Iditarod musher Ed Stielstra from Michigan hopped a ride from Anchorage with fellow finisher Trent Herbst, who splits time between Homer, Alaska, and Sun Valley, Idaho, and the pair stopped by our house today to visit and talk about dogs and sleds. It was great to have them here for the afternoon. Stielstra even ran after — and retrieved — four of our pups, which had darted off chasing a passing minivan. (The pups are trained to run after ATV’s, and obviously will give chase to any motorized vehicle).

I think Herbst is planning to run dogs from Stielstra’s kennel in the 2009 Iditarod.

Herbst teaches 4th graders in Sun Valley every winter, but comes back to his cabin at Anchor Point near Homer every summer. He is running dogs to benefit a Ugandan program involving boating safety (I am not making this up). As soon as I learn more, I’ll post a link.

He buys a $500 truck for the duration and said he somehow finds vehicles that survive all three months. In the back of the rig were Herbst’s drop bags and sled from this year’s race, which means he should have fun in July unpacking socks that were already smelly and wet when he shipped them out of checkpoints during the race in March.