Can't believe how fast time goes by!!!!

The Tahquamenon Sled Dog Race meeting on Thursday was good – I mostly sat and visited with Carol during the meeting but Randy enjoys meeting with the people interested in dogsledding – at the end of the meeting Margaret Harvey wanted to know who her “snowplowing fairy” was and we all pointed to Randy – he ahd done her driveway 2 days before so she would be able to get to her house when she arrived.

Friday we trained both teams with the snow machine and skipped the sled for the day – we ran shorter because we are already figuring by looking at the 90 day forecast for Anchorage Alaska that they are going to have a hard time putting on a race – they have rain and high temps forecasted for the time the race would go.  If we don’t go to Alaska that means we will be in Quebec and the longest the race ever is (and frequently is even less than advertised due to conditions….) 16 miles – we are already going over 20 so we may as well start doing some shorter runs so they don’t get bored with the mileage and the trails – so we only went 11 miles on Friday.  

Saturday we got up and started getting ready to travel “downstate” – we did leave right after feeding at 1:30 – stopped for a short visit with our priest, Fr. Joe Fix, in Evart – he has done radiation and is almost finished with his chemo treating lung cancer – he looked pretty good, all things considered but was very tires having just said Mass.  We got home about 8 and found a lovely fire going in the wood stove and a dish of peanutbutter fudge on the counter!!!  Our wonderful neighbor, Dee Krise, had been down and warmed the house for us = when we are gone there is only a space heater going to keep the pipes from freezing in the back room so the rest of the house gets pretty darn cold – depending on the temp outside it takes a couple of hours to get things “unthawed”!

Sunday we were at Spanky’s Pizza in Fremont by 11am – people started straggling in and the buffet opened and by the time all had arrived we had 20!  Presents were opened (Elaina got the award for “most excited acting over a Christmas present” with the 4 dinosaurs she got – almost hysterical with joy!!!!!!)  We had a really nice time visiting and catching up knowing that we won’t see them all again for at least 3 months!!!

Then back in the truck and drove back the 5 and half hours to the “UP cabin” – got home about 9 – 

Monday neither of us felt really great and the trail was too soft to train dogs (if we used it, it would chew it up ….) so we just laid low all day.

Today Randy is out trying to groom/pack the old trails on this side of the road the we used for the first 2 months – there is considerably less snow than there was even Friday so perhaps he will get it packed enough we won’t hurt their feet if we train today – the forecast for Newberry is not looking great………rain and high 30’s for tomorrow but then snow for 3 days after – we are hoping that just being a half hour north and on Lake Superior will make it be colder here and give us more snow- Randy was already talking about going to Quebec (where we found out from the Bellerives has 3 feet of snow!!!) last nite when he first heard about the forecast of rain here!  Can’t argue with “Mother Nature”!!!!!!!

Training went good today – not too bad since Randy had only gone over once just this morning!  There were just a few 1-2 inch soft spots in the trail but snowmachines had been driving over most of it – 11.5 miles – so tomorrow we will run again thinking that it’s going to rain in the afternoon and maybe the next couple days and maybe the trail will go “to pot”!!!!