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 2^nd 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 1^st 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!!!!