Should we go fast or slow?

Hours traveled: 9
Miles traveled: 14.5
Total miles traveled: 320.9
Miles to pole: 256
Elevation: 5732 ft.

Translation from voicemail: Hello this is team 3belowzero, Day 27. Hey, do you guy’s remember the old movie Groundhog Day? The Bill Murray movie where he keeps re-living the same day over and over again. You know sometimes it feels like that here but actually each day is a little bit different. And so today, you know it snowed yesterday, and that left this, on the surface, a very sticky, a very sticky surface today. So it was really hard pulling the sleds through that surface. It was almost like pulling, at some points, through sand. There was no glide. And even though the terrain was a actually pretty gentle today it made for a tough day of pulling.

Each stay presents, you know, a different challenge and I think that’s what’s keeping it interesting for us. Overall this is really the hardest physical and mental challenge that Marty and I have ever done. And people have asked how we are doing and we are holding up well physically.

We don’t really have any ailments other than wishing we could sleep a little bit more. And mentally I think we’re still in high spirits and through the holidays, so we’re you know feeling pretty good now. It’s just hard being away from Keenan.

But, to give you a quick update, we have 256 miles left and a quick calculation that’s about 18 to 19 days, we’re thinking. And it’s really interesting when we talk. We wanna balance between, you know, hey let’s get done quick. Let’s hurry up and get done. But then we want to savor the experience here, especially after three years of planning just to get here. So we’re trying to, you know,sort of savor the time that we have left. And we feel really lucky to be here experiencing this really unique, continent. And, you know, a place that not many people have done it the way we’re doing it. So we feel very fortunate.

There’s a quote that my brother-in-law Frank wrote up on our tent that says, “The morning comes and now is. Welcome the day with gladness and greet the dawn with praise.” And I really like that. That’s kind of a great reminder for us to just enjoy each precious day that we have here. And so thanks Frank. And that’s it for today. Hope everybody is doing great, talk to you soon. Bye.