Back to Quebec!

2/2/10 - On the road again………….just can’t wait to get on the road again!! This time to Quebec to do the race at St. Luc de Vincennes (our friends the Bellerive’s race) and if this trip with the new truck goes well, then back home for 2 days next week and then off to Anchorage, Alaska for Randy to do the Fur Rondy (the 75^th one so it should be a pretty exciting time!!)

A bit of history to fill in the gaps – The first race we did this year was Kalkaska Michigan because the new red truck needed more work (more than the almost double the cost of the truck that we already put into it-) and we were having trouble getting the furnace and the generator in the “bookmobile trailer” (I call it that because that is actually what it was/is – the Muskeon Township Bookmobile! - Randy took most of the stickers of but you can still see a lot of the printing) The 2 weeks after that we were getting a “cold leak” fixed(have you ever heard of that in a diesel engine – when the engine is cold the gaskets leak antifreez). We did train on our trails (which stayed good in spite of the rain and then “0” temperatures) and the dogs are up to 17 miles without too much trouble. We did have one bad training experience (more for the driver and not the dogs!!) At a part of the trail that Randy extended not too long ago to be able to get the 17 miles in, there were some small, but very sturdy, oak trees at the curve – I was following him around the trail with the snowmobile for the first time on the trail with the sled – just before he got to that curve, in his head he said he was thinking “ I wonder if those little trees are going to give when I go around the corner???” – you guessed it – sturdy little suckers stopped the runner and flipped him up in the air (I got to see the whole thing…….makes me feel not so bad about all of my falls!!) and bam, down on the ground and the team was off on a rollicking jaunt by themselves!!! I sped up to my fallen hero and thought he would jump on the back of the snowmobile we would catch up to the team and he would jump from the snowmobile to the sled like something out of a Roy Rogers movie…………nope, he told me to get in the back and he drove us up to the team, passed them and the leaders got caught in a small tree while they were backing off!!! Than God for snowmobiles! Randy is a little bruised but none of the dogs got tangled or hurt.

So in the morning we busily packed (you would be surprised how much stuff you need for 28 kids and their parents and the parents living/eating quarters!) and left the house at 3p – over the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron about 8:30 and figured that we got at least 10 miles to the gallon – which is super!! We got through Customs with only about a 10 minute grilling (always an anxiety-provoking part of the trip!!!!!!!) and stopped for the nite east of London at a car pool parking lot (that of course had a sign that said “no trucks” but which my husband said would be OK. Had a pretty restful nite on the new futon and the most wonderful thing was that, this morning upon wakening to temps in the 20’s in the trailer, Randy could reach over and turn on the generator and have the furnace start up automatically! Tomorrow morning we’re going to set it up so that the coffee pot will start too!! We are just getting into Toronto – time to start my “copilot” duties!

It's 6:10 pm and we are finally out of Montreal! Lots of slow downs - we thought it might be bad but we used up all of our "good road luck" going through Toronto!! We should be at Bellerives within the hour (just slightly later than we wanted to be) and then feed the dogs and hopefully have some visit time and be able to show them the "DeKuiper Kids and Grandkids" album. I will try and write again tomorrow - Goodnight Zoey, Aeja, Caitlin, Ocean and Oak and don't let the bed bugs bite!!!