Nome, Day 9 - The Race is Over

At a little after three this afternoon, the last musher crossed under the burled arch.  Cindy Abbott was in 64th place (six of the original 72 mushers had scratched), finishing in a time of 12 days, 2 hours, 57 minutes.  She is officially the "Red Lantern" -- the "caboose" on the race.  Officials met her as she came up off the ice and gave her a real red lantern to carry down Front Street. 

the widow's lamp

When she finished, she was given the honor of extinguishing the widow's lamp that has been burning night and day under the arch.  When that light is gone, the race is over.  I have no pictures of Cindy's arrival because I was back at work.









A few places ahead of her was Paul Hansen, a Colorado State alum.  I was down at the Iditarod HQ for the musher signing, but had time to go up and get shots of him and his team checking in with the officials.  I introduced myself as a fellow CSU alum and told him I'd send one of the shots to the alumni newsletter.  We will see whether or not they'll publish it.

The big event of the day was the chance for people to meet and greet the mushers.  People pick up copies of the free posters or purchase official race books or photographs and collect autographs.  There were some cute local kids getting signatures in homemade autograph books.  Some of the mushers looked bored, but this is a mandatory function for them -- and most were gracious.  I waded through the throngs of people and got 60 autographs (the last three mushers had not yet finished).  I was getting ready to leave when Paul Hansen came into the office to make a phone call so I currently have all but the last three.

this is what the convention center

looked like when we arrived 3/10

capacity crowd at the "Meet the Musher" event