be Monroe. Monroe was dropped in Kaltag last year – which is now where Travis is. I’m hoping Monroe has improved over last year and continues down the trail…we’ll know in a few more hours as he seems to be playing things pretty conservatively. Keep sending the positive energy his way!

My life these days goes like this:

I wake up and check the standings or the Iditarod tracker, whichever I can get to load first. Then there is one of three inevitable reactions: relief, worry or certainty.

R E L I E F
Relief happens when I see Travis makes it to the checkpoint and his run time looks good. It happened a lot in the first part of the race. Mostly, I worried about our friends. Honestly I never really worried about Travis’ ability to get through on dirt or ice or non-existent trail.

Our first time hanging out Travis put me in the basket of his sled and proceeded to mush down the road in his neighborhood. We skated along on ice and gravel for a quarter mile before he told the dogs to “Gee” and we seamlessly hopped a snow bank that was taller than me. For the next hour I saw lead dogs do things I never even thought were possible.

In the fall of 2011 we went out on a dog run on the four wheeler only to have a river we cross rapidly rise during the time we’d been out on the trail camping. I had no idea what we would do. He looked at it for a minute. We considered other options: there were none. We doggy paddled across. I had no idea sled dogs could even do things like this. He never even batted an eye. He’s got an unbelievable gift with dogs. When he says jump, they say how high.

We’ve also been running on junk gear for so long that stuff breaking is actually expected and doesn’t phase us. or a long time we were completely unprepared and never even carried a repair kit. Quick fixes became our specialty! No drag mat? Grab some spruce boughs! Stanchion breaks? Get some alders or a trail marker. Oh? The runner became disconnected from the sled?…hmmm well….I’ve got this extra tug line and a zip tie? You think we can tie it through the bolt hole and limp it in? … Shoot… this isn’t working Sarah….Oh…Lets add a couple more tugs… Yeah, Yeah. This will do….

Still, It’s almost impossible not to worry about someone who is 500 miles in the middle of nowhere in the freezing cold….

W O R R Y
I worry when he sits for too long or the tracker doesn’t update right. His tracker seems to have had issues, frustrating for those watching it closely waiting for it to scoot forward a millimeter at a time. Sometimes it seems to register slow movement that may or may not be forward progress. When I see this I think, “Has he had to load a dog?” or “Is the tracker not working?” I usually go with the tracker and am proven right when he doesn’t drop a dog at the next checkpoint.

It’s hard to worry too much about Travis. I find I worry mostly about how feels he is doing. He puts a lot of pressure on himself to do well because he knows what his team is capable of and what he is capable. I know, with certain fact, that he will win this race one day. Not this go round, and probably not the next either, but it’s coming somewhere down the line. Iditarod is a tricky puzzle to figure out; we’re still learning what all the pieces even are.

Still, as much as I say I don’t worry, I find myself living on his schedule. I watch the #48 tracker move down the trail, trying to keep my eyes open just a little longer. Sometimes he stops and rests, sometimes he keeps going.

Before he left he gave me a roadmap to understand all of his stops — a basic outline of his run/rest schedule. I haven’t looked at it since Sunday right before he left. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t either.

“Just run them!” I told him. “Run when you should run. Rest when you should rest.” Still, schedules can help tired mushers make better decisions later in the race… Unfortunately, we aren’t really schedule people. Just ask our families… we’re always showing up to late!

C E R T A I N T Y
Certainty is what I feel most of the time. Anyone who knows Travis or has spent much time with him would understand this. There is, quite frankly, no one I’m more confident in out there. Travis shines with dogs. He excels outdoors. He is eternally optimistic. And his faith in himself and his dogs never seems to waiver. He is the poster-child for a can-do attitude. On the trail, as in life, that’s a major assist — when your tired, it’s easy to get down on yourself out there. If you get down, your dogs get down. Confidence is key.

More importantly, Travis really believes he was born to do this. He likes to tell the story of how he used to push a laundry basket around the house when he was a kid yelling “hike! Hike! Hike!” and pretending to be an Iditarod musher. When he was a young kid Martin Buser came to Seward and stayed at his friends B&B. Travis went to his friends and kept Buser up til midnight asking questions about the Iditarod, dogs, and training before Martin finally said he had to go to bed. This year, before the start, it was Martin asking Travis questions:

“Any problems you can think of with driving a trailer sled?” Buser said.
“No, drives great.” Travis responded.
“Think about it…” Buser replied.
Travis couldn’t come up with anything.
“Side hills,” Buser pointed out. Side hills are exactly what they sound like. It’s when the trail goes on the side of hill and the trail isn’t level. I hate them; they can sometimes be very tricky to negotiate and sometimes your sled will tip over. When you’re lucky you only roll once. Buser then kindly took another few minutes to talk with Travis about how he might overcome this problem –- Buser, I’m pretty sure, is always in teaching mode.

Because Travis has confidence in himself, his dogs have confidence in him. In the Copper Basin 300 this year he did two back to back 80 mile runs on 3 hours of rest. They got to the end of the race, and the team was lunging to keep going. Believe me, they turned heads. I wouldn’t be surprised if he made a similar move at some point.

Regardless of where the team finishes this year, it’s a huge accomplishment, especially on a year where we’ve taken on a lot and had a lot to overcome.

I don’t find myself asking “where will he finish?” instead I find myself asking “I wonder what has he learned?”

– Sarah

p.s. Travis left Galena at 4:30pm. It’s about a 6 hour run to Nulato which he will almost certainly do straight through….

Travis left Galena at 4:30pm today after a 6 hour restand will be on his way to Nulato in 36th place. He still has 10 dogs and was the last second to last one to leave in the group of mushers he’s been sharing the trail with. They all left within about 40 minutes of each other so expect to see some leap frogging. So far, Travis’ runstimes have been pretty consistent — a great thing.

A lot of people have asked about whether or not this concerns me — it does not. The strongest dogs in Travis’ team remain in his team. I’m still waiting to learn who the 6th dog is… but I am thinking it may be Monroe. I’ll let you know as soon as I find out.

Honestly, I was more concerned at the start of Iditarod by the fact that Zema and Madori couldn’t go. They are huge team players. That’s like the Patriots going to the Super Bowl and learning that Tom Brady has to sit out and so does his replacement. Travis started with his 3rd stringers up front.

I imagine Travis is now using these runs to work on building up new leaders for future Iditarods. . I would say there are 3-4 dogs who are potentially nearing retirement and may not make the team next year: Copper (who was dropped), Boston, Kermit, & Ray are all getting older. It wouldn’t surprise me if these dogs ran Iditarod again next year with some of our puppies and with me or Travis, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if some of them continued on the A-team.

Many of our other main dogs will just be hitting their prime which is approximately 3-7 years old: Zema, Madori, Mary, Weiser, Wrangler, Fidget, Willie-Charlie, Goblin, Gremlin, Cuervo, Madison, and Star all fall perfectly in to that age range. Pinky, who did not make the team this year, will now be 2 years old. She’s got incredible talent but as a young, houndier (is that a word?) dog she has had trouble keeping weight and we made the decision to drop her out of serious contention for the team in mid December. Maturity will help her with that problem.

So who is Travis running up front?
My bet is Wrangler (who’s brother Levi is a wheel dog in Nic Petit’s team). Wrangler has been showing incredible drive up front in training. He’s without a doubt one of the friendliest dogs in our yard. Travis has been running him in single lead a lot since Zema & Madori got hurt but due to his young age, he can’t be up there too much. Being the lead dog is a lot of pressure…you have to find the trail, follow the trail, listen to directions, and not let the dogs behind you run you over… for a young guy that can be tough work so I imagine he’s doing stints on and off up front. Two other dogs who may be rising to the challenge are his mom, Fidget, and his uncle, Willie-Charlie. They’re both quirky little dogs who love to run. However, I also wouldn’t be surprised if Willie was the mysterious 6th dog who got dropped..

Madison, who broke his leg last year, is also, I’m sure, doing plenty of time up front, as is Boston. Boston ran the last 77 miles from White Mountain into Nome last year in single lead and helped give Travis a great deal of speed. Cuervo, who joined our kennel recently, is probably also seeing time up front….

The dogs I brought home yesterday are in top notch shape. Everybody is doing great… none of them look like they should be sitting in the dog yard  I had a fun drive picking the dogs up with my friend Jamie. They were all happy to see me. Goblin started barking as soon as she saw me. They were even happier to get back to the yard and see their friends…

Anyways that’s where we’re at now. I’ll do my best to update again later tonight at some point about where he’s at, as well as the general state of Iditarod. Sonny Lindner just posted an incredibly fast run in to Unalakleet, averaging 8.84mph. This is pretty fast this late in the rest. Zirkel and Buser had longer times but may have rested on the trail…more to come later…

As of 9:30 this morning Travis was through the checkpoint of Ophir in 29th place. He posted a strong run time of 2 hours and 10 minutes. He stayed In Ophir for 35 minutes probably to feed his dogs and give them a short break.

He is now on the trail heading towards Cripple. I imagine he will rest somewhere on the trail between Cripple and Ruby, probably during the heat of the day from about 11-4 or something like that as it is a longer run.

Without his 3 main leaders — Zema, Madori, and Mary — in the team I’m sure Travis is being more cautious as to when he starts really pushing the team.

Remember, last year Travis’ team didn’t start peaking until Kaltag about 630 miles in to the race. By Koyuk, 200 miles later, they were absolutely flying. These are dogs that generally get stronger the further they go down the trail and Travis is playing off of that. He moved up approximately 10 positions in the last two runs of 2013, passing the last team as he came onto Front Street in Nome.

Currently, only 4 hours separates 30th place from 19th place. And 6 hours separates 30th from 13th place. Two things lead to this: (1) the front of the pack is running faster (2) the back is resting longer. In reality it is some combination of the two.

Travis rested a little more earlier in the race with hopes that it will pay off later. Regardless, this is a very competitive field with a whole lot of race left… it will be interesting to see who moves up and who moves down in the standings as the mushers continue down the trail!