January 31
Lots to catch up on – a little busy over the last 3 days and no internet coverage –
So Thursday nite we drove to Jackson Hole and finally found the rodeo grounds parking lot after driving in a circle through a residential neighborhood!! For those of you who have not seen our rig, it is 62 feet long – not easy to maneuver around tight corners!!!
But we spent the nite there and quite early in the morning a a very nice vet from Ohio come and look at our 14 dog pool – everything was good except 2 of our 3 year olds looked like they might be on the verge of losing weight with the long runs – even though we know they are poor eaters and have even been giving them raw chicken from the grocery store to try and fatten them up!!!
So we left Jackson and drove back to Alpine and on the way saw 2 herds of elk – one of the herds was like a tourist attraction where they took people out on horse sleigh-wagons to look at the elk - both herds were at least 100 by what we could see!
Got back to Alpine and went to the very good market to buy some more dog bisquits because I go through them very fast - when you think about giving 16 dogs a bisquit every time we let them out of their box at least 5 times a day!!!
Got up at 5;30 am (I set the alarm for 6 but guess I was too anxious!!!) in order to feed the dogs water/breakfast by 6:30 so we could drop them again at the time (8:30) we should be getting ready to harness/hook up the team for a 9:15am start. So again, for those of you who are not familiar with our race “DeKuiper schedule”- we drop the dogs and as we are dropping them/letting them out of their boxes – I put Zeus Juice on their feet before they even hit the snow so I can drench their inner paws with protective oil to prevent cracks forming in their feet while they are running in snow – wonderfully enough, Fran and Ron Nelson showed up to help me get the dogs ready – they are a couple that used to race in the MUSH organization in Michigan about the same time I started racing – they have in the last 5 years moved to Wyoming and live only 15 miles away from the Alpine race site – so it was very fun to have them here to help us hook up to race = we did have Bruce Magnusson’s snow machine to hook onto to get to the race start so that was good =we got into the shoot good and Randy took off looking good-
I thought, based on our training runs both in the UP and here in Wyoming that Randy would average 15 mph but because the trail was soft with several inches of new snow overnight, it actually took him almost 3 hours to go 30 miles!!!
So for his first stage, he came in 18th – of course not what we had hoped for but at least not last!
We packed up and headed for the next trailhead outside of Pinedale – it was a decent ride , had to go back the way we took to get to Alpine and then a 27 mile side road that dead ended at the trail start. Nice view – found out after Randy left that the trail took him up switchbacks to the top of a mountain at 10,000 feet!!!! He says he didn’t have any side effects (some people throw up, get headaches or light headed) When he came back he had Island in the bag – she ran along for most of the 35 miles but laid down about 3 miles from the finish line – she has been a dog that we have been nursing a pad injury for over a month and is a bit of a pansy…….. she may not run again…….
Surprisingly, Randy moved up a spot to 18th! So we packed up and headed for the next stage at Kemmerer – on the way we got a text saying they had a Mexican dinner for us in Kemmerer at the community center! First time eating out in forever!!!! It was nice and the food was good.
Left the community center and drove about an hour to the race site – we were the only ones here all nite – got a bit chilly (7 degrees) and when we got up at 6am to water the dogs the propane had run out so it was starting to get chilly inside too!!!
So here we are resting before the 8am driver’s meeting and then will drop the dogs about 8:30 and start getting ready for Randy’s 9:18 start!!!
You know I am already having a really hard time remembering what day it is and where we have been the last 4 days!!!! It’s pretty confusing – kind of what it must be like to be “on tour”…………
Our take off this morning was less than desirable – first we apparently were not calculating his start time correctly so he was supposed to leave earlier than we had planned – so I think about 3 people were there helping us to hurry to the start line so we didn’t miss our chute time and while we were hooking up dogs Randy says some kind hearted helper unhooked the dog team from the trailer so they started leaving!!!! We didn’t even have all of them hooked in!!! And Randy was nowhere to be seen!!!!! and then Randy appears (having forgotten his bib in the trailer…………) and we are off to the start line with me huffing and puffing and not able to keep up with the team even with him putting the brake down!!!!!
He did take off and they looked good! I walked down farther on the trail and wanted to see where they were going (turns out the trail goes through a valley and then up a mountain with switchbacks – both Randy and Ed Stielstra said it was the most beautiful trail of their lives – a lot coming from 2 Iditarod drivers………..) I stayed down about 1/8 mile and watched more teams go out and then realized that in the confusion and rush to get to the start line we still have 8 dogs out tied to the trailer!!!! When I got back they were all happy and in the sun so it was all good………..but the door to the trailer was wide open (I thing Randy in his haste had not made sure it was closed ) so who knows how much propane we used trying to heat the outdoors!!!!!
Randy came in to the finish line and I had much less hard time getting them back to the truck than I had getting them to the start line – it was down hill to the start and of course the dogs are full of energy wanting to go – I felt like it took me 5 minutes to catch my breath but maybe it wasn’t’ that long
He did have a dog in the bag – she stopped in the trail about a mile from the finish line and we guess just got tired – the vet checked her and found nothing wrong but Randy thinks it’s probably a shoulder injury come back from last year. Plus he said our old leader Gretta must have a shoulder problem because he had to keep them going under 15mph even going downhill and her partner had to keep her going So on that note I am thinking we are really getting down on our pool of dogs and wondering if we will be able to go 4 more races……………… and then we got today’s results and Randy was 18th for the day and is at 16th overall!!! So things don’t look quite so dismal…………
Went to the rodeo grounds community center (it’s attached to a great big riding arena and there were people training their horses for events) and had a nice roast beef dinner sitting with the Beabers and Magnussons – left there and drove about an hour down another dead end road to the race site – just Magnussons and us here for the nite.
Got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning because we had to water the dogs earlier because they were coming to drug test 2 of our dogs – when the vets got here we took out a total of 4 dogs and managed to get 2 good samples…………
We hooked everyone up and by luck were able to have Jess, Alix Crittendon’s handler take us up to the start line – like a 1/8 mile away, downhill in soft snow – I made it almost to the line in front of the dogs but then my breathing got the best of me so they went to the line by themselves – I found out we are at over 8,000 feet so no wonder I am having some breathing trouble!!!!
Randy made it back with the dogs looking pretty good!!! He said the trail took him up over 2 different mountains!!! So for today he was 17th at 2:57 hours and overall 16th – with the person in 17thonly 8 seconds behind!!!! On to Lander – it’s supposed to take 2.5 to 3 hours!!!!!
January 31
Lots to catch up on – a little busy over the last 3 days and no internet coverage –
So Thursday nite we drove to Jackson Hole and finally found the rodeo grounds parking lot after driving in a circle through a residential neighborhood!! For those of you who have not seen our rig, it is 62 feet long – not easy to maneuver around tight corners!!!
But we spent the nite there and quite early in the morning a a very nice vet from Ohio come and look at our 14 dog pool – everything was good except 2 of our 3 year olds looked like they might be on the verge of losing weight with the long runs – even though we know they are poor eaters and have even been giving them raw chicken from the grocery store to try and fatten them up!!!
So we left Jackson and drove back to Alpine and on the way saw 2 herds of elk – one of the herds was like a tourist attraction where they took people out on horse sleigh-wagons to look at the elk - both herds were at least 100 by what we could see!
Got back to Alpine and went to the very good market to buy some more dog bisquits because I go through them very fast - when you think about giving 16 dogs a bisquit every time we let them out of their box at least 5 times a day!!!
Got up at 5;30 am (I set the alarm for 6 but guess I was too anxious!!!) in order to feed the dogs water/breakfast by 6:30 so we could drop them again at the time (8:30) we should be getting ready to harness/hook up the team for a 9:15am start. So again, for those of you who are not familiar with our race “DeKuiper schedule”- we drop the dogs and as we are dropping them/letting them out of their boxes – I put Zeus Juice on their feet before they even hit the snow so I can drench their inner paws with protective oil to prevent cracks forming in their feet while they are running in snow – wonderfully enough, Fran and Ron Nelson showed up to help me get the dogs ready – they are a couple that used to race in the MUSH organization in Michigan about the same time I started racing – they have in the last 5 years moved to Wyoming and live only 15 miles away from the Alpine race site – so it was very fun to have them here to help us hook up to race = we did have Bruce Magnusson’s snow machine to hook onto to get to the race start so that was good =we got into the shoot good and Randy took off looking good-
I thought, based on our training runs both in the UP and here in Wyoming that Randy would average 15 mph but because the trail was soft with several inches of new snow overnight, it actually took him almost 3 hours to go 30 miles!!!
So for his first stage, he came in 18th – of course not what we had hoped for but at least not last!
We packed up and headed for the next trailhead outside of Pinedale – it was a decent ride , had to go back the way we took to get to Alpine and then a 27 mile side road that dead ended at the trail start. Nice view – found out after Randy left that the trail took him up switchbacks to the top of a mountain at 10,000 feet!!!! He says he didn’t have any side effects (some people throw up, get headaches or light headed) When he came back he had Island in the bag – she ran along for most of the 35 miles but laid down about 3 miles from the finish line – she has been a dog that we have been nursing a pad injury for over a month and is a bit of a pansy…….. she may not run again…….
Surprisingly, Randy moved up a spot to 18th! So we packed up and headed for the next stage at Kemmerer – on the way we got a text saying they had a Mexican dinner for us in Kemmerer at the community center! First time eating out in forever!!!! It was nice and the food was good.
Left the community center and drove about an hour to the race site – we were the only ones here all nite – got a bit chilly (7 degrees) and when we got up at 6am to water the dogs the propane had run out so it was starting to get chilly inside too!!!
So here we are resting before the 8am driver’s meeting and then will drop the dogs about 8:30 and start getting ready for Randy’s 9:18 start!!!
You know I am already having a really hard time remembering what day it is and where we have been the last 4 days!!!! It’s pretty confusing – kind of what it must be like to be “on tour”…………
Our take off this morning was less than desirable – first we apparently were not calculating his start time correctly so he was supposed to leave earlier than we had planned – so I think about 3 people were there helping us to hurry to the start line so we didn’t miss our chute time and while we were hooking up dogs Randy says some kind hearted helper unhooked the dog team from the trailer so they started leaving!!!! We didn’t even have all of them hooked in!!! And Randy was nowhere to be seen!!!!! and then Randy appears (having forgotten his bib in the trailer…………) and we are off to the start line with me huffing and puffing and not able to keep up with the team even with him putting the brake down!!!!!
He did take off and they looked good! I walked down farther on the trail and wanted to see where they were going (turns out the trail goes through a valley and then up a mountain with switchbacks – both Randy and Ed Stielstra said it was the most beautiful trail of their lives – a lot coming from 2 Iditarod drivers………..) I stayed down about 1/8 mile and watched more teams go out and then realized that in the confusion and rush to get to the start line we still have 8 dogs out tied to the trailer!!!! When I got back they were all happy and in the sun so it was all good………..but the door to the trailer was wide open (I thing Randy in his haste had not made sure it was closed ) so who knows how much propane we used trying to heat the outdoors!!!!!
Randy came in to the finish line and I had much less hard time getting them back to the truck than I had getting them to the start line – it was down hill to the start and of course the dogs are full of energy wanting to go – I felt like it took me 5 minutes to catch my breath but maybe it wasn’t’ that long
He did have a dog in the bag – she stopped in the trail about a mile from the finish line and we guess just got tired – the vet checked her and found nothing wrong but Randy thinks it’s probably a shoulder injury come back from last year. Plus he said our old leader Gretta must have a shoulder problem because he had to keep them going under 15mph even going downhill and her partner had to keep her going So on that note I am thinking we are really getting down on our pool of dogs and wondering if we will be able to go 4 more races……………… and then we got today’s results and Randy was 18th for the day and is at 16th overall!!! So things don’t look quite so dismal…………
Went to the rodeo grounds community center (it’s attached to a great big riding arena and there were people training their horses for events) and had a nice roast beef dinner sitting with the Beabers and Magnussons – left there and drove about an hour down another dead end road to the race site – just Magnussons and us here for the nite.
Got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning because we had to water the dogs earlier because they were coming to drug test 2 of our dogs – when the vets got here we took out a total of 4 dogs and managed to get 2 good samples…………
We hooked everyone up and by luck were able to have Jess, Alix Crittendon’s handler take us up to the start line – like a 1/8 mile away, downhill in soft snow – I made it almost to the line in front of the dogs but then my breathing got the best of me so they went to the line by themselves – I found out we are at over 8,000 feet so no wonder I am having some breathing trouble!!!!
Randy made it back with the dogs looking pretty good!!! He said the trail took him up over 2 different mountains!!! So for today he was 17th at 2:57 hours and overall 16th – with the person in 17thonly 8 seconds behind!!!! On to Lander – it’s supposed to take 2.5 to 3 hours!!!!!
January 31
Lots to catch up on – a little busy over the last 3 days and no internet coverage –
So Thursday nite we drove to Jackson Hole and finally found the rodeo grounds parking lot after driving in a circle through a residential neighborhood!! For those of you who have not seen our rig, it is 62 feet long – not easy to maneuver around tight corners!!!
But we spent the nite there and quite early in the morning a a very nice vet from Ohio come and look at our 14 dog pool – everything was good except 2 of our 3 year olds looked like they might be on the verge of losing weight with the long runs – even though we know they are poor eaters and have even been giving them raw chicken from the grocery store to try and fatten them up!!!
So we left Jackson and drove back to Alpine and on the way saw 2 herds of elk – one of the herds was like a tourist attraction where they took people out on horse sleigh-wagons to look at the elk - both herds were at least 100 by what we could see!
Got back to Alpine and went to the very good market to buy some more dog bisquits because I go through them very fast - when you think about giving 16 dogs a bisquit every time we let them out of their box at least 5 times a day!!!
Got up at 5;30 am (I set the alarm for 6 but guess I was too anxious!!!) in order to feed the dogs water/breakfast by 6:30 so we could drop them again at the time (8:30) we should be getting ready to harness/hook up the team for a 9:15am start. So again, for those of you who are not familiar with our race “DeKuiper schedule”- we drop the dogs and as we are dropping them/letting them out of their boxes – I put Zeus Juice on their feet before they even hit the snow so I can drench their inner paws with protective oil to prevent cracks forming in their feet while they are running in snow – wonderfully enough, Fran and Ron Nelson showed up to help me get the dogs ready – they are a couple that used to race in the MUSH organization in Michigan about the same time I started racing – they have in the last 5 years moved to Wyoming and live only 15 miles away from the Alpine race site – so it was very fun to have them here to help us hook up to race = we did have Bruce Magnusson’s snow machine to hook onto to get to the race start so that was good =we got into the shoot good and Randy took off looking good-
I thought, based on our training runs both in the UP and here in Wyoming that Randy would average 15 mph but because the trail was soft with several inches of new snow overnight, it actually took him almost 3 hours to go 30 miles!!!
So for his first stage, he came in 18th – of course not what we had hoped for but at least not last!
We packed up and headed for the next trailhead outside of Pinedale – it was a decent ride , had to go back the way we took to get to Alpine and then a 27 mile side road that dead ended at the trail start. Nice view – found out after Randy left that the trail took him up switchbacks to the top of a mountain at 10,000 feet!!!! He says he didn’t have any side effects (some people throw up, get headaches or light headed) When he came back he had Island in the bag – she ran along for most of the 35 miles but laid down about 3 miles from the finish line – she has been a dog that we have been nursing a pad injury for over a month and is a bit of a pansy…….. she may not run again…….
Surprisingly, Randy moved up a spot to 18th! So we packed up and headed for the next stage at Kemmerer – on the way we got a text saying they had a Mexican dinner for us in Kemmerer at the community center! First time eating out in forever!!!! It was nice and the food was good.
Left the community center and drove about an hour to the race site – we were the only ones here all nite – got a bit chilly (7 degrees) and when we got up at 6am to water the dogs the propane had run out so it was starting to get chilly inside too!!!
So here we are resting before the 8am driver’s meeting and then will drop the dogs about 8:30 and start getting ready for Randy’s 9:18 start!!!
You know I am already having a really hard time remembering what day it is and where we have been the last 4 days!!!! It’s pretty confusing – kind of what it must be like to be “on tour”…………
Our take off this morning was less than desirable – first we apparently were not calculating his start time correctly so he was supposed to leave earlier than we had planned – so I think about 3 people were there helping us to hurry to the start line so we didn’t miss our chute time and while we were hooking up dogs Randy says some kind hearted helper unhooked the dog team from the trailer so they started leaving!!!! We didn’t even have all of them hooked in!!! And Randy was nowhere to be seen!!!!! and then Randy appears (having forgotten his bib in the trailer…………) and we are off to the start line with me huffing and puffing and not able to keep up with the team even with him putting the brake down!!!!!
He did take off and they looked good! I walked down farther on the trail and wanted to see where they were going (turns out the trail goes through a valley and then up a mountain with switchbacks – both Randy and Ed Stielstra said it was the most beautiful trail of their lives – a lot coming from 2 Iditarod drivers………..) I stayed down about 1/8 mile and watched more teams go out and then realized that in the confusion and rush to get to the start line we still have 8 dogs out tied to the trailer!!!! When I got back they were all happy and in the sun so it was all good………..but the door to the trailer was wide open (I thing Randy in his haste had not made sure it was closed ) so who knows how much propane we used trying to heat the outdoors!!!!!
Randy came in to the finish line and I had much less hard time getting them back to the truck than I had getting them to the start line – it was down hill to the start and of course the dogs are full of energy wanting to go – I felt like it took me 5 minutes to catch my breath but maybe it wasn’t’ that long
He did have a dog in the bag – she stopped in the trail about a mile from the finish line and we guess just got tired – the vet checked her and found nothing wrong but Randy thinks it’s probably a shoulder injury come back from last year. Plus he said our old leader Gretta must have a shoulder problem because he had to keep them going under 15mph even going downhill and her partner had to keep her going So on that note I am thinking we are really getting down on our pool of dogs and wondering if we will be able to go 4 more races……………… and then we got today’s results and Randy was 18th for the day and is at 16th overall!!! So things don’t look quite so dismal…………
Went to the rodeo grounds community center (it’s attached to a great big riding arena and there were people training their horses for events) and had a nice roast beef dinner sitting with the Beabers and Magnussons – left there and drove about an hour down another dead end road to the race site – just Magnussons and us here for the nite.
Got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning because we had to water the dogs earlier because they were coming to drug test 2 of our dogs – when the vets got here we took out a total of 4 dogs and managed to get 2 good samples…………
We hooked everyone up and by luck were able to have Jess, Alix Crittendon’s handler take us up to the start line – like a 1/8 mile away, downhill in soft snow – I made it almost to the line in front of the dogs but then my breathing got the best of me so they went to the line by themselves – I found out we are at over 8,000 feet so no wonder I am having some breathing trouble!!!!
Randy made it back with the dogs looking pretty good!!! He said the trail took him up over 2 different mountains!!! So for today he was 17th at 2:57 hours and overall 16th – with the person in 17thonly 8 seconds behind!!!! On to Lander – it’s supposed to take 2.5 to 3 hours!!!!!
January 31
Lots to catch up on – a little busy over the last 3 days and no internet coverage –
So Thursday nite we drove to Jackson Hole and finally found the rodeo grounds parking lot after driving in a circle through a residential neighborhood!! For those of you who have not seen our rig, it is 62 feet long – not easy to maneuver around tight corners!!!
But we spent the nite there and quite early in the morning a a very nice vet from Ohio come and look at our 14 dog pool – everything was good except 2 of our 3 year olds looked like they might be on the verge of losing weight with the long runs – even though we know they are poor eaters and have even been giving them raw chicken from the grocery store to try and fatten them up!!!
So we left Jackson and drove back to Alpine and on the way saw 2 herds of elk – one of the herds was like a tourist attraction where they took people out on horse sleigh-wagons to look at the elk - both herds were at least 100 by what we could see!
Got back to Alpine and went to the very good market to buy some more dog bisquits because I go through them very fast - when you think about giving 16 dogs a bisquit every time we let them out of their box at least 5 times a day!!!
Got up at 5;30 am (I set the alarm for 6 but guess I was too anxious!!!) in order to feed the dogs water/breakfast by 6:30 so we could drop them again at the time (8:30) we should be getting ready to harness/hook up the team for a 9:15am start. So again, for those of you who are not familiar with our race “DeKuiper schedule”- we drop the dogs and as we are dropping them/letting them out of their boxes – I put Zeus Juice on their feet before they even hit the snow so I can drench their inner paws with protective oil to prevent cracks forming in their feet while they are running in snow – wonderfully enough, Fran and Ron Nelson showed up to help me get the dogs ready – they are a couple that used to race in the MUSH organization in Michigan about the same time I started racing – they have in the last 5 years moved to Wyoming and live only 15 miles away from the Alpine race site – so it was very fun to have them here to help us hook up to race = we did have Bruce Magnusson’s snow machine to hook onto to get to the race start so that was good =we got into the shoot good and Randy took off looking good-
I thought, based on our training runs both in the UP and here in Wyoming that Randy would average 15 mph but because the trail was soft with several inches of new snow overnight, it actually took him almost 3 hours to go 30 miles!!!
So for his first stage, he came in 18th – of course not what we had hoped for but at least not last!
We packed up and headed for the next trailhead outside of Pinedale – it was a decent ride , had to go back the way we took to get to Alpine and then a 27 mile side road that dead ended at the trail start. Nice view – found out after Randy left that the trail took him up switchbacks to the top of a mountain at 10,000 feet!!!! He says he didn’t have any side effects (some people throw up, get headaches or light headed) When he came back he had Island in the bag – she ran along for most of the 35 miles but laid down about 3 miles from the finish line – she has been a dog that we have been nursing a pad injury for over a month and is a bit of a pansy…….. she may not run again…….
Surprisingly, Randy moved up a spot to 18th! So we packed up and headed for the next stage at Kemmerer – on the way we got a text saying they had a Mexican dinner for us in Kemmerer at the community center! First time eating out in forever!!!! It was nice and the food was good.
Left the community center and drove about an hour to the race site – we were the only ones here all nite – got a bit chilly (7 degrees) and when we got up at 6am to water the dogs the propane had run out so it was starting to get chilly inside too!!!
So here we are resting before the 8am driver’s meeting and then will drop the dogs about 8:30 and start getting ready for Randy’s 9:18 start!!!
You know I am already having a really hard time remembering what day it is and where we have been the last 4 days!!!! It’s pretty confusing – kind of what it must be like to be “on tour”…………
Our take off this morning was less than desirable – first we apparently were not calculating his start time correctly so he was supposed to leave earlier than we had planned – so I think about 3 people were there helping us to hurry to the start line so we didn’t miss our chute time and while we were hooking up dogs Randy says some kind hearted helper unhooked the dog team from the trailer so they started leaving!!!! We didn’t even have all of them hooked in!!! And Randy was nowhere to be seen!!!!! and then Randy appears (having forgotten his bib in the trailer…………) and we are off to the start line with me huffing and puffing and not able to keep up with the team even with him putting the brake down!!!!!
He did take off and they looked good! I walked down farther on the trail and wanted to see where they were going (turns out the trail goes through a valley and then up a mountain with switchbacks – both Randy and Ed Stielstra said it was the most beautiful trail of their lives – a lot coming from 2 Iditarod drivers………..) I stayed down about 1/8 mile and watched more teams go out and then realized that in the confusion and rush to get to the start line we still have 8 dogs out tied to the trailer!!!! When I got back they were all happy and in the sun so it was all good………..but the door to the trailer was wide open (I thing Randy in his haste had not made sure it was closed ) so who knows how much propane we used trying to heat the outdoors!!!!!
Randy came in to the finish line and I had much less hard time getting them back to the truck than I had getting them to the start line – it was down hill to the start and of course the dogs are full of energy wanting to go – I felt like it took me 5 minutes to catch my breath but maybe it wasn’t’ that long
He did have a dog in the bag – she stopped in the trail about a mile from the finish line and we guess just got tired – the vet checked her and found nothing wrong but Randy thinks it’s probably a shoulder injury come back from last year. Plus he said our old leader Gretta must have a shoulder problem because he had to keep them going under 15mph even going downhill and her partner had to keep her going So on that note I am thinking we are really getting down on our pool of dogs and wondering if we will be able to go 4 more races……………… and then we got today’s results and Randy was 18th for the day and is at 16th overall!!! So things don’t look quite so dismal…………
Went to the rodeo grounds community center (it’s attached to a great big riding arena and there were people training their horses for events) and had a nice roast beef dinner sitting with the Beabers and Magnussons – left there and drove about an hour down another dead end road to the race site – just Magnussons and us here for the nite.
Got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning because we had to water the dogs earlier because they were coming to drug test 2 of our dogs – when the vets got here we took out a total of 4 dogs and managed to get 2 good samples…………
We hooked everyone up and by luck were able to have Jess, Alix Crittendon’s handler take us up to the start line – like a 1/8 mile away, downhill in soft snow – I made it almost to the line in front of the dogs but then my breathing got the best of me so they went to the line by themselves – I found out we are at over 8,000 feet so no wonder I am having some breathing trouble!!!!
Randy made it back with the dogs looking pretty good!!! He said the trail took him up over 2 different mountains!!! So for today he was 17th at 2:57 hours and overall 16th – with the person in 17thonly 8 seconds behind!!!! On to Lander – it’s supposed to take 2.5 to 3 hours!!!!!
January 31
Lots to catch up on – a little busy over the last 3 days and no internet coverage –
So Thursday nite we drove to Jackson Hole and finally found the rodeo grounds parking lot after driving in a circle through a residential neighborhood!! For those of you who have not seen our rig, it is 62 feet long – not easy to maneuver around tight corners!!!
But we spent the nite there and quite early in the morning a a very nice vet from Ohio come and look at our 14 dog pool – everything was good except 2 of our 3 year olds looked like they might be on the verge of losing weight with the long runs – even though we know they are poor eaters and have even been giving them raw chicken from the grocery store to try and fatten them up!!!
So we left Jackson and drove back to Alpine and on the way saw 2 herds of elk – one of the herds was like a tourist attraction where they took people out on horse sleigh-wagons to look at the elk - both herds were at least 100 by what we could see!
Got back to Alpine and went to the very good market to buy some more dog bisquits because I go through them very fast - when you think about giving 16 dogs a bisquit every time we let them out of their box at least 5 times a day!!!
Got up at 5;30 am (I set the alarm for 6 but guess I was too anxious!!!) in order to feed the dogs water/breakfast by 6:30 so we could drop them again at the time (8:30) we should be getting ready to harness/hook up the team for a 9:15am start. So again, for those of you who are not familiar with our race “DeKuiper schedule”- we drop the dogs and as we are dropping them/letting them out of their boxes – I put Zeus Juice on their feet before they even hit the snow so I can drench their inner paws with protective oil to prevent cracks forming in their feet while they are running in snow – wonderfully enough, Fran and Ron Nelson showed up to help me get the dogs ready – they are a couple that used to race in the MUSH organization in Michigan about the same time I started racing – they have in the last 5 years moved to Wyoming and live only 15 miles away from the Alpine race site – so it was very fun to have them here to help us hook up to race = we did have Bruce Magnusson’s snow machine to hook onto to get to the race start so that was good =we got into the shoot good and Randy took off looking good-
I thought, based on our training runs both in the UP and here in Wyoming that Randy would average 15 mph but because the trail was soft with several inches of new snow overnight, it actually took him almost 3 hours to go 30 miles!!!
So for his first stage, he came in 18th – of course not what we had hoped for but at least not last!
We packed up and headed for the next trailhead outside of Pinedale – it was a decent ride , had to go back the way we took to get to Alpine and then a 27 mile side road that dead ended at the trail start. Nice view – found out after Randy left that the trail took him up switchbacks to the top of a mountain at 10,000 feet!!!! He says he didn’t have any side effects (some people throw up, get headaches or light headed) When he came back he had Island in the bag – she ran along for most of the 35 miles but laid down about 3 miles from the finish line – she has been a dog that we have been nursing a pad injury for over a month and is a bit of a pansy…….. she may not run again…….
Surprisingly, Randy moved up a spot to 18th! So we packed up and headed for the next stage at Kemmerer – on the way we got a text saying they had a Mexican dinner for us in Kemmerer at the community center! First time eating out in forever!!!! It was nice and the food was good.
Left the community center and drove about an hour to the race site – we were the only ones here all nite – got a bit chilly (7 degrees) and when we got up at 6am to water the dogs the propane had run out so it was starting to get chilly inside too!!!
So here we are resting before the 8am driver’s meeting and then will drop the dogs about 8:30 and start getting ready for Randy’s 9:18 start!!!
You know I am already having a really hard time remembering what day it is and where we have been the last 4 days!!!! It’s pretty confusing – kind of what it must be like to be “on tour”…………
Our take off this morning was less than desirable – first we apparently were not calculating his start time correctly so he was supposed to leave earlier than we had planned – so I think about 3 people were there helping us to hurry to the start line so we didn’t miss our chute time and while we were hooking up dogs Randy says some kind hearted helper unhooked the dog team from the trailer so they started leaving!!!! We didn’t even have all of them hooked in!!! And Randy was nowhere to be seen!!!!! and then Randy appears (having forgotten his bib in the trailer…………) and we are off to the start line with me huffing and puffing and not able to keep up with the team even with him putting the brake down!!!!!
He did take off and they looked good! I walked down farther on the trail and wanted to see where they were going (turns out the trail goes through a valley and then up a mountain with switchbacks – both Randy and Ed Stielstra said it was the most beautiful trail of their lives – a lot coming from 2 Iditarod drivers………..) I stayed down about 1/8 mile and watched more teams go out and then realized that in the confusion and rush to get to the start line we still have 8 dogs out tied to the trailer!!!! When I got back they were all happy and in the sun so it was all good………..but the door to the trailer was wide open (I thing Randy in his haste had not made sure it was closed ) so who knows how much propane we used trying to heat the outdoors!!!!!
Randy came in to the finish line and I had much less hard time getting them back to the truck than I had getting them to the start line – it was down hill to the start and of course the dogs are full of energy wanting to go – I felt like it took me 5 minutes to catch my breath but maybe it wasn’t’ that long
He did have a dog in the bag – she stopped in the trail about a mile from the finish line and we guess just got tired – the vet checked her and found nothing wrong but Randy thinks it’s probably a shoulder injury come back from last year. Plus he said our old leader Gretta must have a shoulder problem because he had to keep them going under 15mph even going downhill and her partner had to keep her going So on that note I am thinking we are really getting down on our pool of dogs and wondering if we will be able to go 4 more races……………… and then we got today’s results and Randy was 18th for the day and is at 16th overall!!! So things don’t look quite so dismal…………
Went to the rodeo grounds community center (it’s attached to a great big riding arena and there were people training their horses for events) and had a nice roast beef dinner sitting with the Beabers and Magnussons – left there and drove about an hour down another dead end road to the race site – just Magnussons and us here for the nite.
Got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning because we had to water the dogs earlier because they were coming to drug test 2 of our dogs – when the vets got here we took out a total of 4 dogs and managed to get 2 good samples…………
We hooked everyone up and by luck were able to have Jess, Alix Crittendon’s handler take us up to the start line – like a 1/8 mile away, downhill in soft snow – I made it almost to the line in front of the dogs but then my breathing got the best of me so they went to the line by themselves – I found out we are at over 8,000 feet so no wonder I am having some breathing trouble!!!!
Randy made it back with the dogs looking pretty good!!! He said the trail took him up over 2 different mountains!!! So for today he was 17th at 2:57 hours and overall 16th – with the person in 17thonly 8 seconds behind!!!! On to Lander – it’s supposed to take 2.5 to 3 hours!!!!!
January 31
Lots to catch up on – a little busy over the last 3 days and no internet coverage –
So Thursday nite we drove to Jackson Hole and finally found the rodeo grounds parking lot after driving in a circle through a residential neighborhood!! For those of you who have not seen our rig, it is 62 feet long – not easy to maneuver around tight corners!!!
But we spent the nite there and quite early in the morning a a very nice vet from Ohio come and look at our 14 dog pool – everything was good except 2 of our 3 year olds looked like they might be on the verge of losing weight with the long runs – even though we know they are poor eaters and have even been giving them raw chicken from the grocery store to try and fatten them up!!!
So we left Jackson and drove back to Alpine and on the way saw 2 herds of elk – one of the herds was like a tourist attraction where they took people out on horse sleigh-wagons to look at the elk - both herds were at least 100 by what we could see!
Got back to Alpine and went to the very good market to buy some more dog bisquits because I go through them very fast - when you think about giving 16 dogs a bisquit every time we let them out of their box at least 5 times a day!!!
Got up at 5;30 am (I set the alarm for 6 but guess I was too anxious!!!) in order to feed the dogs water/breakfast by 6:30 so we could drop them again at the time (8:30) we should be getting ready to harness/hook up the team for a 9:15am start. So again, for those of you who are not familiar with our race “DeKuiper schedule”- we drop the dogs and as we are dropping them/letting them out of their boxes – I put Zeus Juice on their feet before they even hit the snow so I can drench their inner paws with protective oil to prevent cracks forming in their feet while they are running in snow – wonderfully enough, Fran and Ron Nelson showed up to help me get the dogs ready – they are a couple that used to race in the MUSH organization in Michigan about the same time I started racing – they have in the last 5 years moved to Wyoming and live only 15 miles away from the Alpine race site – so it was very fun to have them here to help us hook up to race = we did have Bruce Magnusson’s snow machine to hook onto to get to the race start so that was good =we got into the shoot good and Randy took off looking good-
I thought, based on our training runs both in the UP and here in Wyoming that Randy would average 15 mph but because the trail was soft with several inches of new snow overnight, it actually took him almost 3 hours to go 30 miles!!!
So for his first stage, he came in 18th – of course not what we had hoped for but at least not last!
We packed up and headed for the next trailhead outside of Pinedale – it was a decent ride , had to go back the way we took to get to Alpine and then a 27 mile side road that dead ended at the trail start. Nice view – found out after Randy left that the trail took him up switchbacks to the top of a mountain at 10,000 feet!!!! He says he didn’t have any side effects (some people throw up, get headaches or light headed) When he came back he had Island in the bag – she ran along for most of the 35 miles but laid down about 3 miles from the finish line – she has been a dog that we have been nursing a pad injury for over a month and is a bit of a pansy…….. she may not run again…….
Surprisingly, Randy moved up a spot to 18th! So we packed up and headed for the next stage at Kemmerer – on the way we got a text saying they had a Mexican dinner for us in Kemmerer at the community center! First time eating out in forever!!!! It was nice and the food was good.
Left the community center and drove about an hour to the race site – we were the only ones here all nite – got a bit chilly (7 degrees) and when we got up at 6am to water the dogs the propane had run out so it was starting to get chilly inside too!!!
So here we are resting before the 8am driver’s meeting and then will drop the dogs about 8:30 and start getting ready for Randy’s 9:18 start!!!
You know I am already having a really hard time remembering what day it is and where we have been the last 4 days!!!! It’s pretty confusing – kind of what it must be like to be “on tour”…………
Our take off this morning was less than desirable – first we apparently were not calculating his start time correctly so he was supposed to leave earlier than we had planned – so I think about 3 people were there helping us to hurry to the start line so we didn’t miss our chute time and while we were hooking up dogs Randy says some kind hearted helper unhooked the dog team from the trailer so they started leaving!!!! We didn’t even have all of them hooked in!!! And Randy was nowhere to be seen!!!!! and then Randy appears (having forgotten his bib in the trailer…………) and we are off to the start line with me huffing and puffing and not able to keep up with the team even with him putting the brake down!!!!!
He did take off and they looked good! I walked down farther on the trail and wanted to see where they were going (turns out the trail goes through a valley and then up a mountain with switchbacks – both Randy and Ed Stielstra said it was the most beautiful trail of their lives – a lot coming from 2 Iditarod drivers………..) I stayed down about 1/8 mile and watched more teams go out and then realized that in the confusion and rush to get to the start line we still have 8 dogs out tied to the trailer!!!! When I got back they were all happy and in the sun so it was all good………..but the door to the trailer was wide open (I thing Randy in his haste had not made sure it was closed ) so who knows how much propane we used trying to heat the outdoors!!!!!
Randy came in to the finish line and I had much less hard time getting them back to the truck than I had getting them to the start line – it was down hill to the start and of course the dogs are full of energy wanting to go – I felt like it took me 5 minutes to catch my breath but maybe it wasn’t’ that long
He did have a dog in the bag – she stopped in the trail about a mile from the finish line and we guess just got tired – the vet checked her and found nothing wrong but Randy thinks it’s probably a shoulder injury come back from last year. Plus he said our old leader Gretta must have a shoulder problem because he had to keep them going under 15mph even going downhill and her partner had to keep her going So on that note I am thinking we are really getting down on our pool of dogs and wondering if we will be able to go 4 more races……………… and then we got today’s results and Randy was 18th for the day and is at 16th overall!!! So things don’t look quite so dismal…………
Went to the rodeo grounds community center (it’s attached to a great big riding arena and there were people training their horses for events) and had a nice roast beef dinner sitting with the Beabers and Magnussons – left there and drove about an hour down another dead end road to the race site – just Magnussons and us here for the nite.
Got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning because we had to water the dogs earlier because they were coming to drug test 2 of our dogs – when the vets got here we took out a total of 4 dogs and managed to get 2 good samples…………
We hooked everyone up and by luck were able to have Jess, Alix Crittendon’s handler take us up to the start line – like a 1/8 mile away, downhill in soft snow – I made it almost to the line in front of the dogs but then my breathing got the best of me so they went to the line by themselves – I found out we are at over 8,000 feet so no wonder I am having some breathing trouble!!!!
Randy made it back with the dogs looking pretty good!!! He said the trail took him up over 2 different mountains!!! So for today he was 17th at 2:57 hours and overall 16th – with the person in 17thonly 8 seconds behind!!!! On to Lander – it’s supposed to take 2.5 to 3 hours!!!!!
January 31
Lots to catch up on – a little busy over the last 3 days and no internet coverage –
So Thursday nite we drove to Jackson Hole and finally found the rodeo grounds parking lot after driving in a circle through a residential neighborhood!! For those of you who have not seen our rig, it is 62 feet long – not easy to maneuver around tight corners!!!
But we spent the nite there and quite early in the morning a a very nice vet from Ohio come and look at our 14 dog pool – everything was good except 2 of our 3 year olds looked like they might be on the verge of losing weight with the long runs – even though we know they are poor eaters and have even been giving them raw chicken from the grocery store to try and fatten them up!!!
So we left Jackson and drove back to Alpine and on the way saw 2 herds of elk – one of the herds was like a tourist attraction where they took people out on horse sleigh-wagons to look at the elk - both herds were at least 100 by what we could see!
Got back to Alpine and went to the very good market to buy some more dog bisquits because I go through them very fast - when you think about giving 16 dogs a bisquit every time we let them out of their box at least 5 times a day!!!
Got up at 5;30 am (I set the alarm for 6 but guess I was too anxious!!!) in order to feed the dogs water/breakfast by 6:30 so we could drop them again at the time (8:30) we should be getting ready to harness/hook up the team for a 9:15am start. So again, for those of you who are not familiar with our race “DeKuiper schedule”- we drop the dogs and as we are dropping them/letting them out of their boxes – I put Zeus Juice on their feet before they even hit the snow so I can drench their inner paws with protective oil to prevent cracks forming in their feet while they are running in snow – wonderfully enough, Fran and Ron Nelson showed up to help me get the dogs ready – they are a couple that used to race in the MUSH organization in Michigan about the same time I started racing – they have in the last 5 years moved to Wyoming and live only 15 miles away from the Alpine race site – so it was very fun to have them here to help us hook up to race = we did have Bruce Magnusson’s snow machine to hook onto to get to the race start so that was good =we got into the shoot good and Randy took off looking good-
I thought, based on our training runs both in the UP and here in Wyoming that Randy would average 15 mph but because the trail was soft with several inches of new snow overnight, it actually took him almost 3 hours to go 30 miles!!!
So for his first stage, he came in 18th – of course not what we had hoped for but at least not last!
We packed up and headed for the next trailhead outside of Pinedale – it was a decent ride , had to go back the way we took to get to Alpine and then a 27 mile side road that dead ended at the trail start. Nice view – found out after Randy left that the trail took him up switchbacks to the top of a mountain at 10,000 feet!!!! He says he didn’t have any side effects (some people throw up, get headaches or light headed) When he came back he had Island in the bag – she ran along for most of the 35 miles but laid down about 3 miles from the finish line – she has been a dog that we have been nursing a pad injury for over a month and is a bit of a pansy…….. she may not run again…….
Surprisingly, Randy moved up a spot to 18th! So we packed up and headed for the next stage at Kemmerer – on the way we got a text saying they had a Mexican dinner for us in Kemmerer at the community center! First time eating out in forever!!!! It was nice and the food was good.
Left the community center and drove about an hour to the race site – we were the only ones here all nite – got a bit chilly (7 degrees) and when we got up at 6am to water the dogs the propane had run out so it was starting to get chilly inside too!!!
So here we are resting before the 8am driver’s meeting and then will drop the dogs about 8:30 and start getting ready for Randy’s 9:18 start!!!
You know I am already having a really hard time remembering what day it is and where we have been the last 4 days!!!! It’s pretty confusing – kind of what it must be like to be “on tour”…………
Our take off this morning was less than desirable – first we apparently were not calculating his start time correctly so he was supposed to leave earlier than we had planned – so I think about 3 people were there helping us to hurry to the start line so we didn’t miss our chute time and while we were hooking up dogs Randy says some kind hearted helper unhooked the dog team from the trailer so they started leaving!!!! We didn’t even have all of them hooked in!!! And Randy was nowhere to be seen!!!!! and then Randy appears (having forgotten his bib in the trailer…………) and we are off to the start line with me huffing and puffing and not able to keep up with the team even with him putting the brake down!!!!!
He did take off and they looked good! I walked down farther on the trail and wanted to see where they were going (turns out the trail goes through a valley and then up a mountain with switchbacks – both Randy and Ed Stielstra said it was the most beautiful trail of their lives – a lot coming from 2 Iditarod drivers………..) I stayed down about 1/8 mile and watched more teams go out and then realized that in the confusion and rush to get to the start line we still have 8 dogs out tied to the trailer!!!! When I got back they were all happy and in the sun so it was all good………..but the door to the trailer was wide open (I thing Randy in his haste had not made sure it was closed ) so who knows how much propane we used trying to heat the outdoors!!!!!
Randy came in to the finish line and I had much less hard time getting them back to the truck than I had getting them to the start line – it was down hill to the start and of course the dogs are full of energy wanting to go – I felt like it took me 5 minutes to catch my breath but maybe it wasn’t’ that long
He did have a dog in the bag – she stopped in the trail about a mile from the finish line and we guess just got tired – the vet checked her and found nothing wrong but Randy thinks it’s probably a shoulder injury come back from last year. Plus he said our old leader Gretta must have a shoulder problem because he had to keep them going under 15mph even going downhill and her partner had to keep her going So on that note I am thinking we are really getting down on our pool of dogs and wondering if we will be able to go 4 more races……………… and then we got today’s results and Randy was 18th for the day and is at 16th overall!!! So things don’t look quite so dismal…………
Went to the rodeo grounds community center (it’s attached to a great big riding arena and there were people training their horses for events) and had a nice roast beef dinner sitting with the Beabers and Magnussons – left there and drove about an hour down another dead end road to the race site – just Magnussons and us here for the nite.
Got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning because we had to water the dogs earlier because they were coming to drug test 2 of our dogs – when the vets got here we took out a total of 4 dogs and managed to get 2 good samples…………
We hooked everyone up and by luck were able to have Jess, Alix Crittendon’s handler take us up to the start line – like a 1/8 mile away, downhill in soft snow – I made it almost to the line in front of the dogs but then my breathing got the best of me so they went to the line by themselves – I found out we are at over 8,000 feet so no wonder I am having some breathing trouble!!!!
Randy made it back with the dogs looking pretty good!!! He said the trail took him up over 2 different mountains!!! So for today he was 17th at 2:57 hours and overall 16th – with the person in 17thonly 8 seconds behind!!!! On to Lander – it’s supposed to take 2.5 to 3 hours!!!!!
January 31
Lots to catch up on – a little busy over the last 3 days and no internet coverage –
So Thursday nite we drove to Jackson Hole and finally found the rodeo grounds parking lot after driving in a circle through a residential neighborhood!! For those of you who have not seen our rig, it is 62 feet long – not easy to maneuver around tight corners!!!
But we spent the nite there and quite early in the morning a a very nice vet from Ohio come and look at our 14 dog pool – everything was good except 2 of our 3 year olds looked like they might be on the verge of losing weight with the long runs – even though we know they are poor eaters and have even been giving them raw chicken from the grocery store to try and fatten them up!!!
So we left Jackson and drove back to Alpine and on the way saw 2 herds of elk – one of the herds was like a tourist attraction where they took people out on horse sleigh-wagons to look at the elk - both herds were at least 100 by what we could see!
Got back to Alpine and went to the very good market to buy some more dog bisquits because I go through them very fast - when you think about giving 16 dogs a bisquit every time we let them out of their box at least 5 times a day!!!
Got up at 5;30 am (I set the alarm for 6 but guess I was too anxious!!!) in order to feed the dogs water/breakfast by 6:30 so we could drop them again at the time (8:30) we should be getting ready to harness/hook up the team for a 9:15am start. So again, for those of you who are not familiar with our race “DeKuiper schedule”- we drop the dogs and as we are dropping them/letting them out of their boxes – I put Zeus Juice on their feet before they even hit the snow so I can drench their inner paws with protective oil to prevent cracks forming in their feet while they are running in snow – wonderfully enough, Fran and Ron Nelson showed up to help me get the dogs ready – they are a couple that used to race in the MUSH organization in Michigan about the same time I started racing – they have in the last 5 years moved to Wyoming and live only 15 miles away from the Alpine race site – so it was very fun to have them here to help us hook up to race = we did have Bruce Magnusson’s snow machine to hook onto to get to the race start so that was good =we got into the shoot good and Randy took off looking good-
I thought, based on our training runs both in the UP and here in Wyoming that Randy would average 15 mph but because the trail was soft with several inches of new snow overnight, it actually took him almost 3 hours to go 30 miles!!!
So for his first stage, he came in 18th – of course not what we had hoped for but at least not last!
We packed up and headed for the next trailhead outside of Pinedale – it was a decent ride , had to go back the way we took to get to Alpine and then a 27 mile side road that dead ended at the trail start. Nice view – found out after Randy left that the trail took him up switchbacks to the top of a mountain at 10,000 feet!!!! He says he didn’t have any side effects (some people throw up, get headaches or light headed) When he came back he had Island in the bag – she ran along for most of the 35 miles but laid down about 3 miles from the finish line – she has been a dog that we have been nursing a pad injury for over a month and is a bit of a pansy…….. she may not run again…….
Surprisingly, Randy moved up a spot to 18th! So we packed up and headed for the next stage at Kemmerer – on the way we got a text saying they had a Mexican dinner for us in Kemmerer at the community center! First time eating out in forever!!!! It was nice and the food was good.
Left the community center and drove about an hour to the race site – we were the only ones here all nite – got a bit chilly (7 degrees) and when we got up at 6am to water the dogs the propane had run out so it was starting to get chilly inside too!!!
So here we are resting before the 8am driver’s meeting and then will drop the dogs about 8:30 and start getting ready for Randy’s 9:18 start!!!
You know I am already having a really hard time remembering what day it is and where we have been the last 4 days!!!! It’s pretty confusing – kind of what it must be like to be “on tour”…………
Our take off this morning was less than desirable – first we apparently were not calculating his start time correctly so he was supposed to leave earlier than we had planned – so I think about 3 people were there helping us to hurry to the start line so we didn’t miss our chute time and while we were hooking up dogs Randy says some kind hearted helper unhooked the dog team from the trailer so they started leaving!!!! We didn’t even have all of them hooked in!!! And Randy was nowhere to be seen!!!!! and then Randy appears (having forgotten his bib in the trailer…………) and we are off to the start line with me huffing and puffing and not able to keep up with the team even with him putting the brake down!!!!!
He did take off and they looked good! I walked down farther on the trail and wanted to see where they were going (turns out the trail goes through a valley and then up a mountain with switchbacks – both Randy and Ed Stielstra said it was the most beautiful trail of their lives – a lot coming from 2 Iditarod drivers………..) I stayed down about 1/8 mile and watched more teams go out and then realized that in the confusion and rush to get to the start line we still have 8 dogs out tied to the trailer!!!! When I got back they were all happy and in the sun so it was all good………..but the door to the trailer was wide open (I thing Randy in his haste had not made sure it was closed ) so who knows how much propane we used trying to heat the outdoors!!!!!
Randy came in to the finish line and I had much less hard time getting them back to the truck than I had getting them to the start line – it was down hill to the start and of course the dogs are full of energy wanting to go – I felt like it took me 5 minutes to catch my breath but maybe it wasn’t’ that long
He did have a dog in the bag – she stopped in the trail about a mile from the finish line and we guess just got tired – the vet checked her and found nothing wrong but Randy thinks it’s probably a shoulder injury come back from last year. Plus he said our old leader Gretta must have a shoulder problem because he had to keep them going under 15mph even going downhill and her partner had to keep her going So on that note I am thinking we are really getting down on our pool of dogs and wondering if we will be able to go 4 more races……………… and then we got today’s results and Randy was 18th for the day and is at 16th overall!!! So things don’t look quite so dismal…………
Went to the rodeo grounds community center (it’s attached to a great big riding arena and there were people training their horses for events) and had a nice roast beef dinner sitting with the Beabers and Magnussons – left there and drove about an hour down another dead end road to the race site – just Magnussons and us here for the nite.
Got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning because we had to water the dogs earlier because they were coming to drug test 2 of our dogs – when the vets got here we took out a total of 4 dogs and managed to get 2 good samples…………
We hooked everyone up and by luck were able to have Jess, Alix Crittendon’s handler take us up to the start line – like a 1/8 mile away, downhill in soft snow – I made it almost to the line in front of the dogs but then my breathing got the best of me so they went to the line by themselves – I found out we are at over 8,000 feet so no wonder I am having some breathing trouble!!!!
Randy made it back with the dogs looking pretty good!!! He said the trail took him up over 2 different mountains!!! So for today he was 17th at 2:57 hours and overall 16th – with the person in 17thonly 8 seconds behind!!!! On to Lander – it’s supposed to take 2.5 to 3 hours!!!!!
January 31
Lots to catch up on – a little busy over the last 3 days and no internet coverage –
So Thursday nite we drove to Jackson Hole and finally found the rodeo grounds parking lot after driving in a circle through a residential neighborhood!! For those of you who have not seen our rig, it is 62 feet long – not easy to maneuver around tight corners!!!
But we spent the nite there and quite early in the morning a a very nice vet from Ohio come and look at our 14 dog pool – everything was good except 2 of our 3 year olds looked like they might be on the verge of losing weight with the long runs – even though we know they are poor eaters and have even been giving them raw chicken from the grocery store to try and fatten them up!!!
So we left Jackson and drove back to Alpine and on the way saw 2 herds of elk – one of the herds was like a tourist attraction where they took people out on horse sleigh-wagons to look at the elk - both herds were at least 100 by what we could see!
Got back to Alpine and went to the very good market to buy some more dog bisquits because I go through them very fast - when you think about giving 16 dogs a bisquit every time we let them out of their box at least 5 times a day!!!
Got up at 5;30 am (I set the alarm for 6 but guess I was too anxious!!!) in order to feed the dogs water/breakfast by 6:30 so we could drop them again at the time (8:30) we should be getting ready to harness/hook up the team for a 9:15am start. So again, for those of you who are not familiar with our race “DeKuiper schedule”- we drop the dogs and as we are dropping them/letting them out of their boxes – I put Zeus Juice on their feet before they even hit the snow so I can drench their inner paws with protective oil to prevent cracks forming in their feet while they are running in snow – wonderfully enough, Fran and Ron Nelson showed up to help me get the dogs ready – they are a couple that used to race in the MUSH organization in Michigan about the same time I started racing – they have in the last 5 years moved to Wyoming and live only 15 miles away from the Alpine race site – so it was very fun to have them here to help us hook up to race = we did have Bruce Magnusson’s snow machine to hook onto to get to the race start so that was good =we got into the shoot good and Randy took off looking good-
I thought, based on our training runs both in the UP and here in Wyoming that Randy would average 15 mph but because the trail was soft with several inches of new snow overnight, it actually took him almost 3 hours to go 30 miles!!!
So for his first stage, he came in 18th – of course not what we had hoped for but at least not last!
We packed up and headed for the next trailhead outside of Pinedale – it was a decent ride , had to go back the way we took to get to Alpine and then a 27 mile side road that dead ended at the trail start. Nice view – found out after Randy left that the trail took him up switchbacks to the top of a mountain at 10,000 feet!!!! He says he didn’t have any side effects (some people throw up, get headaches or light headed) When he came back he had Island in the bag – she ran along for most of the 35 miles but laid down about 3 miles from the finish line – she has been a dog that we have been nursing a pad injury for over a month and is a bit of a pansy…….. she may not run again…….
Surprisingly, Randy moved up a spot to 18th! So we packed up and headed for the next stage at Kemmerer – on the way we got a text saying they had a Mexican dinner for us in Kemmerer at the community center! First time eating out in forever!!!! It was nice and the food was good.
Left the community center and drove about an hour to the race site – we were the only ones here all nite – got a bit chilly (7 degrees) and when we got up at 6am to water the dogs the propane had run out so it was starting to get chilly inside too!!!
So here we are resting before the 8am driver’s meeting and then will drop the dogs about 8:30 and start getting ready for Randy’s 9:18 start!!!
You know I am already having a really hard time remembering what day it is and where we have been the last 4 days!!!! It’s pretty confusing – kind of what it must be like to be “on tour”…………
Our take off this morning was less than desirable – first we apparently were not calculating his start time correctly so he was supposed to leave earlier than we had planned – so I think about 3 people were there helping us to hurry to the start line so we didn’t miss our chute time and while we were hooking up dogs Randy says some kind hearted helper unhooked the dog team from the trailer so they started leaving!!!! We didn’t even have all of them hooked in!!! And Randy was nowhere to be seen!!!!! and then Randy appears (having forgotten his bib in the trailer…………) and we are off to the start line with me huffing and puffing and not able to keep up with the team even with him putting the brake down!!!!!
He did take off and they looked good! I walked down farther on the trail and wanted to see where they were going (turns out the trail goes through a valley and then up a mountain with switchbacks – both Randy and Ed Stielstra said it was the most beautiful trail of their lives – a lot coming from 2 Iditarod drivers………..) I stayed down about 1/8 mile and watched more teams go out and then realized that in the confusion and rush to get to the start line we still have 8 dogs out tied to the trailer!!!! When I got back they were all happy and in the sun so it was all good………..but the door to the trailer was wide open (I thing Randy in his haste had not made sure it was closed ) so who knows how much propane we used trying to heat the outdoors!!!!!
Randy came in to the finish line and I had much less hard time getting them back to the truck than I had getting them to the start line – it was down hill to the start and of course the dogs are full of energy wanting to go – I felt like it took me 5 minutes to catch my breath but maybe it wasn’t’ that long
He did have a dog in the bag – she stopped in the trail about a mile from the finish line and we guess just got tired – the vet checked her and found nothing wrong but Randy thinks it’s probably a shoulder injury come back from last year. Plus he said our old leader Gretta must have a shoulder problem because he had to keep them going under 15mph even going downhill and her partner had to keep her going So on that note I am thinking we are really getting down on our pool of dogs and wondering if we will be able to go 4 more races……………… and then we got today’s results and Randy was 18th for the day and is at 16th overall!!! So things don’t look quite so dismal…………
Went to the rodeo grounds community center (it’s attached to a great big riding arena and there were people training their horses for events) and had a nice roast beef dinner sitting with the Beabers and Magnussons – left there and drove about an hour down another dead end road to the race site – just Magnussons and us here for the nite.
Got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning because we had to water the dogs earlier because they were coming to drug test 2 of our dogs – when the vets got here we took out a total of 4 dogs and managed to get 2 good samples…………
We hooked everyone up and by luck were able to have Jess, Alix Crittendon’s handler take us up to the start line – like a 1/8 mile away, downhill in soft snow – I made it almost to the line in front of the dogs but then my breathing got the best of me so they went to the line by themselves – I found out we are at over 8,000 feet so no wonder I am having some breathing trouble!!!!
Randy made it back with the dogs looking pretty good!!! He said the trail took him up over 2 different mountains!!! So for today he was 17th at 2:57 hours and overall 16th – with the person in 17thonly 8 seconds behind!!!! On to Lander – it’s supposed to take 2.5 to 3 hours!!!!!
January 31
Lots to catch up on – a little busy over the last 3 days and no internet coverage –
So Thursday nite we drove to Jackson Hole and finally found the rodeo grounds parking lot after driving in a circle through a residential neighborhood!! For those of you who have not seen our rig, it is 62 feet long – not easy to maneuver around tight corners!!!
But we spent the nite there and quite early in the morning a a very nice vet from Ohio come and look at our 14 dog pool – everything was good except 2 of our 3 year olds looked like they might be on the verge of losing weight with the long runs – even though we know they are poor eaters and have even been giving them raw chicken from the grocery store to try and fatten them up!!!
So we left Jackson and drove back to Alpine and on the way saw 2 herds of elk – one of the herds was like a tourist attraction where they took people out on horse sleigh-wagons to look at the elk - both herds were at least 100 by what we could see!
Got back to Alpine and went to the very good market to buy some more dog bisquits because I go through them very fast - when you think about giving 16 dogs a bisquit every time we let them out of their box at least 5 times a day!!!
Got up at 5;30 am (I set the alarm for 6 but guess I was too anxious!!!) in order to feed the dogs water/breakfast by 6:30 so we could drop them again at the time (8:30) we should be getting ready to harness/hook up the team for a 9:15am start. So again, for those of you who are not familiar with our race “DeKuiper schedule”- we drop the dogs and as we are dropping them/letting them out of their boxes – I put Zeus Juice on their feet before they even hit the snow so I can drench their inner paws with protective oil to prevent cracks forming in their feet while they are running in snow – wonderfully enough, Fran and Ron Nelson showed up to help me get the dogs ready – they are a couple that used to race in the MUSH organization in Michigan about the same time I started racing – they have in the last 5 years moved to Wyoming and live only 15 miles away from the Alpine race site – so it was very fun to have them here to help us hook up to race = we did have Bruce Magnusson’s snow machine to hook onto to get to the race start so that was good =we got into the shoot good and Randy took off looking good-
I thought, based on our training runs both in the UP and here in Wyoming that Randy would average 15 mph but because the trail was soft with several inches of new snow overnight, it actually took him almost 3 hours to go 30 miles!!!
So for his first stage, he came in 18th – of course not what we had hoped for but at least not last!
We packed up and headed for the next trailhead outside of Pinedale – it was a decent ride , had to go back the way we took to get to Alpine and then a 27 mile side road that dead ended at the trail start. Nice view – found out after Randy left that the trail took him up switchbacks to the top of a mountain at 10,000 feet!!!! He says he didn’t have any side effects (some people throw up, get headaches or light headed) When he came back he had Island in the bag – she ran along for most of the 35 miles but laid down about 3 miles from the finish line – she has been a dog that we have been nursing a pad injury for over a month and is a bit of a pansy…….. she may not run again…….
Surprisingly, Randy moved up a spot to 18th! So we packed up and headed for the next stage at Kemmerer – on the way we got a text saying they had a Mexican dinner for us in Kemmerer at the community center! First time eating out in forever!!!! It was nice and the food was good.
Left the community center and drove about an hour to the race site – we were the only ones here all nite – got a bit chilly (7 degrees) and when we got up at 6am to water the dogs the propane had run out so it was starting to get chilly inside too!!!
So here we are resting before the 8am driver’s meeting and then will drop the dogs about 8:30 and start getting ready for Randy’s 9:18 start!!!
You know I am already having a really hard time remembering what day it is and where we have been the last 4 days!!!! It’s pretty confusing – kind of what it must be like to be “on tour”…………
Our take off this morning was less than desirable – first we apparently were not calculating his start time correctly so he was supposed to leave earlier than we had planned – so I think about 3 people were there helping us to hurry to the start line so we didn’t miss our chute time and while we were hooking up dogs Randy says some kind hearted helper unhooked the dog team from the trailer so they started leaving!!!! We didn’t even have all of them hooked in!!! And Randy was nowhere to be seen!!!!! and then Randy appears (having forgotten his bib in the trailer…………) and we are off to the start line with me huffing and puffing and not able to keep up with the team even with him putting the brake down!!!!!
He did take off and they looked good! I walked down farther on the trail and wanted to see where they were going (turns out the trail goes through a valley and then up a mountain with switchbacks – both Randy and Ed Stielstra said it was the most beautiful trail of their lives – a lot coming from 2 Iditarod drivers………..) I stayed down about 1/8 mile and watched more teams go out and then realized that in the confusion and rush to get to the start line we still have 8 dogs out tied to the trailer!!!! When I got back they were all happy and in the sun so it was all good………..but the door to the trailer was wide open (I thing Randy in his haste had not made sure it was closed ) so who knows how much propane we used trying to heat the outdoors!!!!!
Randy came in to the finish line and I had much less hard time getting them back to the truck than I had getting them to the start line – it was down hill to the start and of course the dogs are full of energy wanting to go – I felt like it took me 5 minutes to catch my breath but maybe it wasn’t’ that long
He did have a dog in the bag – she stopped in the trail about a mile from the finish line and we guess just got tired – the vet checked her and found nothing wrong but Randy thinks it’s probably a shoulder injury come back from last year. Plus he said our old leader Gretta must have a shoulder problem because he had to keep them going under 15mph even going downhill and her partner had to keep her going So on that note I am thinking we are really getting down on our pool of dogs and wondering if we will be able to go 4 more races……………… and then we got today’s results and Randy was 18th for the day and is at 16th overall!!! So things don’t look quite so dismal…………
Went to the rodeo grounds community center (it’s attached to a great big riding arena and there were people training their horses for events) and had a nice roast beef dinner sitting with the Beabers and Magnussons – left there and drove about an hour down another dead end road to the race site – just Magnussons and us here for the nite.
Got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning because we had to water the dogs earlier because they were coming to drug test 2 of our dogs – when the vets got here we took out a total of 4 dogs and managed to get 2 good samples…………
We hooked everyone up and by luck were able to have Jess, Alix Crittendon’s handler take us up to the start line – like a 1/8 mile away, downhill in soft snow – I made it almost to the line in front of the dogs but then my breathing got the best of me so they went to the line by themselves – I found out we are at over 8,000 feet so no wonder I am having some breathing trouble!!!!
Randy made it back with the dogs looking pretty good!!! He said the trail took him up over 2 different mountains!!! So for today he was 17th at 2:57 hours and overall 16th – with the person in 17thonly 8 seconds behind!!!! On to Lander – it’s supposed to take 2.5 to 3 hours!!!!!
January 31
Lots to catch up on – a little busy over the last 3 days and no internet coverage –
So Thursday nite we drove to Jackson Hole and finally found the rodeo grounds parking lot after driving in a circle through a residential neighborhood!! For those of you who have not seen our rig, it is 62 feet long – not easy to maneuver around tight corners!!!
But we spent the nite there and quite early in the morning a a very nice vet from Ohio come and look at our 14 dog pool – everything was good except 2 of our 3 year olds looked like they might be on the verge of losing weight with the long runs – even though we know they are poor eaters and have even been giving them raw chicken from the grocery store to try and fatten them up!!!
So we left Jackson and drove back to Alpine and on the way saw 2 herds of elk – one of the herds was like a tourist attraction where they took people out on horse sleigh-wagons to look at the elk - both herds were at least 100 by what we could see!
Got back to Alpine and went to the very good market to buy some more dog bisquits because I go through them very fast - when you think about giving 16 dogs a bisquit every time we let them out of their box at least 5 times a day!!!
Got up at 5;30 am (I set the alarm for 6 but guess I was too anxious!!!) in order to feed the dogs water/breakfast by 6:30 so we could drop them again at the time (8:30) we should be getting ready to harness/hook up the team for a 9:15am start. So again, for those of you who are not familiar with our race “DeKuiper schedule”- we drop the dogs and as we are dropping them/letting them out of their boxes – I put Zeus Juice on their feet before they even hit the snow so I can drench their inner paws with protective oil to prevent cracks forming in their feet while they are running in snow – wonderfully enough, Fran and Ron Nelson showed up to help me get the dogs ready – they are a couple that used to race in the MUSH organization in Michigan about the same time I started racing – they have in the last 5 years moved to Wyoming and live only 15 miles away from the Alpine race site – so it was very fun to have them here to help us hook up to race = we did have Bruce Magnusson’s snow machine to hook onto to get to the race start so that was good =we got into the shoot good and Randy took off looking good-
I thought, based on our training runs both in the UP and here in Wyoming that Randy would average 15 mph but because the trail was soft with several inches of new snow overnight, it actually took him almost 3 hours to go 30 miles!!!
So for his first stage, he came in 18th – of course not what we had hoped for but at least not last!
We packed up and headed for the next trailhead outside of Pinedale – it was a decent ride , had to go back the way we took to get to Alpine and then a 27 mile side road that dead ended at the trail start. Nice view – found out after Randy left that the trail took him up switchbacks to the top of a mountain at 10,000 feet!!!! He says he didn’t have any side effects (some people throw up, get headaches or light headed) When he came back he had Island in the bag – she ran along for most of the 35 miles but laid down about 3 miles from the finish line – she has been a dog that we have been nursing a pad injury for over a month and is a bit of a pansy…….. she may not run again…….
Surprisingly, Randy moved up a spot to 18th! So we packed up and headed for the next stage at Kemmerer – on the way we got a text saying they had a Mexican dinner for us in Kemmerer at the community center! First time eating out in forever!!!! It was nice and the food was good.
Left the community center and drove about an hour to the race site – we were the only ones here all nite – got a bit chilly (7 degrees) and when we got up at 6am to water the dogs the propane had run out so it was starting to get chilly inside too!!!
So here we are resting before the 8am driver’s meeting and then will drop the dogs about 8:30 and start getting ready for Randy’s 9:18 start!!!
You know I am already having a really hard time remembering what day it is and where we have been the last 4 days!!!! It’s pretty confusing – kind of what it must be like to be “on tour”…………
Our take off this morning was less than desirable – first we apparently were not calculating his start time correctly so he was supposed to leave earlier than we had planned – so I think about 3 people were there helping us to hurry to the start line so we didn’t miss our chute time and while we were hooking up dogs Randy says some kind hearted helper unhooked the dog team from the trailer so they started leaving!!!! We didn’t even have all of them hooked in!!! And Randy was nowhere to be seen!!!!! and then Randy appears (having forgotten his bib in the trailer…………) and we are off to the start line with me huffing and puffing and not able to keep up with the team even with him putting the brake down!!!!!
He did take off and they looked good! I walked down farther on the trail and wanted to see where they were going (turns out the trail goes through a valley and then up a mountain with switchbacks – both Randy and Ed Stielstra said it was the most beautiful trail of their lives – a lot coming from 2 Iditarod drivers………..) I stayed down about 1/8 mile and watched more teams go out and then realized that in the confusion and rush to get to the start line we still have 8 dogs out tied to the trailer!!!! When I got back they were all happy and in the sun so it was all good………..but the door to the trailer was wide open (I thing Randy in his haste had not made sure it was closed ) so who knows how much propane we used trying to heat the outdoors!!!!!
Randy came in to the finish line and I had much less hard time getting them back to the truck than I had getting them to the start line – it was down hill to the start and of course the dogs are full of energy wanting to go – I felt like it took me 5 minutes to catch my breath but maybe it wasn’t’ that long
He did have a dog in the bag – she stopped in the trail about a mile from the finish line and we guess just got tired – the vet checked her and found nothing wrong but Randy thinks it’s probably a shoulder injury come back from last year. Plus he said our old leader Gretta must have a shoulder problem because he had to keep them going under 15mph even going downhill and her partner had to keep her going So on that note I am thinking we are really getting down on our pool of dogs and wondering if we will be able to go 4 more races……………… and then we got today’s results and Randy was 18th for the day and is at 16th overall!!! So things don’t look quite so dismal…………
Went to the rodeo grounds community center (it’s attached to a great big riding arena and there were people training their horses for events) and had a nice roast beef dinner sitting with the Beabers and Magnussons – left there and drove about an hour down another dead end road to the race site – just Magnussons and us here for the nite.
Got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning because we had to water the dogs earlier because they were coming to drug test 2 of our dogs – when the vets got here we took out a total of 4 dogs and managed to get 2 good samples…………
We hooked everyone up and by luck were able to have Jess, Alix Crittendon’s handler take us up to the start line – like a 1/8 mile away, downhill in soft snow – I made it almost to the line in front of the dogs but then my breathing got the best of me so they went to the line by themselves – I found out we are at over 8,000 feet so no wonder I am having some breathing trouble!!!!
Randy made it back with the dogs looking pretty good!!! He said the trail took him up over 2 different mountains!!! So for today he was 17th at 2:57 hours and overall 16th – with the person in 17thonly 8 seconds behind!!!! On to Lander – it’s supposed to take 2.5 to 3 hours!!!!!
January 31
Lots to catch up on – a little busy over the last 3 days and no internet coverage –
So Thursday nite we drove to Jackson Hole and finally found the rodeo grounds parking lot after driving in a circle through a residential neighborhood!! For those of you who have not seen our rig, it is 62 feet long – not easy to maneuver around tight corners!!!
But we spent the nite there and quite early in the morning a a very nice vet from Ohio come and look at our 14 dog pool – everything was good except 2 of our 3 year olds looked like they might be on the verge of losing weight with the long runs – even though we know they are poor eaters and have even been giving them raw chicken from the grocery store to try and fatten them up!!!
So we left Jackson and drove back to Alpine and on the way saw 2 herds of elk – one of the herds was like a tourist attraction where they took people out on horse sleigh-wagons to look at the elk - both herds were at least 100 by what we could see!
Got back to Alpine and went to the very good market to buy some more dog bisquits because I go through them very fast - when you think about giving 16 dogs a bisquit every time we let them out of their box at least 5 times a day!!!
Got up at 5;30 am (I set the alarm for 6 but guess I was too anxious!!!) in order to feed the dogs water/breakfast by 6:30 so we could drop them again at the time (8:30) we should be getting ready to harness/hook up the team for a 9:15am start. So again, for those of you who are not familiar with our race “DeKuiper schedule”- we drop the dogs and as we are dropping them/letting them out of their boxes – I put Zeus Juice on their feet before they even hit the snow so I can drench their inner paws with protective oil to prevent cracks forming in their feet while they are running in snow – wonderfully enough, Fran and Ron Nelson showed up to help me get the dogs ready – they are a couple that used to race in the MUSH organization in Michigan about the same time I started racing – they have in the last 5 years moved to Wyoming and live only 15 miles away from the Alpine race site – so it was very fun to have them here to help us hook up to race = we did have Bruce Magnusson’s snow machine to hook onto to get to the race start so that was good =we got into the shoot good and Randy took off looking good-
I thought, based on our training runs both in the UP and here in Wyoming that Randy would average 15 mph but because the trail was soft with several inches of new snow overnight, it actually took him almost 3 hours to go 30 miles!!!
So for his first stage, he came in 18th – of course not what we had hoped for but at least not last!
We packed up and headed for the next trailhead outside of Pinedale – it was a decent ride , had to go back the way we took to get to Alpine and then a 27 mile side road that dead ended at the trail start. Nice view – found out after Randy left that the trail took him up switchbacks to the top of a mountain at 10,000 feet!!!! He says he didn’t have any side effects (some people throw up, get headaches or light headed) When he came back he had Island in the bag – she ran along for most of the 35 miles but laid down about 3 miles from the finish line – she has been a dog that we have been nursing a pad injury for over a month and is a bit of a pansy…….. she may not run again…….
Surprisingly, Randy moved up a spot to 18th! So we packed up and headed for the next stage at Kemmerer – on the way we got a text saying they had a Mexican dinner for us in Kemmerer at the community center! First time eating out in forever!!!! It was nice and the food was good.
Left the community center and drove about an hour to the race site – we were the only ones here all nite – got a bit chilly (7 degrees) and when we got up at 6am to water the dogs the propane had run out so it was starting to get chilly inside too!!!
So here we are resting before the 8am driver’s meeting and then will drop the dogs about 8:30 and start getting ready for Randy’s 9:18 start!!!
You know I am already having a really hard time remembering what day it is and where we have been the last 4 days!!!! It’s pretty confusing – kind of what it must be like to be “on tour”…………
Our take off this morning was less than desirable – first we apparently were not calculating his start time correctly so he was supposed to leave earlier than we had planned – so I think about 3 people were there helping us to hurry to the start line so we didn’t miss our chute time and while we were hooking up dogs Randy says some kind hearted helper unhooked the dog team from the trailer so they started leaving!!!! We didn’t even have all of them hooked in!!! And Randy was nowhere to be seen!!!!! and then Randy appears (having forgotten his bib in the trailer…………) and we are off to the start line with me huffing and puffing and not able to keep up with the team even with him putting the brake down!!!!!
He did take off and they looked good! I walked down farther on the trail and wanted to see where they were going (turns out the trail goes through a valley and then up a mountain with switchbacks – both Randy and Ed Stielstra said it was the most beautiful trail of their lives – a lot coming from 2 Iditarod drivers………..) I stayed down about 1/8 mile and watched more teams go out and then realized that in the confusion and rush to get to the start line we still have 8 dogs out tied to the trailer!!!! When I got back they were all happy and in the sun so it was all good………..but the door to the trailer was wide open (I thing Randy in his haste had not made sure it was closed ) so who knows how much propane we used trying to heat the outdoors!!!!!
Randy came in to the finish line and I had much less hard time getting them back to the truck than I had getting them to the start line – it was down hill to the start and of course the dogs are full of energy wanting to go – I felt like it took me 5 minutes to catch my breath but maybe it wasn’t’ that long
He did have a dog in the bag – she stopped in the trail about a mile from the finish line and we guess just got tired – the vet checked her and found nothing wrong but Randy thinks it’s probably a shoulder injury come back from last year. Plus he said our old leader Gretta must have a shoulder problem because he had to keep them going under 15mph even going downhill and her partner had to keep her going So on that note I am thinking we are really getting down on our pool of dogs and wondering if we will be able to go 4 more races……………… and then we got today’s results and Randy was 18th for the day and is at 16th overall!!! So things don’t look quite so dismal…………
Went to the rodeo grounds community center (it’s attached to a great big riding arena and there were people training their horses for events) and had a nice roast beef dinner sitting with the Beabers and Magnussons – left there and drove about an hour down another dead end road to the race site – just Magnussons and us here for the nite.
Got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning because we had to water the dogs earlier because they were coming to drug test 2 of our dogs – when the vets got here we took out a total of 4 dogs and managed to get 2 good samples…………
We hooked everyone up and by luck were able to have Jess, Alix Crittendon’s handler take us up to the start line – like a 1/8 mile away, downhill in soft snow – I made it almost to the line in front of the dogs but then my breathing got the best of me so they went to the line by themselves – I found out we are at over 8,000 feet so no wonder I am having some breathing trouble!!!!
Randy made it back with the dogs looking pretty good!!! He said the trail took him up over 2 different mountains!!! So for today he was 17th at 2:57 hours and overall 16th – with the person in 17thonly 8 seconds behind!!!! On to Lander – it’s supposed to take 2.5 to 3 hours!!!!!
January 31
Lots to catch up on – a little busy over the last 3 days and no internet coverage –
So Thursday nite we drove to Jackson Hole and finally found the rodeo grounds parking lot after driving in a circle through a residential neighborhood!! For those of you who have not seen our rig, it is 62 feet long – not easy to maneuver around tight corners!!!
But we spent the nite there and quite early in the morning a a very nice vet from Ohio come and look at our 14 dog pool – everything was good except 2 of our 3 year olds looked like they might be on the verge of losing weight with the long runs – even though we know they are poor eaters and have even been giving them raw chicken from the grocery store to try and fatten them up!!!
So we left Jackson and drove back to Alpine and on the way saw 2 herds of elk – one of the herds was like a tourist attraction where they took people out on horse sleigh-wagons to look at the elk - both herds were at least 100 by what we could see!
Got back to Alpine and went to the very good market to buy some more dog bisquits because I go through them very fast - when you think about giving 16 dogs a bisquit every time we let them out of their box at least 5 times a day!!!
Got up at 5;30 am (I set the alarm for 6 but guess I was too anxious!!!) in order to feed the dogs water/breakfast by 6:30 so we could drop them again at the time (8:30) we should be getting ready to harness/hook up the team for a 9:15am start. So again, for those of you who are not familiar with our race “DeKuiper schedule”- we drop the dogs and as we are dropping them/letting them out of their boxes – I put Zeus Juice on their feet before they even hit the snow so I can drench their inner paws with protective oil to prevent cracks forming in their feet while they are running in snow – wonderfully enough, Fran and Ron Nelson showed up to help me get the dogs ready – they are a couple that used to race in the MUSH organization in Michigan about the same time I started racing – they have in the last 5 years moved to Wyoming and live only 15 miles away from the Alpine race site – so it was very fun to have them here to help us hook up to race = we did have Bruce Magnusson’s snow machine to hook onto to get to the race start so that was good =we got into the shoot good and Randy took off looking good-
I thought, based on our training runs both in the UP and here in Wyoming that Randy would average 15 mph but because the trail was soft with several inches of new snow overnight, it actually took him almost 3 hours to go 30 miles!!!
So for his first stage, he came in 18th – of course not what we had hoped for but at least not last!
We packed up and headed for the next trailhead outside of Pinedale – it was a decent ride , had to go back the way we took to get to Alpine and then a 27 mile side road that dead ended at the trail start. Nice view – found out after Randy left that the trail took him up switchbacks to the top of a mountain at 10,000 feet!!!! He says he didn’t have any side effects (some people throw up, get headaches or light headed) When he came back he had Island in the bag – she ran along for most of the 35 miles but laid down about 3 miles from the finish line – she has been a dog that we have been nursing a pad injury for over a month and is a bit of a pansy…….. she may not run again…….
Surprisingly, Randy moved up a spot to 18th! So we packed up and headed for the next stage at Kemmerer – on the way we got a text saying they had a Mexican dinner for us in Kemmerer at the community center! First time eating out in forever!!!! It was nice and the food was good.
Left the community center and drove about an hour to the race site – we were the only ones here all nite – got a bit chilly (7 degrees) and when we got up at 6am to water the dogs the propane had run out so it was starting to get chilly inside too!!!
So here we are resting before the 8am driver’s meeting and then will drop the dogs about 8:30 and start getting ready for Randy’s 9:18 start!!!
You know I am already having a really hard time remembering what day it is and where we have been the last 4 days!!!! It’s pretty confusing – kind of what it must be like to be “on tour”…………
Our take off this morning was less than desirable – first we apparently were not calculating his start time correctly so he was supposed to leave earlier than we had planned – so I think about 3 people were there helping us to hurry to the start line so we didn’t miss our chute time and while we were hooking up dogs Randy says some kind hearted helper unhooked the dog team from the trailer so they started leaving!!!! We didn’t even have all of them hooked in!!! And Randy was nowhere to be seen!!!!! and then Randy appears (having forgotten his bib in the trailer…………) and we are off to the start line with me huffing and puffing and not able to keep up with the team even with him putting the brake down!!!!!
He did take off and they looked good! I walked down farther on the trail and wanted to see where they were going (turns out the trail goes through a valley and then up a mountain with switchbacks – both Randy and Ed Stielstra said it was the most beautiful trail of their lives – a lot coming from 2 Iditarod drivers………..) I stayed down about 1/8 mile and watched more teams go out and then realized that in the confusion and rush to get to the start line we still have 8 dogs out tied to the trailer!!!! When I got back they were all happy and in the sun so it was all good………..but the door to the trailer was wide open (I thing Randy in his haste had not made sure it was closed ) so who knows how much propane we used trying to heat the outdoors!!!!!
Randy came in to the finish line and I had much less hard time getting them back to the truck than I had getting them to the start line – it was down hill to the start and of course the dogs are full of energy wanting to go – I felt like it took me 5 minutes to catch my breath but maybe it wasn’t’ that long
He did have a dog in the bag – she stopped in the trail about a mile from the finish line and we guess just got tired – the vet checked her and found nothing wrong but Randy thinks it’s probably a shoulder injury come back from last year. Plus he said our old leader Gretta must have a shoulder problem because he had to keep them going under 15mph even going downhill and her partner had to keep her going So on that note I am thinking we are really getting down on our pool of dogs and wondering if we will be able to go 4 more races……………… and then we got today’s results and Randy was 18th for the day and is at 16th overall!!! So things don’t look quite so dismal…………
Went to the rodeo grounds community center (it’s attached to a great big riding arena and there were people training their horses for events) and had a nice roast beef dinner sitting with the Beabers and Magnussons – left there and drove about an hour down another dead end road to the race site – just Magnussons and us here for the nite.
Got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning because we had to water the dogs earlier because they were coming to drug test 2 of our dogs – when the vets got here we took out a total of 4 dogs and managed to get 2 good samples…………
We hooked everyone up and by luck were able to have Jess, Alix Crittendon’s handler take us up to the start line – like a 1/8 mile away, downhill in soft snow – I made it almost to the line in front of the dogs but then my breathing got the best of me so they went to the line by themselves – I found out we are at over 8,000 feet so no wonder I am having some breathing trouble!!!!
Randy made it back with the dogs looking pretty good!!! He said the trail took him up over 2 different mountains!!! So for today he was 17th at 2:57 hours and overall 16th – with the person in 17thonly 8 seconds behind!!!! On to Lander – it’s supposed to take 2.5 to 3 hours!!!!!
January 31
Lots to catch up on – a little busy over the last 3 days and no internet coverage –
So Thursday nite we drove to Jackson Hole and finally found the rodeo grounds parking lot after driving in a circle through a residential neighborhood!! For those of you who have not seen our rig, it is 62 feet long – not easy to maneuver around tight corners!!!
But we spent the nite there and quite early in the morning a a very nice vet from Ohio come and look at our 14 dog pool – everything was good except 2 of our 3 year olds looked like they might be on the verge of losing weight with the long runs – even though we know they are poor eaters and have even been giving them raw chicken from the grocery store to try and fatten them up!!!
So we left Jackson and drove back to Alpine and on the way saw 2 herds of elk – one of the herds was like a tourist attraction where they took people out on horse sleigh-wagons to look at the elk - both herds were at least 100 by what we could see!
Got back to Alpine and went to the very good market to buy some more dog bisquits because I go through them very fast - when you think about giving 16 dogs a bisquit every time we let them out of their box at least 5 times a day!!!
Got up at 5;30 am (I set the alarm for 6 but guess I was too anxious!!!) in order to feed the dogs water/breakfast by 6:30 so we could drop them again at the time (8:30) we should be getting ready to harness/hook up the team for a 9:15am start. So again, for those of you who are not familiar with our race “DeKuiper schedule”- we drop the dogs and as we are dropping them/letting them out of their boxes – I put Zeus Juice on their feet before they even hit the snow so I can drench their inner paws with protective oil to prevent cracks forming in their feet while they are running in snow – wonderfully enough, Fran and Ron Nelson showed up to help me get the dogs ready – they are a couple that used to race in the MUSH organization in Michigan about the same time I started racing – they have in the last 5 years moved to Wyoming and live only 15 miles away from the Alpine race site – so it was very fun to have them here to help us hook up to race = we did have Bruce Magnusson’s snow machine to hook onto to get to the race start so that was good =we got into the shoot good and Randy took off looking good-
I thought, based on our training runs both in the UP and here in Wyoming that Randy would average 15 mph but because the trail was soft with several inches of new snow overnight, it actually took him almost 3 hours to go 30 miles!!!
So for his first stage, he came in 18th – of course not what we had hoped for but at least not last!
We packed up and headed for the next trailhead outside of Pinedale – it was a decent ride , had to go back the way we took to get to Alpine and then a 27 mile side road that dead ended at the trail start. Nice view – found out after Randy left that the trail took him up switchbacks to the top of a mountain at 10,000 feet!!!! He says he didn’t have any side effects (some people throw up, get headaches or light headed) When he came back he had Island in the bag – she ran along for most of the 35 miles but laid down about 3 miles from the finish line – she has been a dog that we have been nursing a pad injury for over a month and is a bit of a pansy…….. she may not run again…….
Surprisingly, Randy moved up a spot to 18th! So we packed up and headed for the next stage at Kemmerer – on the way we got a text saying they had a Mexican dinner for us in Kemmerer at the community center! First time eating out in forever!!!! It was nice and the food was good.
Left the community center and drove about an hour to the race site – we were the only ones here all nite – got a bit chilly (7 degrees) and when we got up at 6am to water the dogs the propane had run out so it was starting to get chilly inside too!!!
So here we are resting before the 8am driver’s meeting and then will drop the dogs about 8:30 and start getting ready for Randy’s 9:18 start!!!
You know I am already having a really hard time remembering what day it is and where we have been the last 4 days!!!! It’s pretty confusing – kind of what it must be like to be “on tour”…………
Our take off this morning was less than desirable – first we apparently were not calculating his start time correctly so he was supposed to leave earlier than we had planned – so I think about 3 people were there helping us to hurry to the start line so we didn’t miss our chute time and while we were hooking up dogs Randy says some kind hearted helper unhooked the dog team from the trailer so they started leaving!!!! We didn’t even have all of them hooked in!!! And Randy was nowhere to be seen!!!!! and then Randy appears (having forgotten his bib in the trailer…………) and we are off to the start line with me huffing and puffing and not able to keep up with the team even with him putting the brake down!!!!!
He did take off and they looked good! I walked down farther on the trail and wanted to see where they were going (turns out the trail goes through a valley and then up a mountain with switchbacks – both Randy and Ed Stielstra said it was the most beautiful trail of their lives – a lot coming from 2 Iditarod drivers………..) I stayed down about 1/8 mile and watched more teams go out and then realized that in the confusion and rush to get to the start line we still have 8 dogs out tied to the trailer!!!! When I got back they were all happy and in the sun so it was all good………..but the door to the trailer was wide open (I thing Randy in his haste had not made sure it was closed ) so who knows how much propane we used trying to heat the outdoors!!!!!
Randy came in to the finish line and I had much less hard time getting them back to the truck than I had getting them to the start line – it was down hill to the start and of course the dogs are full of energy wanting to go – I felt like it took me 5 minutes to catch my breath but maybe it wasn’t’ that long
He did have a dog in the bag – she stopped in the trail about a mile from the finish line and we guess just got tired – the vet checked her and found nothing wrong but Randy thinks it’s probably a shoulder injury come back from last year. Plus he said our old leader Gretta must have a shoulder problem because he had to keep them going under 15mph even going downhill and her partner had to keep her going So on that note I am thinking we are really getting down on our pool of dogs and wondering if we will be able to go 4 more races……………… and then we got today’s results and Randy was 18th for the day and is at 16th overall!!! So things don’t look quite so dismal…………
Went to the rodeo grounds community center (it’s attached to a great big riding arena and there were people training their horses for events) and had a nice roast beef dinner sitting with the Beabers and Magnussons – left there and drove about an hour down another dead end road to the race site – just Magnussons and us here for the nite.
Got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning because we had to water the dogs earlier because they were coming to drug test 2 of our dogs – when the vets got here we took out a total of 4 dogs and managed to get 2 good samples…………
We hooked everyone up and by luck were able to have Jess, Alix Crittendon’s handler take us up to the start line – like a 1/8 mile away, downhill in soft snow – I made it almost to the line in front of the dogs but then my breathing got the best of me so they went to the line by themselves – I found out we are at over 8,000 feet so no wonder I am having some breathing trouble!!!!
Randy made it back with the dogs looking pretty good!!! He said the trail took him up over 2 different mountains!!! So for today he was 17th at 2:57 hours and overall 16th – with the person in 17thonly 8 seconds behind!!!! On to Lander – it’s supposed to take 2.5 to 3 hours!!!!!
.JPG)