Happy New 2015!!! We hope this year finds you happy and well!
Haven’t gotten around to blogging yet since the only
interesting things that have been happening are training, getting sick with
whatever the name flu bugs and colds, training, exposing the young dogs (which
comprises over ½ of our racing dogs) to a race scenario at Kalkaska (by the
way, it sure wasn’t the same without all
the Edges – that means you, Tom, there – hope you are healing fast from your
shoulder surgery) where we fared moderate to fair……(including Mark Kukal that
ran my 4 dog team when I found out it was supposed to be a treacherous trail
and Mark found ½ way down the trail that the experienced leader he had, Al,
didn’t want to run lead for him and he had to put a yearling in lead….),
training, and oh yeah, Randy dragging down the ice road and me hitting him with
the snowmobile runner! I will tell
that story in a minute –
We just got into Laconia, NH and are finding that we may
have some trouble fitting into our parking spot for the race tomorrow when they
assign us a spot according to starting order – we have a new trailer and still
the very big blue GMC 5500 and are 53 feet long! Even before that we had some trouble finding the race site
because it might be about 7 years or so since we have been here!
We left home on Tues promptly at 1:13 pm (Randy wanted to
leave at 1:15 – I try to accommodate……) and had to get 10 rabies shots at Doc
Gilbert’s in Big Rapids so that was the reason for the late start. On the “real” road by 3p and got as far
as Cabelas in Dundee, MI and thought it looked like a good spot to stop to feed
– then we looked in Cabela’s for some new winter boots for me – none……….we ate
dinner at a restaurant and thought we were tired enough (having loaded 20 dogs
and winterizing the house) to stay the nite – they have a nice big parking lot
behind the store plenty big enough for 20 semis. It worked good.
Up at the crack of 8am and fed breakfast and drove (except for dropping
2 hours later to relieve the breakfast “residuals”) until about 6 and fed a
couple hours west of Albany NY at a turnpike rest stop (we decided to take the
“southern route” to avoid going thru customs in and out of Ontario – after we
got to Buffalo, it was the same route as if we had gone thru Ontario. So we went from Dundee, around
Cleveland, up to Erie PA, then to Buffalo NY and then took the NY thruway (as
they call it out here) all the way to Albany (for the mere price of $48.20 –
Randy said “what????? We aren’t a semi!” And she said “your have 4 axles don’t
you???) We spent the nite at yet
another of the NY thruway rest stops – which are very nice but not worth the
$48…). This morning up a little
earlier at 7. We did have one
dismaying incident during the nite at about 12:30 am– we don’t know how cold it
actually was outside or it got in here, but Randy woke up because his bald head
was cold and the furnace had kicked the circuit breaker out – by the time I got
back it bed I had a case of “frozen feet” that took more than a little while to
thaw!
On the road this morning about 8:30 and left NY and went
thru the smallish, quaintish city of Bennington VT – then the fun started – you
know you can never tell by those maps or by our GPS what kind of topography you
are “in for” – well let me tell you, Hog Back Mountain is right up there with
some of the mountains in AK! Twice
we went down 8% grades and we were glad that Randy had purchased an add-on
exhaust brake (like a “jake brake”) – for those of you like me not
knowledgeable about such things, it slows your vehicle down by shutting down
the turbo, which in turn puts back pressure on the motor , which then slows the
vehicle down going down hills= simple, huh?? It makes it a lot less scary going down steep hills/mountains
– we wish we had had something like it in AK!!
So once out of the mountains pretty straight on 9 to Concord
and then to Laconia where we are about to feed and then drop to be able to go
to the 7p drivers meeting and find out which of these small spots we are going
to park in!
Soooo this is the story of our last training before we left
–as promised. It was the 2nd
time of training with the sled and me following on the snowmobile – 14 dogs
that Randy wanted to run together to prepare for Laconia- it all started in the
middle of the nite when I couldn’t sleep and it occurred to me that tomorrow is
Saturday and there might be a lot of snowmobiles out on the trails interfering
with Randy’s run and causing some problems…..next day we are hooking up and
Randy says “be sure and put your extra coat on before we are done hooking the
dogs up so you can be close with the snowmobile when I make that first right
angle road corner” – that was the second hint…… He starts out good and I am right behind him if he needs me
and splat…down he goes flipped over because of a big dirt patch on the corner
where the snow plow had just plowed ( I know we should have checked in advance
but hadn’t seen any dirt on the roads leading up to that point)– I am now in
intense anxiety and pressure mode because he is dragging down the road for
about a block trying to get one of the 2 snow hooks into the bare road and it
isn’t happening! I try to ease my
way up to the side of the sled so he can set one of the hooks on the snowmobile
and I hear a “thud” (kind of like the noise you would expect if you dropped a
pumpkin a foot from the ground….) and saw I had hit him with the runner!!! Oh my God…..now do I have a husband
dragging with a concussion???? He
managed to get the snow hook or something else to stop the 14 dogs for a second,
I jumped off the snowmobile and grabbed a snow hook and hooked it into the seat
frame and then say the team pulling the snowmobile and Randy down the road only
to then miraculously jump back on the snowmobile and apply the brake!! Yes there were injuries….. one on the
forehead from the bouncing snow hook and one on the top of his head that he has
hit 2 more times since then (why is it when we get older we think we are
shorter????) and an coat tear and abrasion on his shoulder. So he gets back underway on the sled
and things are going mostly well for about 7 miles except that we notice that a
truck had driven down our trail!@!!
and we look ahead and there are 6 Jeep Wranglers stopped in the middle
of the trail and there is no way we can pass around them because we are in deep
woods and narrow trail– our perfectly groomed almost-like-Alaska-trail – Randy
yells until someone looks out the window of the last one and they start moving
ahead…very slowly… At this point
we don’t know what’s going to happen and so Randy hooks the snow hook to the
runner of the snowmobile (yes, the same one I hit him with..) and we go down
the trail slowly following these people until they finally turn right- but they
don’t just turn they churn the entire intersection up into ruts! We get to the left turn we need to make
to go home (mind you Randy is still hooked to me) and I can’t get the
snowmobile turned sharp enough to make it so the main line is tight against the
tree and the wheel dogs are too – Randy tries to pull out so that I can move
ahead around the tree but it’s too much pressure from the dogs so he unhooks
all the tug lines so they can’t pull so hard and tries to pull out on the main
line and me go ahead again – well I went ahead but not without running my left ski
up onto a sapling and tipping myself over on the side “narrowly missing my body
by inches” (as the news reporters would say…) so we notice gas leaking out of
the tank and know we have to right the machine as fast as possible – try once,
no go – try twice and up!!
Unbelievably the rest of the run goes pretty good. One of those days when you ask yourself
“why do we do this???”
I will let you know how the race goes tomorrow – we know we
are not competitive and are mostly doing it for the fun and to teach the
yearlings about racing, so we will see how it goes!!
We went to the driver’s meeting at a pretty nice restaurant
named Patrick’s Pub – and who should we see as we walk in the front door
?? the Bellerive contingent from
Quebec, our good friends for the last 9 years!! They were waiting for a table so we had dinner with
them. It was so good to catch
up. Everyone was well with the
exception of Patrick, Melanie’s significant other, who has what the doctor
diagnosed as trigeminal neuralgia, causing him pain worse than a migraine
would. They had the draw for
places, and unbelievably, Randy drew 1st place!!!!! It’s too bad we don’t have a
crackerjack team to take advantage of the luck!!!
Friday –
Very, very, very,very cold – just as they predicted – sunny
but very windy. They had the usual
introductions of the open drivers and singing of both the US and Canadian
national anthems- meanwhile I am putting something called “Zeus Juice” on the
14 dog’s feet and on the testicles of the dogs without much hair there……. Randy gets back from the ceremony and I
have a dog out that I shouldn’t have had out and 2 that were not out that
should have been (an issue with the magnet board and one of the dog’s name
missing) so while we are scrambling around to get the right dogs and get them
hooked up the local TV station thinks it’s a good time to video us and try to
do an interview – I got so hot even as cold and windy as it was I ended up
throwing my hat off – we got up to the line without too much problem (one dog
slipped her collar and 2 more backed out of their harnesses) and he was
off!! He had a fair run- Dee in
lead stopped to poop twice and pee once and she and Scar stopped dead on one of
the hills – so he ended up 13 of 14 teams. He didn’t have as bad a time as Hermel Bergeron who fell and
hit his head on a snow bank, lost a dog and then had trouble getting his snow
hook out to finish the race!!
Saturday –
It’s about as cold temperature-wise but no wind – also no
sun – we are supposed to get about 8 inches of snow tonite and be below zero
for the actual temperature and very strong wind for tomorrow.
Well who would think that we could do worse today than
yesterday……………Randy changed leaders because Dee was so bad about stopping on
the trail and so he put Doe in lead with her mother Scar – well Doe had only
raced once so she wanted to quit before Randy got a mile out….twice – so then
he put Dee back in – then he had to stop again and put in a yearling Caleb and
she did good until there got to be too many people on the sidelines and she
quit and he had to put in a “will lead” dog , Blanche, and she wanted to jump
the trail and take a shortcut back to the start because she knew she was
close!!! So all in all we have
last place firmly sewn up!
Maybe out to dinner tonite since it is Valentine’s Day!!!
Did go out for dinner –prime rib!!!! Sorry we haven’t been able to
post sooner!!!!
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