Your Last Iditarod Update for 2003.
Call it a race; Russell Bybee has made it to Nome and won the Red Lantern.
Russell's 44th-place time was 15 days, five hours, 30 minutes and 53 seconds. Considering that the first Red Lantern winner in 1973, John Schultz, completed the race in 32 days, Russell has plenty to be proud of. They say in aviation that every safe landing is a good landing. So goes mushing. Every trip across the Iditarod finish line is a good finish.
If you're wondering where all those dogs go at the end of the race, take a look for yourself. It's a Web cam posted at the top of the town newspaper's office, the Nome Nugget.
If you get a daytime shot, you can see a circle of specks on the white ice of the frozen Bering Sea. Those are all dogs staked to the ice. There they are fed and bed down on straw until an airplane is available to fly them back home.
In case you're wondering, that's the main drag in Nome. The ribbon of snow down the middle is what they've left for the mushers to bring their dogs into town.
Oh, and there's only one parking meter in town.
Here's a little clearer shot that shows the finish chute with snow, the burled arch and some of the surrounding buildings on Front Street.
To get a little better sense of how weird the ceremonial start of the race in Anchorage is, here are several pages of photo galleries taken along Fourth Avenue. In some of them you can see the blue and gravel facade of my old newspaper, The Anchorage Times.