What a whirlwind week it was with Ocean here! We trained only 2 days of the time he was here but that was different for me because I stayed home while the 2 of them were out on the trail!!! So I was even more of “just the dog handler”………… He had 2 pretty exciting training runs because the snowmachine quit on the trail and the dogs and the men had to pull it most of 10 miles home!!!! After I realized they were over ½ hour later than they should have been I took the other snowmachine out looking for them and found Ocean waiting for someone to come out and get him in the middle of nowhere!!!
The most dogs he ran was 3 because we ran out of time and snow….. Friday nite Jesse, Cindy and the rest of the kids drove up to stay at Deer Park Lodge for 2 nites. We took them out to dinner Friday nite to the Wolf Inn and ate with Carol and John Waltman and Jan Shaw and her son-in-law - they were very pleased to meet our family!
Saturday morning we went down to their cabin for a big breakfast and then were on the road to Taquamenon Falls –about 45 minute drive north and east of here. That was very fun – only Jess had seen them before so they were all pretty amazed at how big they were and how close you can get!! After that we went to the Lake Superior beach across from Muskellonge State Park and went rock hunting – we were all looking for agates, and found some that remotely looked like they might have been……..but not really! By then it was time for dinner so we came back here to our “very crowded with 10 people in it house” and made chili and the kids all got to go around the 4 mile training trail pulled on the sled by the snowmachine. Then we got Greg (last year’s lead dog) out and he pulled 5 kids down the driveway!!!!! He was a little whipped by the 5thkid!!! But they all had a blast!! After chili, Oak made a bonfire and we roasted marshmallows and had s’mores and made “footprint drawings” in the snow. The 3 big kids stayed here over nite and we ended the day by playing the “DeKuiper version” of charades!
Sunday morning we all went to 9 am Mass in Newberry and then out to breakfast – it had snowed about 8 inches overnight and it was beautiful so the roads we not great going into town!!! It looked like a fairyland- when we got home after saying goodbye to family, we noticed the lights kept flickering…………yup; the snow must have caused some lines to be down so we all of a sudden had no power!!! It only lasted about 3 hours but we scurried around before it got dark to make sure we were ready for the “long haul” if need be - We are heating the “cabin” with only an electric infrared heater; the only other heat source we would have is a propane heater on the wall but it would be working without the fan! So, a blessing to have the power come back on!!
Today was sleeping in and then trained two teams – on the second round the snowmachine quit again about the same area it had before…………strange………but by blowing into the gasline Randy was able to get it started again. I guess he doesn’t really know what is the problem with it!! He’s replaced the gas, the line and the filter but it is still happening! Just lucky I didn’t have to walk 10 miles back to home!!!
DeKuiper's at Tahquamenon Falls
.JPG)
No comments:
Post a Comment