Yesterday while we were eating lunch at Tim Horton’s (a Canadian-based fast food chain) and I was using wifi we had visitors stop by – first was Don Mayter (I think that’s how he said he spells his name) who is a local native (by native I mean “first nation”, Indian) and he is going to help Randy and I start the race tomorrow – it will be pretty hectic because the 10 dog mass start with about 20 teams starts first at 10 am and all the 10-dog trucks will be parked right up next to the start line – then ½ hour all the 6-dog teams go out – so that means that we will have to bring 2 6-dog teams up from the back of the parking lot and hook on somebody else’s truck to take off!! I am excited and very nervous all at the same time! So then while we were still having lunch Randy meets Dave Hochman in the bathroom! He was with a friend and fellow dog racer, Rachel who did very well racing last weekend at Thompson, Manitoba. We had a nice visit –we hadn’t seen Dave since Laconia in 2005 so there was much to catch up on!! After we ate we headed back to the parking spot. When we got back it was still mid-afternoon so we decided to try out Randy’s latest invention – the outriggers that Penlands made for him – you will see in the picture is is 6 “poles” that are attached to the truck and trailer and have a chain running through the outer end of them – then he attaches chains with snaps around the truck giving the dogs almost as much room as they have at home – some of them really liked it and moved around a lot and some were just like they are at home and pretty much stood there and watched everybody else – we can easily put 12 dogs out at a time – we had the first group out over and hour and then unhooked them and let them run around free-dropped for about 15 minutes – nobody fought and nobody ran away so that was a big success!!!! (we had been doing that when we come back from training runs this season and I guess it worked pretty good!) Then we took the second ½ of the dogs out and did the same thing – and that worked well too! So everybody was happy----the dogs cause they were out extra, and Randy because his most recent brainstorm worked!! This morning it was slightly cooler than it had been and we were disappointed (but not totally surprised because it happens all the time when you travel with dogs around other dogs….) that most everybody had watery diarrhea!! It could have been something in the food but most likely we picked something up when we trained 2 days ago. Today is registration day for the race and they do it very differently here…..much of it probably has to do with it being a mass start. We are parked at a tire barn/service business caters to even semis and trailers called Gordy’s (because Gordy owns it…) All of the teams come here and literally drive through their semi bay and register today and have the dogs chipped (for the 10-dog) or painted (for the 6-dog) – (each truck takes about ½ hour and it takes all day until 4-m )and pay their fees and get tickets for the “briefing” (which is the driver’s meeting) tonite at the Kinsman Lodge (something like Rotary but not…) and for the awards banquet on Saturday nite which is called the “wind up meeting”! They were gracious enough to come to our truck in the parking lot an come in and paint our 12 dogs for the 6 dog race – I only got neon pink paint on me in two places! As we were feeding the dogs at 3 pm the Cook family arrived and we visited with them and went into more detail about why we never made it to their race in Preeceville. We will probably see them and visit again tonite at the meeting/dinner. So now we are ready to drip again at 5p and then to go and find out where to park for the meeting (not only do we not know exactly where the meeting is downtown but we don’t know where we are going to park….and it will be very busy with a parade and all…)and maybe even watch the parade. So we left just after 5 to find a parking spot downtown and were just early enough to find a great one and then we found where we were having the meeting/dinner on foot and then we waited about ½ hour before the parade started – it was great – so may floats that reflected the true “Trapper Festival” theme!! And they threw the most candy and all kinds of things that I have ever seen thrown at a parade!! I wasn’t even trying to get any but felt bad the kids around me were giving up picking it up and I got a bowl full! Then we went to the meeting/dinner and had wonderful stew (don’t really know what meat was in it……could have been moose, caribou, elk, deer……but it was delicious and very tender – we also had bannak bread (don’t know for sure how to spell) which our son Luke would remember from a trip we took into Canada when he was in his teens and then I tried to replicate it at home on a campfire – just flour baking soda and salt and delicious! They read the rules and introduced all the mushers – 20 10-dog teams and 15 6’s - from every province in Canada, Oregon, Sweden, Alaska (The Kornmullers) and us from Michigan. The organizers were very pleased to have such varied representation! After the meeting we got water for dogs at a gas station and filled the generator for the long haul and put chains on the truck for the downhill entry to the race site – we are parked and ready to stay for the duration!! Did I tell you the race starts with a shotgun??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will try to post tomorrow by walking up to town to a wifi!! The way I feel right now at 2:30 I don’t know if I will be able to walk downtown – maybe ½ mile- to somewhere that has wifi ------------ So if you don’t want to read the most harrowing dogsled story of my life, skip this part and read ahead…………… It started out with me not being able to sleep all nite – even though I took the nitetime pills…………got up in the morning ( by the way, Happy Valentine’s Day) and it was sunny and Randy thought we only needed to get up by 8 for a 10:30 race………….so we fed breakfast and put them back in and I went through the “decisive” process of picking out what I was wearing……..by this I don’t mean a fashion statement….I mean how much long underwear, how many coats, which hat and whether glasses or goggles…….. We dropped all the dogs for the second time and then it was time for the 10 dog race – Ray Cook has asked Randy to watch his team as he took off so I interrupted harnessing the 12 we had to get ready to go watch the start of the 10 dog – I was amazed at how close the shotgun was – many team leaders shied and vaulted left or right instead of going straight – and so I saw how this was going to go……….. We got our dogs hooked up on vehicles at the start line and then started to hook them in – I could hear the announcer telling how many minutes to start time so we were “spot-on” for the start time – at the gun I released my tie to the truck and took off but wanted to follow Randy’s instructions about keeping the drag down for awhile…………..until I looked down and saw my drag was broken and hanging from only one side- in fact when I looked down I was standing on it on top of my runner! So I decide I am at a disadvantage not being able to slow them down unless using the brake but figure out I could still use the drag (it is a piece of snowmobile track that you can step on to slow them down instead of stopping them altogether with the brake) and keep them out of the fray ahead of me ( come to find out there were not only 15 teams, somehow now there are 31 teams in this race!!!!) I am trying to avoid all the clashes between dog teams that I see before me so I am holding back….then out of the blue I hear Randy’s voice……….from behind me….he should have been way farther ahead and I am amazed! (come to find out later as he was releasing his team, the gal handling her husband’s team next to us was watching her husband leave instead of what was coming up behind her…so Randy “clothesline” her and someone had to come help her get untangled from his team and that is why he left last out of the start…….) So he gave me instructions along the first 3 miles (but didn’t hear me when I shouted out to him that I had no real drag….) and it was comforting to know he was there – then he passed me and I lost site of him with me not driving as aggressively….so for a long ways – probably 4 miles I was stuck behind 2 teams that were b locking the trail with no way to pass – then we got close to the turn around loop (which I was told was supposed to be an easy large curve…….which was in actuality a hairpin……..) and all of a sudden the 28 teams ahead of me started coming back and head-on passing----------this is something I have done many times in Quebec in the first years we raced there; but this was something far more “clustered….” – I kept stopping my team because the teams in front of me wouldn’t head-on pass and pretty soon there were about 10 teams all tangled and/or trying to go back on the homegoing trail! A team came at mine and got very tangled with the leaders and the 2 dogs behind them (point dogs) and it was so bad that many (like about 10) people jumped in from where they were watching the race to help! I couldn’t put my snow hook in the puffy snow and have it hold so I had to watch (primarily Eddy Streeper) unhook, then untangle, then re-hook my front 4 so I could go ahead! While I was stopped getting untangled, I was amazed to see my favorite hero get off his sled, straighten it out, then jerked his team into the center of the melee and went through the mess – you are right…..Randy DeKuiper!!!! I did go ahead and then my leaders thought they were suppose to go left/Haw into the turn-around loop and so I ran through 2 bales of hay and tipped and dragged a few feet – and then they caught the leaders and said to just let me go through it backwards = so I did and made it through and back on the home coming trail – there were only a few teams left out with me but I managed to pass 2 of them back and pumped at the end hoping to be 3rd from last but ended up 2nd from last (30th of 31)…………. All in all, a great experience, but I am not too sure I would want to make this a “regular” thing……….. Randy lost time with the girl being run over by our team and then at the finish, Echo, our big leader, did the same thing to Randy he did to me in the North American Limited last year………..he stopped to poop ¼ mile from the finish line and so 4 teams passed him while he was “doing his business”………….so Randy ended up 20th – neither of us had a very good “showing” but showed unrelentlessness in the face of adversity!!!!!.................as always! Friday we woke to a much colder day – didn’t really know what the temp was (someone told me -21 C) and to a lot of very sore muscles – I just don’t seem to be able to drag anymore without having it hurt the next day………….Started off the same as the day before only this time a handler was in my team’s way and got clotheslined by my team – got right into the thick of things and as we were approaching the place in the trail that runs next to the hi way and I heard Randy’s voice behind me……….again today! He had stopped because his wheel dog Sioux had shied from a passing team and was tangled in Jackson’s neckline – so while he was hooked down I actually passed him not even knowing it – you would be amazed with all of those teams clumped together on the trail, some of them running the tral 3-wide all you can think of is trying to avoid crashing………..kind of like dog demolition derby in reverse…….so he followed me for maybe a mile and then told me to lift my drag up and let him pass because I was slowing him down – so I let him pass (and do you know that of all times for the camera to slip down on his driving bow on the sled it was all the time I was in front of him so you can’t see me in the movie at all………..) This day they had the turn around fixed so there wasn’t any head on passing and I made it around the loop fine – the dogs had a problem passing one team on the right so after I tried it twice I dropped them back and told the leaders to haw over and we slipped right around them – probably the most “finesse” I have ever shown driving a team – I finished at the far left of the line up of trucks at the start line and needed to be a foot ball long’s worth at the other end to be by our truck – so I waited…….and waited………and waited to have someone come and lead my team back to our truck…………and finally like 5 minutes later (which seems like and eternity when you are trying to hold 6 dogs with a brak……) Randy came and got me – it turns out that I was only 21 seconds slower than him and he had just enough time to take his dogs off the line before he came to look for me!!!! Not bad for a Grandma! So the final standings were Randy 20th and me 26th out of 31 – probably no prize money but the experience of a lifetime!!!! This morning we thought we would sleep in but the dogs didn’t have the same idea – got up and fed and then dropped after the start of the 3rd day of the 10 dog (which I might add is really bothering Randy that he could only run a 6 dog team because ours were not ready to go 35 miles………). We were very pleased to see Kevin Cook come in 1st day 1 and 2 and even more fun was to see Don Cousins come in 3rd yesterday and we hope that he hung on to 3rd again today when we see the final numbers/times. We just watched the 4 dog race leave mass start and it was every bit as exciting as the 6 and 10! This afternoon we are feeding at 3 and then dropping at 5 to be ready for the “Wind up dinner” at 6 – hope we don’t have any trouble pulling out of the parking lot – it’s a pretty steep grade up! Will publish some pictures as soon as I have time!!!