Welcome 2017!!!!

This year my baby, Lucas, turns 40 and my other "baby", Randy, turns 70!!!  Big year and here we start the racing season!!!

A couple of weeks ago Randy decided that he wanted to participate in the IFSS race in Haliburton Ontario, Canada.  So with double the racing fee for being late we began to make plans.. Those plans included having to put microchips in all of the 16 dogs he plans to race - sooooooo $730 later we have chips and rabies certificates and were ready to leave 1/21 for the race that actually starts on 1/24.  (Monday is a vet check so we left early). 

We started out on Saturday just after 12noon which was what we had planned.  the roads were clear but the fog was terrible!!!!  we made one wrong turn (or lack thereof....) and ended up driving around Bay City for a 1/2 hour.....   Had one of those miraculous border crossings in Port Huron (uneventful, without problems or inspections..) and more awful fog.  Stopped to feed at 5 at an En Route on the 401 and more fog.   Stopped for the nite at another En Route just before Toronto.  Good nite but only 1/2 of the dogs ate their supper.

Up at the crack of 9 (amazing those dogs let us sleep in so long???) and found our way up a very circuitous route to Minded and then on to the Haliburton Forest.  It is 80,000 acres of privately owned land that is used for a variety of year round activities including dog sledding -  lots and lots and lots of groomed trails (even though the snow is quite melty and shallow and mostly ice covered with water in all the parking lots).  We scoped the place out and found a parking spot for the nite.  Already met 2 guys from the Checkloslovakia (spelling????) running in the skijouring class.  More people will be arriving tomorrow so more to tell then!!!!