Men in oil-stained Carhartt jackets and shiny snowmobile suits crowded around the counter, filling half the building with traditional Alaskan values and amused facial expressions. On the other side of the bar, which was set up restaurant style, were table after table of Europeans in down jackets and ski boots, skinny cyclists in knee-high overboots and lycra-clad runners wearing sneakers when it was 20 degrees outside.Ghost Trails, Journeys through a lifetime is not just Jill Homer's account of the 2008 Iditarod Trail Invitational.
“If my daughter wanted to do that, ride a bike across the tundra,” the man said as he nudged another guy sitting next to him, “I’d kill her. I would. It would be a less painful way to die.” His friend laughed.It's a story of a young woman..
Something broke. I broke. I fell off my bike a final time, knelt into the snow, and just sat there.breaking herself
“Cause, you know, money really doesn’t matter,” Geoff said. “You don’t need a whole lot for food and shelter. You can eat grilled cheese and sleep in a tent.”and figuring out what she wants from life.
“I don’t like grilled cheese.”
Homer is a "suburban Utah girl," who is honest about her weaknesses and questions herself frequently. Nestled between each chapter on the Iditarod trail, Homer shares a story from her younger years. These stories build the foundation for how she came to pedal the Iditarod, not just literally or physically, but emotionally and perhaps spiritually. When we do share the trail with Homer, we see a human portrait without pretense.
I recommend this book not only to those interested in ultra racing and adventure, but those open to asking the bigger questions about where their life is going and how to savor it.
“Hippy Lady! Hippy Lady!”It took me a moment to realize that I was the one she was calling Hippy Lady. This girl, who just a few years earlier I would have considered my peer, was calling me Hippy Lady.Visit Jill Homer's website to read her blog and buy her book!
