"...there was nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rolling under the stars...” - Kerouac

I look in the houses as I pass at the televisions glowing in the dim light through picture windows. People warm in their houses watching The Office. I could be home watching television. Instead, I'm out here.

Smoke hangs in the boggy recesses from distant wood stoves. The dogs alert me to things in the woods before I even notice them other wise. My leaders' ears perk up, alert, searching the thicket. Two green dots glow in the woods, something watching me, us. I look over, and the pale beam of my headlamp parts the darkness and finds a lone doe standing, staring at what must seem like a startling spectacle on the trail. A girl and 9 dogs in the night.

I'm tired. After teaching all morning, working for my other job at the medical school, zooming home to be there for Elise when she gets off the bus, and dealing with dinner, it's sometimes difficult to find the motivation to head out into the night and hook up nine screaming huskies hell bent on miles to a line and go.

But once I'm out there, under the stars breathing that cool, crisp air, I'm wide awake.

The dogs chug along, puffs of steam rising from their mouths like tiny train engines. I look up at the stars; it seems like there's a billion visible out here in the night. I think about the upcoming winter.

Mushing is not for those who need instant gratification. It takes perseverance and dedication in training to build up to a place where dogs can go miles and miles once the snow flies. Hours are logged behind dog butts to get to that point, build endurance and good habits and muscle. Keeping perspective is essential. I must remember always what the end goal is. My friend Joann Fortier has a saying for those nights when we don't feel like hooking up the dogs: you just got passed. Consistent hook ups are crucial. Even on nights when we might not want to.

I think of Kerouac and one of my favorite lines: "there was nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rollin' under the stars."

And we keep rollin, rollin, rollin...

Am I a musher?

The dogs and I returned to the farm in Ohio late Monday evening. It was warm - 47 degrees when we pulled in - and things looked barren and different, yet familiar and for that, comforting. The giant oak in the front yard stood naked against the late December sky. When I pulled out of here two months ago, the leaves were still on the trees.

The last two months have been a blur of "cabin-time." Days run together; I can't decipher one from the next. "Cabin time" seems to seal me off from "real time." Life in the eastern U.P. feels different than life anywhere else. It's as if the little community of Deer Park/Newberry is a dark hole, insulated from the rest of the world, like some Faulknerian hamlet.

I used to think I wanted to live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. After being there for not quite two months straight, now I'm not so sure. The area along the Lake Superior shores near Grand Marais must see the least amount of sunlight of any place on the planet at this time of the year. Combine that with the isolation, the longing for my children, as well as the lack of nearly any kind of employment, I know I could not ever live there permanently.

Oh Thoreau, going to the woods to live deliberately is good...for awhile. After a couple months, though, I craved things like...dare I say... Stabucks®, a television, a Target®. Oh, and a cell signal.

Life is difficult, but it seems more difficult there, in the isolated area between Newberry and Grand Marais. Things take longer: driving to town and back is a 50 mile round trip and takes half a day. If it's snowing, it takes longer. Days are dark. The silence is deafening.

There is more drama in a place the size of a shoe box than anyone could ever imagine. I've heard stories about poached bears, family feuds, love affairs and scandalous encounters enough to create the label Days of Our Lives, the Deer Park Edition.

There are so many Catch-22s in this sport. In order to train dogs effectively for races like those I run, one must live far away from populated areas in order to have adequate trail access and so as to not aggravate the neighbors.

However, caring for dogs and operating a kennel is expensive, and jobs aren't plentiful in remote areas with adequate trail access.

Likewise, in order to afford this sport, one must have a good job; however, it's near impossible to train the dogs the way one needs to train and maintain a normal 40 hour work week.

I digress.

Coming back to the farm and to my kiddos after two months away has been an overwhelming, emotional experience. I am at a crossroads, and I don't know what the future holds for me or this sport. It seems mushers and mushing are a dying breed. It's just not practical - and seems downright silly if you think about it - to spend so much money and time training a bunch of dogs to pull a sled for hundreds of miles simply for one or two...maybe three races a year. So much is sacrificed. For the first time ever, I'm left wondering if it's all worth it.

*A side note to Tug Hill entry: on racing and dog mushing, and why we do what we do

The previous entry about the Tug Hill Challenge only mentions a portion of the challenges that we faced on the road to Tug Hill, including right up to the starting chute.

I was one minute late to the starting chute, with eight hot dogs fired up and ready to go, and was told I could not race - because I was one minute late to the chute.

My friend Amanda encountered other, in my opinion, unnecessary stresses during her races as well. Which got me thinking about racing.

Several years ago, a friend of mine told me a valuable piece of simple advice. He said, forget racing. Just get out there and run your dogs.

There are many reasons people race. Racing certainly gives us goals to shoot for regarding running dogs. Racing is often the impetus to force us to get out there and run the dogs on days when we're sick or tired or just would rather not.

But when the name of racing takes over the reason why we got into this sport in the first place - when the stress of racing becomes the focal point - then we need to step back and view the bigger picture.

For me, this person's advice was the best advice ever. I found myself recounting the same advice to Amanda this past weekend.

Just get out there and run your dogs.

Because, in the end, it's not about any trophy or time. It's about spending time doing what we love: being outside with a bunch of our best friends - friends who would do anything for us.

More and more, I don't necessarily want to "race" as much as I just want to drive my dogs through a gorgeous winter landscape and experience the peace and silence only a winter wood can bring.

Dog sledding has come under some criticism from some recent media attention. Like any sport, there are occasionally some awful people who do bad things and give all of us reason to pause.

But the majority of mushers take better care of their dogs than they do themselves.

So for those of you who care more about spending time in the woods on the trail than getting to the starting chute, this post is for you.

And to those of you who hold your own in the big races, and still remain steadfast in your love and dedication to your dogs, this post is for you, too.

I don't know that I'll ever be competitive enough to want to win a race. I'm just happy to have won my dogs' respect, trust and loyalty.