Walter, Here's our letter to Charlie. Thank you for your work and inspiration- we have really enjoyed following the race the last two years and it has opened the door to many other wonderful online ventures! Stephanie Chlebowski

Dear Charlie,

What a great race! We're so proud of you. We followed you last year, also. One of the students from our class last year got to go up to Anchorage and ride with her pen-pal, David Straub, in the ceremonial start. She got your autograph, so we know she met you, but you may not have known she was from our school. We were so jealous!

Last year, we did an "Iditaread", and tried to read more 1149 minutes before our mushers made it to Nome. Several class members beat their mushers (we each had a different musher to follow besides the class musher). This year, the race was so fast, nobody beat their musher! We had fun trying, though.

We read that you had vanilla ice cream again at the finish. How much did you have? How many years have you had that tradition? We made "Idita-icecream" in baggies with ice around them. It was vanilla flavored, but not as popular as store-bought ice cream.

We saw your team's names on the internet. Which ones are your lead dogs? A lot of them are named after food (candy bars, too?). We had some questions about your life outside of the race:

Have you ever panned for gold?
Do you ice fish?
How can you tell when the river is frozen enough to go out on it?

Do you ever go sledding for fun (down hill, no dogs)? We like to do that if we have the right kind of snow.

We had some snow late this winter. We even had to close school for a day. Most of the time it is very rainy in Snohomish (cold and rainy or warm and rainy). Today, it's sunny and maybe starting to feel like Spring a little.

We made a paper quilt for you with blocks from the different check points. We hope that you like it.

Today, we had a guest speaker named Veronique Robigou. She goes down to the bottom of the sea in a submersible to study "black smoker" ocean vents. She is going to take Styrofoam cups down to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, where the water pressure shrinks them. We made a cup for you, so you can have a cup that's been on an expedition. We'll mail it to you after her May trip. It didn't go to Nome, but it has been someplace exciting!

We're glad that you had a safe trip (no broken sled this year). We really like to follow you in the race. Congratulations on a higher placing this year!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Chlebowski and Room 13
Snohomish, WA