<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
Written by Nancy Duresky<\/span><\/p>\n Wednesday March 18, 2009 Pt. Two<\/span><\/p>\n Even before you get to Nome, you know this whole shooting match is going to be different. <\/span>In Anchorage, you board a modified plane. <\/span>There is passenger seating in the rear of the plane. <\/span>There are 18 rows of seats, and then a wall, I guess it’s called a bulkhead. There is a huge cargo bay. <\/span>Cargo is loaded from the middle of the plane to the cockpit. <\/span>There are no roads to Nome. <\/span>Every chair in every house, every head of lettuce, tube of toothpaste or hospital X-ray machine, every Christmas present, has to either be barged in over summer or flown in Air Freight. <\/span>There are many small towns in Alaska where this is the case. <\/span>And many smaller villages where the residents snowmobile to Nome, pick up their packages and snowmobile home. <\/span><\/p>\n As soon as I land in Nome, I know it is different here. The plane pulls up to a small, small block building. <\/span>This is the airport. All the passengers enter a small waiting room. <\/span>As you enter the building, you leave the TSA security area. This room has a luggage delivery area, a check in area and 3 doors: one to the ladies, one to the gents and one through security to an even smaller waiting room. <\/p>\n The walk from the rear of the plane to the building is cold. <\/span>Really cold. <\/span>I am wearing tennis shoes with mesh. <\/span>The wind whips off of the Bering Sea and through my shoes. My feet get cold fast. The cold scrapes the inside of my lungs and makes my eyes water – it’s just a 25-step walk. <\/span><\/p>\n The parking lot is right up against the airport building and there are one or two cabs waiting. <\/span>As many people as possible are waiting for customers. <\/span>A trip into Nome is $6, $5 if you are a senior. <\/span>The trip to town takes 8-9 minutes and several stops are made on the way. <\/span>There are 3,500 people living in Nome. During the Iditarod, that number doubles. <\/span>Many of the people who come to Nome are volunteers like me. <\/span>About 1,800 people volunteered to work for the Iditarod this year. <\/span>Those that come from far places, LA for me, fund this trip themselves. <\/span><\/p>\n Tomorrow morning, I’ll jump into the swing of things. <\/span><\/p>\n Stay tuned for more from Nancy, including pictures!<\/span><\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our brave correspondent, Nancy Duresky, is sending back dispatches while working in Alaska as an Iditarod volunteer. You don’t want to miss these stories!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4395"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=4395"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}