St. Luc de Vincennes in Quebec Race

Oh boy am I behind in writing……………….or what!!!!!! (that was for you, Ocean!)
Got in to Charette at the Bellerive’s about an hour later than we had hoped – good roads clear weather all the way there; dropped the dogs after feeding and went up to the house………nobody home and the door locked…….but we knew where to find them……at the restaurant!!!!! They were very surprised to see us walk in the door and had worried we were not there when we thought.. Lots of catching up to do; they had made a trip to Italy with the Charette priest and Melanie was allowed only one shopping day (in between churches and the Vatican) but did manage to buy some Gucci things! Claude drove us up to the “Sugar Shack” for the nite (they had kept the drive open all winter not knowing when we were coming to stay – this year with the new truck we can’t make it up the drive (too tall) and can’t turn around to come down again (too long!). Slept fast and up to breakfast at the same restaurant (it’s Claude’s relative’s) with Bellerives,, more catching up and I was able to show them the album we got from our kids and grandkids for Christmas – they were very impressed and told me a word in French that means “a very good memory book” but I don’t remember what it is (at first Melanie called it a souvenir – different meaning in Quebec!). Spent quite a bit of time working in Bellerive’s house (really fast wifi in the house) on my MoriningStar Health job on the computer and telephone (that also really makes the time go fast on the road!!!! And the pricing for aircard and telephone use is a lot more reasonable this year than last!) and we left for the race site (about an hour trip) for the draw meeting – well Randy had a poor draw (14 of 26 open teams) but I had the worst!! – 43 out 52 teams in the 6 dog ( as you will find out later it really didn’t make a big difference……..) Got to see lots of people from both US and Quebec that we haven’t seen in a year (Fran Plaisted, Steve Long and Lisa, the Butlers, Keith Bryar and Jimmy Lyman and their wives, Guy Dufour, Guy Girard, Lou Serre, Serge Pomerlou, John Boisennault, and many many more (sorry for butchering the spelling)
Saturday morning was cold and windy (so the hard fast trail was going to stay hard and fast……..not my first choice….). The 6 dog event was first and I had plenty of butterflies. Melanie had forewarned me that there was one bad corner that was hard and fast and banked the wrong way, so you would slide out of the corner even more that normal – but couldn’t remember which one! Ran the first 1/3 of the trail very conservatively, putting my drag down to slow them a bit before the curve coming up and got wobbly a few times where there was “stepping” of the edges of the curves, popped out of the woods, thought, “Oh my gosh, there’s a turn already, next thing I know (I know this is no surprise to many of you out there…….) I found myself lying on the outside of the “badly banked, horror turn” still gripping the driving bow!!!! Wonder of wonders, the dogs were standing still, I jumped up back on the runners and away we went! The rest of the course was pretty uneventful and the one-year old I had at point didn’t even shy at the people taking pictures and the road crossings as much as I thought she would. The leader, Molly that Randy loaned me from his team did a great job of keeping up with my boy, Spiff. Not so good on the standings…….my conservatism and fall only put me at 36th place – didn’t really plan on anything spinortinous (thanks, Mom Shirley for that word) but didn’t expect whale poop either.
Randy hooked up 18 and has been training 18 miles so was hoping they would do well on a 14 mile race; he took off well and came back feeing very good; only a slight hiccup with the point dog Ace with his leg over the neck line for about a mile until he got himself out of it; much to our dismay, he ended up in 13th for the day! Other than that it was a clean run, maybe a little too fast for some of the dogs in the team.
After feeding dogs took a 2 hour nap, dropped dogs and then went to bed on our very comfortable new futon (amazing how tired you can get falling down and wrestling with dogs outdoors in cold weather all day!!!
Up at the crack of 8 on Sunday, still very cold and windy, but many saying the course doesn’t look as icy today. 6 dog teams out at 11, plenty of time for me to be planning how to get around the trail without giving the dogs a rest today…….not quite as nervous and know not much at stake as low as I am in the standings. Good start except the 1 year old point dog, Spec was more shy today than yesterday, and to make things worse, Runzl the other point, thinks she is in season and wants to play kissy face around the trail – especially when I am in the loop coming home……..not good while making a turn! So I hear someone from behind say “stop your team” and I am thinking where did he come from cause we left 2 minutes apart but nobody caught me yesterday even when I fell!!! So I slow down and a young kid from Maine, Alex passes me and we’re now staying right on his tail…..and now I realize where I am…..at the dreaded curve…….wrench the driving bow, stay in the middle of the trail and make it around the corner and what is in the middle of the trail ahead……..Alex with his team stopped and trying to untangle his dogs!!!!!!!! So we pass him, then he comes up behind us and passes us again, then we get to the last ½ mile and who is off his sled trying to turn his dogs back onto the trail with trail help after they followed some other team’s tracks off the trail and so we pass him again! Of course every time we are doing this passing back and forth and back and forth the point dog is shying and is taking 100 yards to quit backing off and running again. So we finally finish and Randy tells me somebody must have goofed and let Alex leave a minute too soon after me which was why he was able to catch me so easily. The end result was I moved up 2 places and had good experiences for both me and the yearling!
Randy’s second day was a good clean run, no passes and ended up 14th! Our friends did better, Melanie 1st in the 6 dog and Claude 4th in the unlimited (after a bad day yesterday with a leader that didn’t work) A note to the Michigan mushers: Randy has 3 good females for somebody to run the rest of the winter that will be available in the next couple of days; give us a call on the cell phone 616.350.8780 – because thanks to Claude Bellerive we have 2 faster dogs he thinks will be able to do the 25 mile trail at the Fur Rondy!!!
Back to the Bellerive’s and dinner with them, early to bed, early to rise to get going, breakfast at the restaurant and very sad goodbyes - especially when we spent almost 3 months with them last year and this year only 3 days (We are leaving with wonderful memories as always of our dear friends, and a little special gift from Melanie to Randy…….his favorite sugar pie!!)
Left Bellerive’s at 11 and it is now 7:15 and we are almost out of Toronto – probably a half hour snail’s pace due to a small car-huge truck accident in the road; going to stop and feed shortly. Over and out for tonight!