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!!!