Home again, home again jiggety-jig.......

Only there were more "jogs" than "jigs"......... On Tuesday we went to our appointment for the truck in Trois Rivieres (transmission specialist) and $550 later we left with new drive shaft parts, drove less than a mile and "the truck poltergeist noise" was baaaaaaaaaack!!! We stopped at the mechanic in Charrette on our way back to Bellerives and told him we still had the noise and asked if he thought it was safe to drive home to Michigan - he still thinks it's in the drive shaft....... Tuesday nite last dinner with out "Quebec Family" at the house. Up Wednesday and left at 8:30am - drove to the east side of Toronto and started feeling like there was something else wrong with the truck besides the "poltergeist noise" (that happened every time we decelerated - which believe me happens more often than you would think going down the expressway!!!!!!!!) After stopping several times and Randy checking the tires he felt the right rear hub and it was hot - soooooo we pull off on the next exit, stop at a gas station, Randy asks for a mechanic location, he comes back to me and says "you have to go talk to her", I go in and the young woman is a recent Indian immigrant and speaks halting English......and here we were feeling relieved to be back in a place where people spoke English!!! We were sent to a garage (by now it's 4p) and he says he will work on it in the morning. So we spend the nite in the truck in the garage parking lot, kind of quiet except for the train tracks 5o ft away..
8am and the guy pulls the truck up and takes the dual wheels off......unbelievably half of the hub of the wheel is gone.....like some metal-eating cookie monster took a bite out of it!!! No wonder the hub was hot - so he has to call around looking for a new wheel for a truck as old as ours,finds one, puts it on and we take it for a test drive thinking the "poltergeist noise" should be gone......nope!!!!!! We had the mechanic ride with us he he believes (by obviously process of elimination) it the transfer gears rubbing against each other every time there is no pressure with acceleration.......so $450 more and still the noise!!!!!! We leave there and the truck acts like it's not getting gas.....Randy stops on the side of the road and replaces the fuel filter and it seems to help. We travel to the west side of Toronto without too much traffic trouble, all of a sudden the truck is acting like it's not getting gas again......We pull off on the next exit, come to a stop lite on a hill, and the truck kills.......and won't start without opening the "doghouse" over the engine in the inside of the truck and me pouring gas in the carburetor, with traffic being held up on all sides of us!!! Finally we get the truck started and go downhill to a gas station - Randy fills up thinking maybe one of the tanks has bad gas, changes the tank filter and it still won't run. We ask around for a mechanic (Randy is getting really good at this....) and on the 3rd try we go to a Canadian Tire store with a garage. They check things out and find out the fuel pump is not working!!!! So we spend the nite in the Canadian Tire parking lot in the middle of a mall!!! (the only good thing was that there was a great dollar store!!!) We feed the dogs and have several people stop to visit and ask questions .....one guy even wants to sell us a sled he inherited! All of a sudden a police car pulls up and tells Randy he wants to see his paperwork and wants to know if we are planning to stay there all nite!!?? Yeah....we're broke down!! Randy gives him his rabies certificates for all the dogs, he wants to see Randy's driver's license.....and then our passports!!! Another cop shows up and he starts asking questions, also establishes somehow that Randy was in the Navy in during Viet Nam and that he had buddies in Iraq and tells the other cop he should quit harassing Randy!!! Apparently someone saw us putting the dogs back in their boxes after feeding and said we were "stuffing" dogs into boxes.......yes some of them need help so I actually lift them up and help move their legs to make it easier!!!! So that's really why the policed were there!

By now we are on Friday..........they told us they opened at 8 so we get up and drop dogs at 7:30 so we are ready for them.......however the part doesn't get there until 11:30!!! They put the new pump on and it doesn't seem to help - they put it back in the shop and one guy notices that 1/2 of the carb is not getting gas, he blows it out with air and thankfully, it runs good. We leave there, no problems getting to the border..........1 hour wait for all the people wanting to go to Michigan - looked in our trailer and asked about the dogs and WE ARE IN MICHIGAN!!!!

Get 1/2 way to Flint and the truck starts acting up again (mind you we still have the "poltergeist noise" going on and off during all of this time!!) We stop and feed dogs and Randy decides to change spark plugs and wires so we do that and take off and it seems to be running pretty good.....for awhile! We stop 2 other times and find out the wires (which were not exactly the right kind for the engine) had pushed off going down the road..........all of this hassle and we finally make it home at 2:30am!!!! My Lord what a trip!!!

Slept in Sat. and got groceries and mail from Jess' house and wanting to relax, turned on the TV to find out that, even with the HD converter box, we get only one station....channel 13....now!!
And we used more propane keeping the house from freezing this year so the propane tank is on 0%!!! (good thing I took a shower/hot water already!!)

Randy put all the dogs out into the kennel and they were soooooo happy to be going there they knocked him down twice! The weather was beautiful, only a lite jacket daffodils coming up in my garden and this morning we wake up to 2 inches of snow!!!! I think Randy has "jet lag" and is napping today so probably no training today for the 20 young dogs we have to expose to dogsledding and the grandkids are in Maryland and Idaho so nobody here to try the new "little people sled"!!!! even with the snow!

Despite the truck problems we had a great winter and as Randy says, "are Blessed and thankful to be able to have lived the Musher's Dream!!!!!"

PS the pictures on the top are of the river looking at the location of the the previous picture of the church, the lobby of the hotel, and Randy at the awards ceremony with the Wendat Indian tribe Chief

What a way to end the season!!!!

Upper left pix: me in the lobby of the hotel/museum that the race was held at on the Wendat Indian Reservation- notice the skin-covered drum tables and wolf hides! Upper right: a painting on the concrete embankment along the river depicting the story of the life of the Wendat Indians Lower left: the Indian church fro the early 1800's Lower right: the race parking lot with our truck in the foreground, the hotel/museum in the backround, with the river running with rapids all along the back of the building!

Thursday nite we did go bowling at Place Biermans again (Claude is quite the 10 pin bowler and has bowled more with us in the last month than in the last 10 years!) This week I didn't have sciatic nerve pain from being goofy prior to bowling but my game didn't improve drastically!! I think the best was 138 - and Randy really had a hard time cause his knee is still hurting - even with wearing a brace! so his bowling score was the worst of the guys...Marcel and Ghyslain joined us.

Up at the crack of 9am Friday morning and packed up and cleaned the sugar shack and bid it a fond farewell! Left Charrette for Quebec City about 11......about an hour down the road on a really rough patch, what should re-appear, but the horrible metal on metal noise we thought we got rid of last weekend!!!!!!!!!! My anxiety level immediately soars cause we don't know what it is making the noise or if we are going to break down on the expressway any minute!! It comes and goes every few minutes or so we are on pins and needles all the way into the city, get lost making wrong turns a couple of times in the city (tension getting pretty high!!) and we finally make it to the hotel.......just beautiful area and so much Indian heritage. The bib draw was held in the Wendat community hall which is decorated with Indian artifacts and moose and bear, etc. I did manage to shop "quickly" on the way to the meeting and picked up some grandkids stuff!! Moccasins (one pair for the new baby) and other Indian items. I got number 16 and Randy was amazed to get #1!!! (which is really good in a race when you have head-on passing the whole trail - cause then you have no one to pass until after you make the turn-around).

Saturday was sunny, warm and the snow on Sarah (Randy's leader) is pregnant and can't run the longer trail and we just got a little girl "Ace" from Claude and Randy isn't sure she can run 8 miles (my trail is only 4.7 mi) I am my usual "nervous self" before going out not knowing for sure what the trail will be like ......especially the turn around on a fairly icy trail! No problems head-on passing with my "trusty leaders" Fratz and Spiff, I do however run up on 4 4-wheelers going up the hill slower than my team is going (part of the trail is a snowmobile/4-wheeler trail and they can't close it down for the race!) so I am yelling at the top of my lungs to tell them to hurry up (like that does alot of good when they probably only speak French) and it does no good.....then on the way back after I slid around the turn around, there's somebody's pet dog in the trail!!!!!!! I am thinking the worst.....dog fight.....my dogs chasing him off the trail into someone's back yard, you can imagine!!!! Nope!! Frantz and Spiff cruise by, no problem! I drive them hard back over about 6 road crossings with people everywhere yelling and clapping and finish strong! You will never believe what I see when they pass out the times........me in 6th place!!!!!!!! You have to remember this is stiff competition and this is the best I have ever done!!!!! It was the fasted 15 minutes of my life!!!!

Randy had not such a great run.........Rudolph pushed little girl Spring way out cause he was getting tired in the soft snow, so she quits and Randy has to put her in the sled!! So he ends up 13th......not what he wanted at all!!

Saturday nite we walked around town and took pictures and spent time visiting with other dog drivers.

Up on Sunday and I am nervous cause I don't want to screw up my place but know how easy it can happen!!! Then we find out with only 15 minutes to spare that the 6 dog class is going out 30 minutes earlier today.......so speed/panic preparations.....up to the line.......even softer trail today.......good start though Sarah isn't really pulling at point......she starts to pull....good.....then I notice Tarzan next to her.....not pulling....actually pulling back!!!!! I slow them down for him not knowing what his problem is......finally I think I am going to have to put him in the sled....and see my name dropping place by place in the standings!!!! I stop the sled and have my gloves off and he acts like he wants to go......we start going and he does better but never pulls the whole way until the last mile where he stops and poops and then actually looks like he might be helping!!! I try Randy's theory about yelling loud enough to make the dogs focus on only the driver and whether it's working I can't tell and we finish 9th!!! Still very good!! On the way back to the truck somehow Randy trips and falls flat on the pavement while leading my team, thinks he broke his hand and now doesn't have just a sore knee, but a whole body!!!

Randy is in the chute with 9 dogs today (I tried to convince him to only take the ones he was really really sure of) and they count down to 5, 4, 3 and I look up and the shyest dog in the team is fanned way out to the side cause her neck line is off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am holding the leaders, Randy just got his gloves on and 3 people jump in to try and catch her and re-hook her!!!!! She's like a squirming worm and finally one of the other dog drivers get ahold of her and holds her tight enough to hook her in and Randy is off!!!! Well.........I can take maybe a little credit for the suggestion about taking "sure dogs" but Randy pulled off the biggest save I have ever see him do!!!!!!!!!!!!! He passed 2 teams and almost caught another and moved from 13th to 6th!!!! The dogs worked really hard and so did he.....pumped the whole trail even hurting with his knee and from the fall!!! Lou Serre also made a huge improvement and came from 5th to win!!!!

The awards were at the same hall and when I went up to get my check I thanked all the Quebec club members for how wonderful they are to us while we are here and Randy said it was great to compete against the best competition in dogsledding!! Lots of cheers and lots of saying goodbye until next season! To celebrate our anniversary and good fortune we walked about a mile both ways and found a little bistro to have dinner - the bartender, who did speak English, had very little on the menu but said the "dried beef sandwich" was good - do that's what we got!!! I was half way thru the sandwich when I realized it was "corned beef"!!!!!

Back to the bad, unknown-source-of-origin noise..... Randy had looked under the truck and thinks the noise is coming from the place where the drive shaft connects to the transmission but needs an impact wrench to get it apart. He had inquired with the help of some very nice local guys and the soonest they could get us in a transmission shop was Tues. So Monday morning (we slept in the hotel parking lot) we are up dropping dogs and the same guys stop by and volunteer to take us to a fellow dog driver's garage and help us fix it!!! We follow them to the garage, they get a new part, put it in, we thank them and force some money on them knowing it was way cheaper, and we are on our way!!! Not 3 miles down the road just as we are getting on the expressway................the dreaded noise, AGAIN!!!!!!!! So not only did we not fix it last weekend in La Tuque, we did not fix it today!!!!!! We drove all the way back to Bellerive's with the same heightened anxiety level accompanied by an extra measure of frustration!!!!!!! Stopped at the local garage and the mechanic rode with us to hear the noise and now we have an appointment tomorrow at 10am with him!!!!! So much for going home today!!!

Does this look like dogsledding weather????!!!!!!!!

From the pictures of Randy sitting out in front of the sugar shack reading his book with the door open and how much snow we have lost you can see that Spring has come to Quebec!!!

The race is still on so we will stay the weekend and leave Monday.
Trained yesterday and have made the final pick for the teams this weekend. The race start is at a Indian (they call them First Nation people in Canada) museum just outside of Quebec City and I am really looking forward to it!!!! It is supposed to be on a bike path and snowmobile trail and though it normally would be fast (flat and hard) it may be a little soft due to the weather forecast of above freezing.

Went to Melanie's house (she lives about 2 blocks from her parents in a very typical "Quebec house" with the curved roof and gabled windows in front) for dinner last nite and had good conversation with Patrick and Mel!! (Claude and Renelle went to have dinner with the priest who is trying to talk them into making a trip to Rome with him).

Today change the bedding in some boxes (some of the girls think they have toilette facilities in their boxes) and maybe some cleaning of the sugar shack as we will leave for the race tomorrow afternoon and will only stop briefly to pick up the snowmobile and trailer on the way back.

Wait and see.......

These are pictures from the race at La Baie last weekend - there was a woman there taking them and sent them to us email- they are both of Saturday - I can tell because Salt, the dog he used in the open team was lead on Sun and she is blonde- and he used Fratz (the 2nd dog at point on the right in my team) in lead on Sun. It doesn't really show how hilly it was but good pix of the dogs and Randy!!
Last nite we had dinner with the Bellerives at the restaurant (I am now able to order my favorite meal in "almost flawless French" - 6 garlic shrimp and red wine!!! We had a call from one of the dogsled club members that said the trail for this weekend is still good, the weather says rain for Wed and they will call it on or off on Wed nite - so we decided to stay until Wed (what's 2 more days!!) and if it is on we will stay and come home Monday - so today is communication and rest day.......again!!!

The picture of the house with the dragon coming out of the side of it was taken outside of La Tuque- the people of Quebec are very creative…there was also one that looked like a nome home but I didn’t get a picture of it!
We left Friday at about 10:30 (as I said, it is supposed to be a 4 hour trip but we know it will probably be 6 for
us!) and did take the route up 155 through La Tuque – what a beautiful road!!! We have to imagine how it would look in the summer……river and lakes all along the highway! Not so mountainous on the road because it follows the river bed, but surrounded on both sides by mountains. Got through La Tuque and all of a sudden we heard this loud, grating-on-metal sound, which we thought was coming from the front passenger side wheel!! Randy thought perhaps it was the calipers on the brakes making the sound but the right wheel seemed fine. We started down the road again and it made the same noise(it sounded like the exhaust pipe or the drive shaft was dragging on the pavement!) Randy had to stop at an inopportune place on the road with logging trucks whizzing by us, and crawled under the truck and couldn’t see anything wrong.
Looking at the map, it was a 2 hour stretch ahead of us with no towns,and I really didn’t want to get broke down out in the middle of nowhere, so we turned around and went a ½ hour back to La Tuque – a garage was willing to look at it for us, and another ½ hour and $33 ( would have been more but Randy had the parts to fix it in the back of the truck!) and we found out that it was actually the caliper on the driver’s side wheel!! Somehow, the sound transferred sides of the truck!
So we had lost 1 ½ hours but we were back on the road. Sure enough, it is a lonnnnnnggggggg way on a 2 lane highway with no houses, no towns, just trees! Finally made it to the race site with no more problems (stopped to feed at Lac St. Jean – huge, huge lake). The road to the race start was all along a river for probably 5 miles, and the building is set up for the cross country skiing and nature trails all around the park, in the mountain and around the river with many waterfalls. The building was an old Quonset hut made into a rustic restaurant/hall with fireplace and all! We parked across the street from the river side in the lot and then to start the race you had to go over the road, then over a bridge over the river (see the picture above) The first time I went over it I didn’t notice the rushing water below me but then bringing the dogs back over, they were pushing me into the side of the bridge (where there are big gaps between the boards!!!) and I thought “how easy it would be for my foot to go thru there!”
Now comes the good part- should Cris race this “rock and roll course” (as Melanie Bellerive described it to me) up and down hills (not small ones) with curves (not easy ones) at the bottom of most of them that’s covered with icy snow??????? Yes….no…..yes……am I being a chicken…….no…..maybe it isn’t as bad as everbody is telling me…..yes………if I fall I could get hurt really bad and end up in a Quebec hospital………no………will everbody think I am a wimp…….yes…….and on and on ad nauseum. Finally I told Randy to make the decision….no was the decision, too risky (see Mom and Dad he does take good care of me!!!!) I am still second guessing myself today and wish I could have done it!!! So Randy ran my 6 dog team – the first day he ran Molly in lead and found out she really is not recovered from her shoulder injury (she wouldn’t run down any of the hills- and there were a lot of them like ½ of the trail) so he came in 10th. The second day he went with 5 dogs and drove them really hard (of course I think they would have responded better to me) and we thought sure he would move up, but actually moved down a place and was a little bit slower (partly due to the snow being slightly mushier/stickier and maybe because Molly was working a bit!)
For the open on Saturday Randy went out with 13 dogs and had no problems except that his leaders can’t stay out ahead of the team and he had to slow them down in order to keep the point dogs from running over the lines. He came in 14th. Sunday he took a major risk and put a dog we just got 2 weeks ago and had only put in lead for a part of a training run in lead (Salt) we were prepared to change her out with another leader right up until he left the chute if she looked like she was nervous about leading – but she didn’t and she did fine……except she isn’t any faster than the other leaders! So he stayed in 14th.
I wasn’t the only one wanting to race but deciding on not to being concerned for my health……..Melanie got to the race site on Sat morn and was loading dogs, twisted her neck and could hardly move for 2 hours- she ended up thinking she might hurt herself worse by racing, and though she would have likely won the 8 dog, let Hermel drive part of her team, put 2 in Patrick’s and gave two to her father to run in the open team. Though having Melanie’s dogs in his team didn’t help as much as she thought as he came in 5th! Eddy Clifford had a great day and “out-waxed” everybody in the open – his first win in Quebec!!! Congratulations Eddy!
After the awards, (we had already fed) we left for the “sugar shack”. This time no problems with the truck and made it back here by 10:30. Today the sun is shining, the birds are coming back from the south, the snow is melting and we are waiting to hear the weather forecast for St. Emile to decide whether to leave tomorrow or to stay for the last race. I am torn……would like to get back and see family (baby Chavis in Mitz, Aeja and Ocean and Oak) but would like to have one more successful race for myself to end the year!!!

Training and getting ready for "La Baie"

Last weekend we got the sled we had ordered way back in January- isn't it cute??!!! and won't our 4 grandkids look cute driving it???!!!!

Tuesday trained my team and some others to see if they are recovered enough to race this weekend. It was quite warm and sunny. Wednesday trained all of Randy's dogs and the weather was horrible!!! About 30 degrees and raining!!!! miserable - even with rain coats on we were soaked by the end of the 11 miles!!! Went out to dinner for pizza. Today we are getting ready to leave early tomorrow morning so I want to have most things packed and we cut toe nails and watered and extra time since they missed a breakfast this last week. Tonight we go for a "rematch" of the bowling!!!! I think both Claude and Melanie are looking to "give me a run for my money" !!!

We are taking the flatter route up thru La Tuque to La Baie and it is supposedly very scenic - and very important.........- I printed a map from the web to get us there!!!!! It is supposed to be a 4 hour trip but it will probably take us 6!!!!!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!

Pictures I forgot: me at L' Epiphanie (red hat, back turned) getting my check; me with my Mushing USA jacket on in Bellerive's house

We can start out with the Good: Thursday the 6 of us (Bellerives and Lou Serre) were hosted by the Bellerives at their business, "Place Biermans" for dinner and lots of fun- I will try to post some pictures from their web site, but is is a "family entertainment complex" with 6 theaters, a Greek restaurant, bumper cars, every arcade game imaginable, billiard room, dancing club and bowling alley (did I leave anything out?). This is their smaller business in addition to their roofing business. We had a great time, Claude, Renelle and I had scampi for dinner, Lou and Randy steaks and Melanie fish- delicious- don't think I have ever seen such big scampi!!! Then off to the bowling alley - Claude and Renelle even brought their own bowling shoes which they can't remember the last time they used - I think the last time they bowled was with us 2 years ago! So you can choose......regular bowling or a smaller-larger-than-a-softball bowling (I think they called it "10 pin") and I was really glad that somebody chose the 10 pin cause I bowled the best game of my life!!!! I didn't get to see the scores for the first game but on the 3rd Claude and I tied for first at 191!!

Now the Bad: Started packing up for the trip to the race at Kamarouska Friday morning (pack people food, dog food, feed the dogs, drop the dogs, fill the gas, pack the clothes, feed the people, check the brakes, etc.) and finally left at 11 for the "4 hour trip" up to Quebec City, across the St. Laurence, up the St. Laurence to Kamarouska.....only the race they call "Kamarouska" is really "St. Gabrielle de Kamarouska".......so we went at least 1/2 hour further than we needed to (note to Cris; next time check the website to double check the race location) and stopped for directions at a grocery store where the only person in there didn't speak English (even with my marvelous "miming/sign language abilities"!!!) and couldn't help so sent me to a red house across the street where they make home made soaps (she told me it is a very touristy town and she makes $80,000 seasonally) and they looked in the newspapers, called friends and finally figured out where the race was and gave us directions- back to one turning point in the town of Pancome, made the wrong choice and stopped for directions again, got a nice English speaking man to tell us to go straight at the church (by the way, it was built in 1851- that's older than the Civil War!!!)
and we found the small village of St. Gabrielle - now you would think that you should be able to tell in a small village where the dog sled race was to take place......not so!!! Stopped at a house, English speaking girl says straight at the corner.
Now the UGLY!!!!!! Randy pulls out from the front alley/drive of this house and all of a sudden we hear this very loud sound on top of the truck and see this blue wire hanging down from the sleds..........you got it........clothes line haging across the alley way!!!!! so this guy comes over mad, Randy tries to communicate, not, they both go over to a mechanic building and see if this guy speaks English, NOT, Randy throws his hands up in the air and says we will be here for the race this weekend, we drive around the village still not findig the race site, a guy stops in front of us with his truck says "follow me to the race site" and guess who is following us???........the clothesline guy!!!!!! The truck guy helps Randy to offer some money and the guy won't take $100, says that probably won't be enough!! So we finally find our parking spot and by this time Randy is on his last nerve!!!

Sat morning is warm and starting to get slushy and I have not good idea what kind of trail I am going out on in the 6 dog- we get our bibs at the drivers meeting and who shows up.......the clothesline guy with a bill for $120 ($20 of it is labor). To avoid possible world conflict, Randy pays the guy................what a fiasco!!

I go out and have good run - the curves aren't too bad; playing it conservatively cause I now know it's better to be in control and not drag or fall or lose your team!!! The worst part is the teeny weeny turn-around 1/2 way, I'm thinking go slow into the turn, it looks pretty good and then wham!!!!!! hard left, almost lost it, said "OH S--T!!!" and stayed on! Amazing grace, I came in 11th ......and we are talking almost all of the best 6 dog teams in Eastern Canada, and 33 of them!!!!!!

Randy goes out with 14 dogs, has a really good run going until..............head on pass at the road crossing, his dogs shy to the right, 2 of them hit a stop sign, break the snaps on both their neck lines and tug lines (so they are free) the one runs down the trail ahead of Randy, comes back when he calls him, gets to the team and turns around and heads down the trail again, but finally comes back and Randy has to go back to the sled to get neck lines to hook him back in the team - the 2nd dog is very shy and usually doesn't come well when we loose drop them so Randy was very lucky that he didn't realize he was loose and Randy sneaked up on him caught him!!! Then as he was trying to leave this mess.......the snow hook won't come out, it kind of comes out, catches again, and Randy rams his mouth into the driving bow!!!!!! (his upper lip is twice as big as normal and a lovely shade of purple!!) He used up alot of his time "playing around with the loose dogs" and came in 15th.

Because it was the 30th anniversery of the race, they had wine and dinner for all the mushers and a kareoke guy that sounded alot like Frank Sinatra- I asked him if he could play something a little faster to dance to and he said his instructions were to play "tranquil" = so Randy danced one slow dance with me, one with Real Turmel and one with Simon (the really good dancer from the L' Isle aux Coudres dance)

Sunday, a little cooler (still about 30 degrees) and even though I knew what the trail was like yesterday, that turn around loop and it being faster still made me nervous!.....went out conservatively, slowed a little at the loop, almost lost my footing but stayed up (no small thanks to the prayer I said on the trail!!!) and the only other problem was an almost crash at the last curve with a head on team with me on the right and them trying to take the curve on the inside- the same side as me!!! close but no crash!! Begosh and begorah.......I came in 9th!!!!!

Randy made a wise decision (knowing the trail was getting slushier by the minute) and took out 2 dogs and changed leaders and finally had a clean run!!!! moved up from 15th to 10th!!!!! (maybe the end of our run of bad luck????????)

Back to Bad (but not really soooooooo bad) I missed our turn off to go back to Bellerives through Quebec City, so it may have been a few miles longer and then when we got back to the "sugar shack" at 10:30p, no lights, no power! Slept in the truck (good thing we have it for a option!!!!)

L' Epiphanie Race Weekend

I left you on a rainy day on our way to L’ Epihanie…..and it rained……and it rained…..and it rained! The “little bit” we were supposed to get probably ended up to be about 2 inches and turned the streets into big puddles on top of ice in the village of L’ Epiphanie. We parked in one spot and had to move over 10 ft. cause we were sitting in 4 inches of water to drop the dogs in! Stopped raining about 9pm and they decided that with some modifications to the trail, the race would go on! Johnson’s were at the driver’s meeting (from MN, Neal and Carolyn and their 2 little girls)- we hadn’t seen them in a long time, and Keith Bryar and Jimmy Lyman were up from NH.
Up the next morning to a beautiful sunny day- warm enough for only a couple of layers- but the trail was like a million pieces of glass (it had gotten cold overnite and by whatever scientific process, the snow had become crystalline). I talked to someone who had gone out in the 4 dog and he said the trail was pretty good –Now I was feeling a little bit confident because the map they had drawn of the trail showed huge, sweeping curves out in a flat field with very little head-on passing. The part about the fields was correct; the curves were pretty much mostly right angles and the turnaround loop was one of those deals where I went around sideways!! However, no falling, no losing team!!! Came in 11th!!
Randy had a fair day- left with 16 and 4 of them were not performing for a variety of reasons (mostly that the 14 mile trail with the ice crystals made for “instant fissures” (cuts in the palm of the dogs foot) which caused them to not pull, and often pull back on the neck line. He ended up 12th, not what he would have preferred, of course.
Jokingly (well, ½ jokingly anyway), the nite before at the driver’s meeting I had asked Sebastian (a young guy that quite often travels with Serge Pomerlau and his handler, Herve Bellanger) when we could come to have dinner with them in the huge, beautiful motor home that Serge has – so Sebastian says Serge wants us to come to dinner and if we want to bring something it could be dessert. So after we feed and ask a local dog driver going to the store to pick up cake for us at the grocery store, we go over to the “Serge Motorhome” (you may remember seeing a picture of it when we were at Daaquam and he got stuck in the snow next to us). It is quite luxurious and Serge is a wonderful host and chef. Dinner was delicious and we were all too full for cake!
Sunday I am a lot more nervous (darn butterfly stomach) cause I know the trail is not a piece of cake and I really don’t want to make any mistakes and drop down in the standings, but I want to go as fast as I can without screwig things up! The trail was faster, as it had been cold overnite, but about the same consistency of crystalline snow – it didn’t seem to bother my “fearless leaders”, Spiff and Fratz and they all pulled hard and came in strong, and I went around the trail very conservatively, slowing down at the corners, etc. Imagine my surprise when Randy brought me the results that not only had I not dropped any places, I had moved up to 10th!!! I think this is probably the best I have done in a competitive race (and though some of the competition was not there, like Melanie drove an 8 dog team instead of 6) it was still highly competitive!
Randy had a not so good day…….he made a driver error and should have put boots on all 4 feet of Holly instead of 2 and she didn’t want to run from the start and he had to stop and put her in the dog bag out only 2 miles. Then a snap on the leader’s neck line came open and Sarah stopped and backed out of her harness so tight that he could hardly get it back over her head, and then another neck line came off a dog and the dog also backed out his harness- so that was 3 times he had to stop and had a dog in the sled for 12 miles so he dropped from 12th to 17th. Not good. It was one of those “this is the last race we’re going to do this year” moments (which did pass and we’re doing 2 more races).
The awards at L’ Epihanie are the nicest of any of the Quebec races – free buffet dinner at the ceremony!! When I went up to get my check for 10th place I was surprised to hear loud cheering from the New Hampshire contingent and all around the room – I think people have seen me try hard and have problems all year and were happy I finally had been successful! I will publish the picture, but you won’t be able to tell it’s me in the black shirt and red ball cap, cause Randy took a picture of the back of me!
Randy has healed from the “dragging injury” but now his left knee is sprained and it’s really putting a crimp in his racing style (makes pumping to help the dogs impossible and turning corners painful) so he is pretty much limping very short distances- I, on the other hand, have less pain in my elbow so I am on the mend.
After the buffet/awards fed dogs in the dark and left for Bellerives and the “sugar shack” – left about 7:30p but as we left town Randy noticed that the alternator was not charging, which meant to him (certainly not to me) that the belt was broken – so we stopped at a closed store under a big light and Randy proceeded to pull a belt out of the back of the truck fixed things. The thing you have to recognize and appreciate about this man is that not only did he have the gauge to monitor, he diagnosed the problem, had the forsight to bring many extra parts for all kinds of problems, had the tools and the knowledge to do the job!! Pretty amazing husband I have!!! So we were back on our way in 15 minutes and back to the sugar shack by 9p.
Monday was a recovery day – all of us were very tired and napped and read much of the day until time to go out to the restaurant with Bellerives and Lou Serre. Talk about good dogsledding stories!!!!!
Lou – had 3 dogs not pulling in his team on Sunday and couldn’t fit all of them in the back so left them with someone on the trail , thereby getting disqualified – his dog’s feet need some healing-
Claude – fasted time on Sunday, but Saturday he stopped to load a dog and went off the trail into someone’s back yard, the dog escaped from the bag, then caught up with him later in the trail and he was able to coax the dog back to him and re-load him
Mellanie- Sat and Sun went off the trail (little to no birm on the trail in the fields) and needed help to get back on and still came in first place in the 8 dog
Casey Butler – head on passing Rudy Ropertz (this season’s leader in the unlimited and many other classes at every race, from Germany) and Rudy’s leaders jump over his team and cause a cluster – Casey is so upset he calls his Dad, Doug, on his cell phone while he is still racing!!!
And those are only the highlites!!!!! We all had to agree at dinner last nite, that dogsled racing provides an endless number of great stories of courage and stamina and frustration and humor and you can’t do it just because you have to win, you do it because you want to compete and do the best you and your dogs can do…how’s that for philosophical??!!
Tonite another dinner in the sugar shack with spaghetti sauce from Lou’s wife and me making 7 layer cookies (I just hope I can remember what the 7 layers are…..)
The pictures are of Randy and Diane Lyman at the starting and finishing chute, a movie showing some scenes from the truck, me getting my 10th place check from “very far away”, one of the characters they had for the kids, and some snow sculptures they were doing and pix of Melanie leaving the chute on Sunday with Claude and Randy in the backround- and oh yeah, some of the inside of the "infamous DeKuiper Dog Truck" - that's about as tidy as I can make it look!