After the Musher meeting we met some more ladies from Georgia who were on their first ever Iditarod visit. We helped them round up tickets for the banquet tonight. A brief stop at REI and Fred Meyer were the only break in the action as the Banquet crowd started gathering about 6pm at the Sullivan Arena. With a record number of mushers on tap to draw their bib numbers, everyone expected to be there a very long while. Actually many mushers, rather than thanking every single sponsor, simply walked briskly by the microphone and gave a quick one word, “Thanks!!” This drew loud applause, as everyone wanted to move through the list quickly and get home to get some rest. Others did give longer talks and Jeff King gave his speech in the form of a catchy little poem. Jeff drew number 13, which is said to be the winningest bib number in the race. Judy Merritt who has the Cool Dreams dogs will be bib number 10 on Saturday morning. By drawing #10, Judy will have to stay 26 hours and 36 minutes for her 24hour layover. Last bib to draw was Vern Halter who’ll go out of the chute first behind the honorary musher, Terry Adkins. The full line up will be in the Anchorage Daily News, so please click on the link and find your favorite musher. Earlier in the evening, G.B. Jones and Perry Solomonson each won a chain saw and thousand-dollar gift certificate from Cabela’s. We saw lots of friends from over the years of being Iditarod volunteers which is one of the great things about coming back each year for the race. The festivities ended about 11:30 and the drive home was again very slippery.