Good race day!!!

Had a peaceful/uneventful Thursday nite--  Up again not very early (I did have one naughty “child” that insisted on barking in the middle of the night even when I went into the back to  verbally “correct” him….  Because he wouldn’t stop I ended up putting a tool box over the front of his door that pretty much blocked his view and he finally stopped.

We fed breakfast and then tidied things up knowing we would be making the hour or so trip to the race site this afternoon.  I even colored my hair!  Had to go into the barn and wash it out in the sink, but you work with what you have!!!!

The trip to Epiphanie was good (we saw the Bellerives coming home from Ontario on the other side of the expressway – in case I didn’t let you know yesterday, Claude won the World Championship in the unlimited class and Melanie in the 6!!!!)  We are parked now at the race site in the downtown area of the little city and got the form to fill out for entering the race at the meeting at 7pm.  The brochure says they are having pony rides, horse-drawn wagon rides, fat tire bike rides, zumba and African dancing shows, maple syrup on ice (called “Bar de glace et terrasse exterieure”), feestyle dog shows, and art fair, ;and of course, the dogsled race!!!  Sounds like a fun weekend coming up!!  I will write tomorrow!

And today was a perfect day for dogsledders!!!  About freezing and over cast.  Didn’t have to be racing until 2pm (Randy drew 2^nd place in the draw) so went back to bed at 9 am to 11 am –(feeling a bit achey breaky).  Got the dogs ready to go from 1 to 2 pm and took them up to the line (about a 100 yard trip) good start off as it looked to me. 

Now we are in the trailer doing the post-mortem on the race – Randy had Oslo and Fred in lead and Fred did tremendous!!!!!!!!!  He (as a 2 year old) ended up pulling Oslo over most of the 13 mile trail.  Randy did get to 20.9 mph at some point and was at 18mph a lot of the time but said the trail was so curvy that it scared him in a couple of places!!  Some slush, some soft snow, some ice and some flat and hard.  With all that, he came in 12^th of 18 teams!  Not as good as he felt like he had done but when you look at the names of the drivers ahead of him and know how good those kennels are, it is very good!!! (I will keep that up till he starts believing me…………)  It is quite good considering that Oslo in lead didn’t really pull he just dipped a lot of snow!!

So tomorrow should be a great day now that he knows what the trail is like and how the dogs performed today!!  Homemade turkey soup from our house for dinner!!!