this is the flat part of Wyoming - nothing out there but some cattle ranches - you can see the mountains in the distance

Soooooo many log homes out here!!!!  at least 50%!!!

I think I was trying to show you some of the "Wyoming special fencing" that I have seen all over

flowers by Randy

this is the road approaching the place where we have lived 2 weeks in Alpine, WY

Where you see the headlights is where the trail head that we have been training on starts

That's our trailer in between Magnusson's and Beaber's 

A panoramic view of our 3 trailers that doesn't really show up that well on the blog

Thursday 1/28

January 28^th

Big Day!!!!  We are actually moving!!!!  Not that I am looking forward to it because we have to drive the scary pass back to Jackson tonite and then camp there at the rodeo grounds and be ready for the vet checks tomorrow – and then drive back here again (hoping we get a decent parking spot so it won’t be too difficult to get to the starting line!!) for the start of the first leg of the race on Saturday – from there I am almost clueless how this is all going to work – having never done it before it seems overwhelming and complex!!!

So we trained on Tuesday for the last time (thought we might train the 4 dogs today that are not going to run on Saturday but they all have foot problems so we thought it better to give them another day off than to risk making their feet worse……..) and had a really good run with both 8 dog teams – the only problem we had was with the Peeps and Yeti leaders team when we got to the turn around and I drove the snow machine off the trail to the side to get them to make a loop, when I looked back they hadn’t turned and were still facing the wrong way in the trail – so I didn’t know if Randy wanted me to try and make a loop again or get off the snow machine and pull them around in the trail – I opted for making another loop so I pulled around right in front of the leaders and this time they followed me around the whole loop!

Yesterday was a bad health day – felt like I had the altitude sickness again and slept half the day away-  we did go to the grocery store and were finally able to straighten out a $1200 doctor bill that the VA was supposed to pay but had not – so that was a load off……….

Today we helped a couple of teams and had breakfast of pancakes and bacon on the grill from the Beabers!

Later Buddy and Lina Streeper showed up on a snowmachine because they are parked in town at the motel and don’t want to lose their parking spot – they came down from West Yellowstone where they had been training and also 2 days ago Ed Stielstra and his kids and Laura Neese arrived – yesterday Jake Robinson came and he trained an 8 dog team today-  so they are coming together – tomorrow at the vet check we are supposed to stay right at our trucks and not socialize but it’s going to be a tough sell –today nobody is wearing a mask and we are 7 of the 25 racers right here !!

 

So for the vet check they have a team of vets that actually do a physical of each dog in your 14 dog pool, review their vaccinations, evaluate them to see if they are too thin to compete in this race (or too fat) and determine if they have a chip already, what the number is, and if they don’t , implant one – I have heard it takes about an hour for each team to be done –so we could be in Jackson for most of the day waiting our turn –hopefully there will be internet somewhere in our journeys in the next days so I can keep you up to date –

PS I haven’t been posting pictures lately because I am having trouble downloading the photos from the phone to the computer 

update as of 1/27

 

January 25

 

Cold one last nite – varying reports on how cold but certainly near and/or below “0”!!!!  I stayed snug as a bug in a rug but naturally, on the coldest nite we have had so far, the furnace quit working at 4am and Randy had to get up and go in the back of the trailer by the dogs and change the propane tank – and then of course it wouldn’t start working again for whatever reason… so he spent an hour working on trying to get it warm in here again – it’s been fine since but every once in awhile…………….

Everybody else trained today (I didn’t say it out loud but I was really glad we trained yesterday when it was warmer!!!) so the morning was full of dog activity – we helped get both of the other teams out then came in for breakfast.  The trail should have been harder than it was yesterday because of the cold temps – it was barely OK as far as being soft yesterday when we ran and we did end up hurting one girls feet with fissures – the little cuts they get in the “palm” of their foot from pushing down thru soft snow when they run.  Hopefully with good foot meds she will be healed up by this Saturday – she is a leader and point dog so pretty critical to the team – Speaking of critical, we have only 16 dogs on the truck, and you can use 14 for your pool of dogs to choose from for the 7 days of racing – I mentioned that Dannika is already out until we do shorter distanced racing so that leaves only one more to cut from the pool – we don’t have much margin of error!!!!! 

trained on Tuesday and are trying to figure out who the lucky "14" will be   still not sure 

in to town tonite - I felt sick last nite and today so good we trained the 8 miles with all the dogs yesterday - tomorrow we drive to Jackson and then camp there for the nite and then have the extremely intense vet check on Friday and then drive back here to Alpine for the race start on Saturday -  

sorry not so much information lately but we only have come to town in the last 3 days once and then I am having to deal with bill from the VA - so will maybe have better connection soon at the other race sites!!!

update for January 24

 

Well it’s January 24 =not much going on the last 3 days – giving the dogs and the people a break!!  We had two days of quite a bit of snow and thought the trail might hurt feet so we finally ran again today – the 10 best dogs Randy feels we have – and they did great going 15 miles~!!!  We also ran a 6 dog team and that included Dannika that had been injured and she did great so that was good!!  It was a beautiful day and sunny and the trail was almost packed where I ran over it going ahead of Randy – I even did good turning them around and didn’t get near the river this time!!!!  

In the last couple of days we have also had dinner with our “covid pod”  (Bruce and Laura and Sarah and Ryan Beaber and their handler Craig and son Cash – once tacos and once steaks on the grill with all the fixin’s!!!! 

Probably will train one more time – we have to do it on a day that Bruce does not want to use his own snow machine………………………

Hope everything is good in your world!!!! 

update through 1/21

Wednesday January 20

Trained the same distance today (I thought it was 17 miles but I learned it is only 15) both teams and when we came back from the first team run, Randy said it was the best run he has had all year!!!  At over 600 training miles that’s quite a comment!!!  The second team was a bit slower than the Yeti/Sidney team but still did good!  We had one little problem at the turnaround with the 2^ndteam…………I couldn’t see the tracks well from my first time leading the team around the tree and think some snowmobilers had made new tracks – so I cut back to the trail faster than I should have…..which took me over a snowbank…….which jostled me and made me goose the throttle and sent me all the way off the other side of the trail heading for the river!!!!!  I managed to turn quick enough to avoid the river but the bad part was the dogs were following me wherever I went, which meant they were off the opposite side of the trail too!!!!  I barely cut right in front of them going the right direction and they swerved and followed me!!!!!!  I did get yelled at………..the only time he ever calls me Cris is when I do something wrong………

We went into town again (now that we are unhooked from the trailer it makes it much easier!) and Randy surprised me by buying me a bouquet of flowers!!!!  (guess he wasn’t too mad at me………)

Thursday January 21

Not much action today – got up and helped both Bruce and Ryan get their teams hooked up, had breakfast and took a nap cause I was feeling pukey – Laura ran a small team with puppies in it for 8  miles and she took one of our injured/recovering dogs with her – she did fine for an old girl – so now we have to figure out how to work her back into the team slowly!!!

Going to town again – there isn’t any water here where we are parked so we are almost out of both people and dog water!!! 

Update as of 1/19/21

 Monday January 18

What a beautiful day – sunny and somewhere around 30 degrees (I can only get service on my phone once in a blue moon so it’s hard to tell and we didn’t replace the thermometer we had in the trailer last year yet) and a training day for us – 

We are still running 2 teams of 7 and 8 (because Dannika is still out with an injury which we hope she will be recovered from by the time we race in Wisconsin on February 20) and the first team out I borrowed Bruce’s snow machine and Ryan Beaber led the team and I followed (the leader cautions snow machine traffic to slow down because of the dog team) because I had not been out to the turn around yet and didn’t want to mess Randy up – so we made it around the turnaround and Ryan took off back to the trailers and I led them back home.  It all went very well – there were still lots of snow machines out on the trail  - I had forgotten it was Martin Luther King day and thought there would be much less traffic!  The second team I did by myself and I made it around the hairpin turnaround without getting the dogs tangled!!!  While driving the snowmachine I thought I had understood Randy’s instructions about controlling the heat on the handle bars………..I thought it was too warm and tried to cool it, but the right hand I need to stay on the handle bar to control the speed got blistered!!!!!  Chalk it up to work comp!!!!  Guess I need thicker gloves!!

When we got back Magnussons and Beabers had cooked out hot dogs  and invited us over to a super lunch!!! They even had sushi from the local market!!!  It was perfect to come back from almost 4 hours of training to a lunch already for us!!!!

The rest of the day was napping and feeding and dropping and dropping again…………

I have looked and looked in almost every place I can think if in this trailer where a mouse might have a nest……..to no avail!!!!  I am running out of ideas!!!

Tuesday, January 19th 

Much colder today and windy – clear with a beautiful sunrise over the mountains – we are surrounded by them and the training trail is a pass that goes through them – I will take some pictures soon and post them…… yesterday would have been a perfect time to do so but I used all my energy training and looking for mouse nests!!!!

Both Ryan and Bruce trained teams of 15 and16 this morning – they left together so they could practice passing – pretty cold! But the trail should be harder today.

Randy is trying to unhook the truck from the trailer and having some difficulty because the pump the lowers the supports on the trailer was frozen – but then we may go into town and I can post this and find out how my sister, Karen is doing have her hip replacement re-do………..  by the sound of it we are unhooked!!!

Tomorrow we will train again and then every other day until some time next week – like maybe Wednesday and then give the dogs a rest until they start racing on Saturday – that is if it is still a “go” – we won’t be sure they won’t cancel it until we actually start racing!!!

more...........

 Didn't train today but Bruce and Laura and our new friends the Beabers trained - tomorrow we will go 17 miles and the groomer had made a turnaround so it should be easier to turn the team back in the opposite direction!!!  

Still quest and very short of breath!!!!  Talk to you soon!!

Update through Sunday afternoon in Wyoming!

 Well……………quite an interesting turn of events………….

First of all we are in Alpine and at a spot where I have no phone coverage – so until I go to town a mile away there won’t be any updates or calls!!  So we’re kind of “off the grid”!  And we will be here for the next week and half so we will have to make do.!

 

We started out on Friday from Rock Springs just off  I80.  We stayed/shopped at a Walmart there – not a very big city but did have a Walmart….. it was the turning point for us to go north to Alpine so we stopped for the nite – 

At exactly 12:20 am I heard a knock on the door – normally I would wake Randy and have him deal but for some reason I got up and sure enough it was the police saying that someone had reported that we had dogs enclosed in the metal  boxes on the truck……….which wouldn’t be bad for the dogs anyway because we would have had them filled with bedding ……………but I assured him that all the dogs were in the back of the enclosed trailer all snuggled in their beds!!  He didn’t ask any more questions (could have been that I was speaking through the crack in the door naked…..) and was off!!!

Got a pretty early start in the morning and drove north and could see the mountain ranges looming ahead of us and a bit dreading the mountain driving – maybe if we were much younger it wouldn’t seem like such a big deal but it is for us – in fact Laura Bontrager who is up here gets nervous coming here so I guess It’s not jus us………..

 

What should have been a 3 hour “tour” (to use the Gilligan’s Island terminology……….) was in fact 5 because we go slower than the phone says we should be going  and when we hit the mountains we went really slow – for the first 2 hours it was mostly flat and then we started going up and up – in the 6500 ft. range – the flat was boring and just fields like most of Wyoming had been- but then it got interesting when we began to go through some of the little mountain villages – lots and lots of log cabin!!!  Like 50% of all homes!!!!  Beautiful scenery going through the pass through the mountains following the river – even saw some elk bedded down in a ravine and a herd of antelope grazing!!!!  But scary!  Apparently the road was as good as it ever gets in the winter but it was twisty turning steep and icy and made both of us nervous!!!  Reminded us very much of going through the Canadian Rockies on our way to Alaska!!!  Wasn’t great then and it’s worse 10 years later!!!

Made it finally to Alpine where we knew Bruce Magnusson and Laura were training and sure enough when we pulled into the snowmobile trailhead parking lot, there was Laura with a wave and a smile!!!!  Happy to be at our destination after 4 days of traveling!!!!

This morning we woke relatively early because we knew that Bruce and Laura were going to loan us the snowmachine to train today and wanted to be ready – both us short of breath and feeling queasy but the show must go on…………  we hooked up both teams and Bruce generously drove the snow machine with me riding so that things would go as well as good be expected – it is a heavily (and Bruce says it’s the heaviest he has seen in 16 years of being here!!!) travelled snow machine trail going up into the Rockies – probably had 100 snow machines pass us in the 8 miles and  the only way to turn around with a team of dogs is to veer off at a wide open spot and hope the leaders follow the snowmachine – the first team did great!  The second team probably would have as well but Randy put his foot down to put pressure on the mat as he was turning and forgot he had the “back up” sled and the mat is narrower and instead hit the ground and wiped out – I was thankful that both Bruce I and were there and could catch the team and straighten the team back out going back to the start!!!

So we went 8 miles today and it’s a beautiful trail going through the valley in the mountains with the river flowing next to it (some places it is pretty scary with a drop off cliff down to the river right next to you – wouldn’t want to pull off to the side too far……………)

Now we are both zonked from the altitude and the training!!!  Will try to keep you updated as often as possible but will depend on how often we drive into town – we can’t really unhook from the trailer because as we were hooking up to travel on Tuesday one of the mechanical/electric support arms at the front of the trailer went off track and we don’t know how to fix it……………….

Oh yeah…….I forgot to tell you about the worst thing that has happened so far……….Randy got up this morning and went to get his very very expensive hearing aids out of the charger and one was missing completely and only half of the other one was there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We knew we had a mouse in the house but hadn’t set the trap we brought along yet- crazy huh??????????  So now we have a big communication problem!  I will have to search high and low and see if I can find where the mouse hid them!!!!!!

Some pretty scary weather!!!!

 We made it last nite to a rest stop still in Nebraska - there was a strong wind warning starting in the afternoon and boy, was it ever strong!!!!!  We shook all nite as it was up to 65 mph wind gusts!!!  In the morning we got up and fed breakfast (some of Lydia and Moe's delicious eggs for us.....) at the rest stop and then noticed that our awning on the trailer had taken a beating with the winds - so not wanting to have it rip off further while going down the road we borrowed a ladder from a fellow trucker and cut the darn thing off and then I stuffed it into a rest area garbage can!!!  It would have been awful if it had come tearing apart on the expressway and flown into someone's windshield - so it was a good thing we noticed it!!

We made it to the Wyoming border by 4pm but then ran into blowing snow blizzard conditions intermittently - some going down a 5% grade in the mountains!!!!!  All of a sudden we couldn't see 50 feet in front of us!!!!!  Kept driving until we reached Rawlins, Wyoming and stopped at another Walmart.

We were supposed to train dogs at an earlier stop near Laramie, Wyoming but learned from our friends Laura and Bruce that because of the wind so many trees had blown down on the trail there so it wasn't worth traveling there to train.  So now we are off to Alpine on the western border of Wyoming in the Rockies - so we will see how much I love traveling through the mountains again - it has been 9 years since we travelled to Alaska and had to go through the Canadian Rockies - and that made me nervous - we will see how it is here...............I will leave you with a beautiful picture of a Wyoming sunset💕

So long time since I have talked to you.............

Days filled with training and not too much else since New Year's Eve=

Finally made the decision to leave on Tuesday, January12 (after thinking I needed to pack up the house for a Wednesday departure.........then a Monday departure,,,,,,,,, then a Tuesday departure!!!!  We ended up training the dogs 17 miles on Monday because we had gotten an inch and a half of new snow on Sunday

We left home (Deer Park home) at 1:06pm and drove until we got to Dodgeville WI and parked in a  Walmart parking log and fed and then shopped for some stuff we needed - not really a bad place to spend the nite - not too many people late in the evening or in the early morning for us to bother with the dogs - 

Today we are thus far at Waco, Nebraska (a ways past Lincoln) and stopped at a relatively "rough" truck stop that had diesel for only $2.24 - and fed dogs so we will need to drop again in 2 hours and then find a place to sleep for the night - we are still 450 miles from Laramie, Wyoming and haven't heard from Bruce Magnusson and Laura whether the training is good there or not - we may have to keep going all the way to the west side of Wyoming where the stage race takes place to find some training - will have to see tomorrow!!!

This is a picture going across Iowa - they have terraced the land I guess to get maximum acreage from it to grow corn - it made me think of rice paddies!!!

Lots and lots and lots of windmills in Iowa!!!!  Never saw so many!!!!!!

More tomorrow!!!!!!