Iditarod in July!

One night, we're going about our business and someone cracked a joke...something about monkeys...then it morphed into something about dogsleds and making monkeys pull them... I made a smartass remark about the Iditarod... likely referring to Gary Paulson's excellent (and hilarious) book, Winterdance.

We quickly started brainstorming and decided carpets would make great "sleds" and we could hook up 20 or so people to one carpet...then devise a course in which they'd have to stay together and in order as a team throughout the "race."

I didn't, honestly, think I'd have much of a turnout for it. It's one of those things that seems brilliant in the moment, but when you actually go to execute it, maybe it won't be so fun? I worried for nothing! We had a great turnout and I plotted a course through Antonica, making sure to include logs, steep hills, caves and other obstacles that dogs might get hung up on. Even better, we have a few "puppies" turn out to run, and their presence livened things up a great deal as teams had to rescue their dogs from the wildlife! /Yelp!

The route! (map borrowed from a walkthrough site - eq2map, maybe?)

Forming up at the starting line... some of these dogs have a little wolf in them. Purple team led by Soulstyce with musher, Templaria. White team led by Ninibi with musher, Aram.

We settle on single file since teams are a little light and narrow log bridges are many...

A bystander looks on in confusion as white team tears up the lead.

Purple team passes in the caves.

I don't know who won!

In the end, people fell off logs and tumbled down hills, got tangled in the 'lines' and some just got stuck with a mouthy musher. Aram got himself stuck on some level 20 toon's ignore after utilizing the /shout command a few too many times to urge his team on.

SO! All my fears were for nothing! Thanks guys for coming out with a sense of adventure, humor and fun and making it an awesome guild event!