Mushing

We are going to break away from the Honduras stories for a moment to bring you news from North Dakota.

March in the upper Midwest is the month that Garrison Keillor says God invented to show people who don't drink what a hangover is like. March is cold and dirty and muddy and snowy. We are nearing the vernal equinox, yet no where near spring. People here make their Easter plans based on where they would most like to be snowed in for the week-end. We have to find things to do in March that will keep us from going crazy. Some people watch high school basketball tournaments or college hockey championships, others train for the Fargo marathon, while still others take up drinking, hoping to trade a real hangover for the agony of March. I went dog sledding.

Nancy, a woman in my congregation, has a kennel with over twenty dogs that she is training to run the Iditarod next March. I had often heard about her dogs and her sled, but never had the chance to experience either until last Friday. What an experience! To hear twenty dogs (some of which I am sure are more coyote than domestic), howling for the opportunity to be hooked to the gang line and run the sled is almost otherworldly. After the lucky dogs were selected, Nancy zipped me into the storage unit on her sled and gave the dogs the "go" sign and immediately they stopped their howling and barking and were off. And those dogs could run! At one point in the trip she let them go full speed; I don't know how fast we were going, but it was likely about the speed that some Grand Forks retirees drive their cars around town. The dogs were beautiful and fast and when we stopped to let Jason have his turn, they howled until they got the chance to run again. I certainly don't plan to take up dog sledding. Yet, I can see the allure of the sport -- the bond that comes with caring for your animals and then going out with them to brave the wilds of Alaska, human and animal in a race against more than the clock, counting on each other for their lives, mushing silently through the mid-March snow.

Thank goodness the snow won't be gone until April.