It's All Over Now & Feeling Totally Pooped !!

Did not sleep a wink last night as hands were extremely painful and throbbing, this was a result of Thursday when we'd had to do two day's of travelling because of the condition of the ice on the lakes. I also felt the house was too warm and want to keep the heating turned off as unable to bear the heat, of course hubby's freezing! My muscles still producing a lot of heat of their own, my OH commented that if he held his hand above my arms or legshe could actually feel the heat coming out of my body. Have been feeling a bit low today because of the pain in my hands, lack of sleep because of it and my lips are so sore, in fact you cannot actually see them as they're a mass of blisters and a mess. It's frustrating they are like this because I'd been so careful constantly applying lip block all day long up and wearing my balaclava when the temperatures plummeted. But all it took was that short time in the blizzard when I couldn't get my gloves off and get my balaclava pulled up. My hubby wanted to take me out for a meal today and have a family get together but as feeling out of sorts thought best to put it off for a few days.

Decided to take it easy and take my time unpacking my kit bag. Everything smells "doggy" and I feel sad it is all over, I want my own pack of huskies!! It's the first time I get chance to think about what we have all just done. Whilst we were away all thoughts had been taken up with what we need to do such as looking after the dogs, putting up/taking down the tents, making meals etc. Then when we were on the move we needed to concentrate on driving the sleds, which could be quite tricky at times and certainly was hard work most of the time (I'm sure the minute people took it for granted and didn't pay attention because they thought they were on easy stretches that was when a lot of the stupid mistakes occurred). Most of us had no experience of "wild camping" let alone in waist deep snow so thinking about things now at home, I do feel extremely proud of what we all did. There was about 10 months of preparation for this trip taking up nearly all my free time; at first concentrating on fund raising and then hours and hours worth of walking to make sure I'd be fit enough. Every minute spent over the past year leading up to the trip was 100% worth it. Words simply cannot do justice to the whole experience and emotions you go through on an expedition like this. So put very simply in the words of American teenage movies it was "Awesome Dude"!