If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all...........

We said a fond farewell to the Waltmans and Jan Shaw Tuesday night and Wednesday showered and loaded up dogs for a planned noon departure………..well that didn’t go so well…………  It had been very cold right up until 2 days ago and yesterday was right around freezing – so that meant that (even though it had just been plowed the night before….) as we were trying to drive out the ¼ mile, curvy driveway, the packed snow started breaking up and we couldn’t even make it up the first little hill – so here we are all packed and unplugged and all 19 dogs on the trailer and we can’t budge!!!!!!  So we tried to call the guy that owns the Deer Park Lodge to come down with his tractor and nobody answers the phone…..so Ashley (Jim O’s dog handler that lives in the pole barn apartment) takes the snow machine down to see why nobody is answering the phone….(she also works there).  She finally comes back and says Ric is on his way- so a half hour later he arrives and hooks on to our entourage and we make it to the first curve in the drive……….and get stuck on the snow bank because between the tractor and the tow strap and the length of the truck it’s too long to make the curve……….so we shovel and shovel and shovel, and some other family shows up to deliver eggs to Jan and their son helps shovel, and shovel and shovel…..we end up having to dig a hole into the ground to get sand out to give the truck tires traction but it keeps sliding over into the snow bank- at long last, Ric jerks it and gets it going and pulls it out to the road!!!!!!!  It only took 3 hours!!!!!!

So we are on our way and things are going pretty good until we stop to feed dogs and I look in our “house” and see that I forgot to put the 2 gallon water jug onto the floor before we left and it has fallen to the floor and cracked and there is water all over the place!!!!!!  Can this day get any better??????

So we get to the place where we drop dogs and pull out from the gas station and all of a sudden there are red lights flashing in the rear view mirror!!!!  It’s a weighmaster doing a “routine stop” because we look like we are heavy – which we are and that’s why Randy went to the trouble and expense of having it all weighed and registered with a log farm plate----well, that’s not good enough for Ontario – they want him to have all of the CDL forms filled out (log book, daily inspection, etc.) and to have a regristration for every province that we are going to go through!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  WHAT?????!!!!!!!!  How do they expect anybody with a travel trailer and pick up to enjoy coming to visit their country??????????????  He lets us go with instructions on where to stop next and get all the forms that need to be filled out and says he could have given us a $4000 fine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  At this point I am on the verge of crazy and stressed beyond belief (Randy too!!)

The next day we travel past Ottawa and spend Thursday nite without problems.  Friday we leave for our destination (St. Just de Bretenieres in Quebec) and race – it should have taken us 6 hours but we didn’t make it there until 6 o’clock!!!!!  It was raining and foggy and no visibility all the way – miserable driving- the only good thing was we stopped at a visitor center and the lady showed us a way to go around Montreal without having to drive through the very congested city!  Oh and on top of all this, my phone won’t charge!!!!! So instead of being able to use the up-to-date maps on the phone, I am using my not-up-to-date gps that shows we are driving where there are no roads!!!!!!  When my phone was down to 4% charged, I got a message from our daughter Amy telling me to check the port for debris so I whacked it on the dash a couple of times and blew into it and miraculously, it worked!!!

So we make it to St. Just on very very bad , bumpy, crappy roads in the fog and register for the race.  Randy drew first to go out in the unlimited class – now that can be a good thing (you don’t have to pass any slower teams ahead of you…..)  or a bad thing (if the trail is crappy you break trail for everybody behind you!)

During the night I hear the downpour switch over to sleet and hail and we wake up to 6 inches of granular snow on the ground and a blizzard!!!!!  The 4 dog was scheduled to start at 9 am but they were out on the trail then looking to see how it was – they found it slushy and icy around the corners and with lots of sharp twigs/bushes sticking up in the trail – so they have cancelled it for today!!!  Will this run of luck ever change?????!!!!!!