Over 14 days in March, Parrish made her dream a reality, traveling the 1,049 miles from Anchorage to Nome with a team of huskies. For Parrish, it was about participating, finishing and, most of all, having fun.

"It didn't matter what was happening," she says of the challenges. "We were having fun. We were doing the Iditarod."

Parrish is back at the Crystalwood Lodge, a bed and breakfast along Upper Klamath Lake between Rocky Point and Fort Klamath where she is an innkeeper. She left last September, first spending three months in Minnesota training with Iditarod veteran Jamie Nelson before continuing to Alaska.

She lived, trained, raced and finalized the complex pre-race arrangements near Anchorage for another couple of months.

"I was anxious to go," she says of her emotions before the race. Once she and her team were under way, the race sometimes seemed surreal.

"When I was doing it I almost forgot I was doing it," Parrish laughingly reminisces.

"Since then I have felt incredibly fortunate to have done it and shared it with the dogs. I can't get my head around the whole thing -- it's too huge."

Since returning a few weeks ago, Parrish has been caught in the swirl of life temporarily put behind.

"Life as usual is rushing in and not giving me a chance to reflect," she says.

When she talks about the Iditarod, people are surprised by the years of commitment.

"A lot of people want to know how I could accomplish a dream this big.

People have a hard time comprehending a decade," she says.

Parrish's Iditarod dream began 10 years ago, partly as a way to celebrate her 50th birthday.

"Sometimes it was the pinch-me mode," she says of being in the race.

"Sometimes it was so mundane. I was expecting lower lows."

One of the biggest lows happened early on the fourth morning.

While running her team through a narrow, windy section called Buffalo Flats, her sled struck a root and toppled.

The sled's snow hook flew off and embedded in a tree, bringing the team to a sudden halt. Parrish was jolted off and landed hip-first on the hook.

"I just laid there and screamed. I was cussing and hollering."

The injury limited her mobility, but she could still function and continued the race. At three checkpoints, veterinarians taped and re-taped her hip.

It still hurts but, "I can pretty much ignore it now," she said.

Mushing in the Iditarod was the kind of challenge Parrish relishes.

A small person -- she's 5-feet tall and just 100 pounds -- Parrish drew concern from some race observers who feared she might not be able to handle a team of 16 well-trained, strong dogs.

During the race, along with her years of training, Parrish overcame other problems. As a child, she had kidney cancer, and the radiation therapy affected her spine.

"To me it's a source of strength. It's given me a lifetime of practicing dealing with adversity," Parrish says.

Likewise, one of her dogs, Crimp, is special because he's a hard-luck dog.

Despite health problems, Crimp earned a place on her team and was among the 14 who arrived in Nome.

"He's kind of my alter ego," Parrish says of Crimp.

"I've got physical challenges. He's got physical challenges. We both made it."

Before the Iditarod, Parrish and her team had never raced more than 350 miles, and never in such severe, extreme conditions.

Parrish still marvels at how her dogs responded.

"The dogs, they did such an amazing job. It was such an intimate experience to work with them that closely, to live with them. I'm so honored they had that kind of trust of me. My focus of concentration was always on the dogs.

"The secret for me was going slow enough so that I or the dogs didn't get hurt," she says. "For them the job is really simple -- they just pull, no matter what."

Despite Parrish's injury, she savored the experience,

"I never, ever felt like I was going to scratch. All of the challenges and getting hurt -- I felt like it's one more thing to deal with."

Now she has the coveted finisher's belt buckle and rare, precious memories.

"I don't have a desire to do it again," Parrish says, recalling the tears of joy that fell when the tsunami siren sounded, announcing her arrival in Nome.

"I got all choked up and cried. I accomplished what I set out to do."

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Distributed by The Associated Press