Alaska: Day 23: 7-28-93: The Power Of The Orange Vest And A Run-In With The Law

The first 3 faces at the finish line were the same today, but their positions were juxtaposed -- Tony captured his second bib, Michel was runner-up and Andre followed in third. It made for an interesting finish, but considering that they all came in within seconds of each other, the cumulative rankings have not changed an iota.

The only other point of note about today's race, was that I finally got to have my stint as a traffic controller, which I was denied on the first day of the marathon. Usually, we have traffic police helping us along our routes, but sometimes nobody official is around to help us (due to either schedule changes, miscommunication or disorganization -- knowing Challenge Alaska as I do, I'm betting the latter plays a large part!), as was the case this morning at the start of the leg. Anyway, as soon as I donned the neon orange vest, I felt instantly transformed into an omnipotent highway god. Although Challenge Alaska has absolutely no authority to stop or control traffic in any way, the drivers didn't know that. Once I was standing out in the middle of the George Parks Highway, dressed as I was, the vehicles slowed, stopped and detoured at my behest. I resisted an impulse to abuse my command, and decided to use my powers only for good. But I am thinking about taking the orange vest home -- it might come in handy during rush hour on my way to work.

The remainder of the day was frankly uneventful. I took a nap and drained more excrement from the trailer. I helped Katia translate some words in a newspaper article, and I transcribed a postcard in English for Daniele. Oh wait -- there is one other really cool thing that happened today. Greg and the video crew did a number of additional interviews for their documentary, and I was one of the volunteers chosen to participate. They are not sure how much (if any) of the interview they will use, but it felt great just to be filmed.

---------Joe Gets Interviewed By The Film Crew (I Was Next)--------

After our fourth spaghetti meal in the past week (it's become a running joke), we had our nightly meeting, where we mostly talked about all the same things (yawn). The only interesting bit of news was that some trucker got so pissed off when a fellow "Orange Vest" stopped his semi for a couple of seconds, that he called the Department Of Traffic, who in turn called us -- telling us in no uncertain terms (surprise, surprise) that we did not have a mandate to control traffic. According to Don, this was the first complaint they had received in the 10-year history of the marathon, though I found that hard to believe. Anyway, it's no problem, because the DOT has agreed to come in an hour earlier tomorrow to help us, and we have prearranged full-race police coverage for the last 2 days.

With the time left to me in the evening, I played some volleyball and sat around with half a dozen others singing songs (Katya was particularly interested in hearing the tunes I sing to my kindergarteners). Finally, I crawled into my tent and played a homemade Othello game with Val. As my tent partner is fond of saying: "Bonne Nuit!"