Update for the last of February!

It’s been a pretty calm week – trained twice – both times bitter cold but a good trail (except for the day we trained and had to go through foot high blow-in trail because it was so windy!!)  All the dogs are looking good except for Briget (who seems to have gotten really old really fast and can’t keep up) Cool, who injured his ankle going through the deep drifts – we think- and Sidney, who just has been continually acting injured when we run him in the team and who probably won’t race this year.

We went to dinner at Melanie’s on Wednesday nite – and thoroughly enjoyed our time together – actually 4 hours!!  And they all had the annual entertain the customers event the following day (snowmachining to a resort and then ice fishing and dinner and many other fun things…………)

Thursday we trained and everybody looked good.

Left at 10 on Friday to go 1.5 hours to the next race at Pont Rouge and it took a bit longer to get there because of some blowing snow and snowy roads – had to ask where the race start was and had I spoken French I would have been able to understand that the race site was across the highway from the address given!!!  Met a little girl Gabriel and her father Guillome while we were dropping dogs for supper – he spoke limited English and she was four and none – quite cold – and windy!!

Rand y went out 6^th and had a hard race for 10 miles because his leader, Grace was just not pulling (found out later she had some fissures on her paws so that was the reason) and he came in last – the next day was not much better and he stayed last of 13 teams.

The really good news was that we got to both our long-time friends-dog-racers-but-not-doing it any more- Suzanne and Mario!!! It had been 2 years and we were happy to catch up = and also our friend from Maniwaki, Cat, was there on Sunday because she came 5 hours to see and help her friend Jean and to see her family in the region (she grew up in Quebec City so she is feeling very warm and homey)

So good weekend with getting to see old friends and then headed back to Bellerives – Randy somehow managed to catch a cold so now he’s congested and coughing – we got a call from the Canadian covid testing company telling us that we needed to contact the (we found out they never picked up the covid test they required when we crossed the border and had to perform on a virtual nurse visit……………) so we had to deal with that for an hour today and found out that Patrick, Melnie’s husband had a positive covid test and now they are quarantining  at home this week!!!  Plus we had something funky going wrong with our generator at the race and the diesel truck ----both of which have been fixed by kind friends!!!

So the plan this week is to train and then go to Claude’s race that he puts on every year in St. Luc about an hour and a half from here and then probably head home to Michigan – maybe things will change if randy doesn’ t seem to get better – he’s on all kinds of over the counter cold/cough meds and albuterol nebulizer treatments so we will see over the next 2 days!!! 

the Maniwaki experience!!

 My goodness – go to sleep with it raining and wake up snowed in!!!!  We got about a foot of snow that blew all over and made drifts all around our trailer and the barn!!!!  Luckily Claude’s business, Cirtech, has a loader that clears all of his personal property and before we were even ready to leave for Maniwaki he had the whole barn yard clean!!!!

We left about 10:30 and the roads (even the expressway is most places) were snow covered and icy – so it made for a bit of a stressful trip = as we got farther up in the mountains (the Laurentides) it actually got a bit better – they didn’t get the heavy rain turned to snow!

We arrived in Maniwaki without incident (oh yeah, except for the one car that pulled in ahead of us on the expressway and then put on its brakes causing Randy to “jump” into the next lane to avoid hitting it!!!!).   We parked next to Claude’s trailer at the hotel on the river where most of the activities were to take place, only to find out that the trail they had put in on the river had been ruined when they let water out from the dam and flooded the river!!!  So we moved out of town to the revised race site at a logging business parking lot!!  It was just us and one other dog trailer there for the nite, parked next to a huge pile of logs!!

In the morning we found out that the new trail they had put was termed “dangerous” by the drivers that went out to look at it on a snowmachine – they decided that they would max the teams at 10 dogs and run the course backwards…….so all this took some time and they finally had the 10am race at 1!!  They also had decided that because the trail was “dangerous” that they didn’t want to encourage competitive racing so they let the open drivers know that the purse for that class would be divided evenly between the drivers  ---  so that made it a lot more comfortable for Randy to run he course much like a 9.8 mile training run – which he did which accounts for his placing the final times.  So it was all good.

The really fun part of the weekend was that we got to see a friend that we made two years ago when we came to this race – her name is Cat (a burst of warmth, positive energy and fun) and she is best friends with a woman named Marie Anik-Elie (spelling?) that we raced with 2 years at the Rondy in 2010-11 (I think those were the years….)  She is a delightful person and was down to Anchorage to race from the Northwest Territory – about as far north as you can go!!!  So we had Marie as the connection and it has just grown from there so that she planned to help us with the team even before she found out that I had an injury keeping me from leading the dogs up to the line and back!  (according to Cat my injury is very common for hockey goalies – she plays hockey- so from now on I am going to call it my goalie injury!!!). Then when she got called away from us to help with organizing teams, a delightful family was assigned to help us!!!  They were here for their first dog sled race but own 30 dogs and have a business giving sled rides – they also have Highlander cows (just like our son and daughter-in-law Jess and Cindy), sheep, chickens and other assorted animals!!!  They were great helpers and then Randy helped them get out with their son Alexi doing the 4 dogs and then they borrowed our Gatt sled (which Colin was very impressed with) for the 2 dog.   The mother and father were Steve and Caroline and we thoroughly enjoyed them and hope to see them at more races!!

I was pretty blizzard in the late afternoon so we decided to "hunker down" here in the same parking lot and drive in the light and better weather and hopefully roads1

So we got our share of the purse from the race director last nite – but because 2 people dropped out of the race (one because of dog illness which we hope we don’t get, and one because of trouble on the trail) we get another $119 for a grand total of $702!!!!  Lots better than a sharp stick in the eye and in Canadian cash!!!!  So right now we are waiting to drop dogs before we leave Maniwaki and for him to come with the addition purse money!!!  Then on our way back to Bellerive’s  and train probably tomorrow and Wednesday and then a race in Pt. Rouge (half way between  Claude’s and Quebec City) for another adventure!!!!

Happy Valentine's belatedly everyone!!!

  

Well tomorrow turned out to be Wednesday!!! (we lost a couple of days of communication!)

Went out to dinner Sunday nite for our treat for Valentines Day to Patrick's Pub again and Randy liked the pulled pork so well from Thursday at the draw meeting that he ordered it again!!

We did get covid test  results while we were still in Laconia – we had left the race site to get fuel and were driving around looking for a place to park wifi so I could work on the ArrivCan website so we could leave as soon as we had the results – after a  few short words with each other because we tried a couple of places to park that would not accommodate our rig and we almost got stuck in their lot, we did find another Walmart out by the expressway – crazily, just as I was coming back from checking out whether there was a restaurant in the Walmart – like so many do- and sure enough there was a Subway.  So we had lunch and I completed the many many pages of forms for ArivCanfor a half hour and received my receipt number – along with the test results form CVS which I screen shotted we were good to go – good roads all the way to the border and things were going peachy until the patrolman asked if we had ever been turned away at the border…………………you see they have all that info in their computer………so they knew we had been sent back in September because we got close to the bridge in Port Huron and then became committed with no place to turn off and hoping against hope would get the results on the phone before we got to the patrol…….that didn’t happen and they detained us for 4 hours in the immigration office and then turned us back into the US with an address of a place that would do covid tests for $100 each – so that is now in our “permanent file” – thankfully Randy answered yes to this border patrolman, but they still made us pull over and come into the office until they could verify that we did as they asked in September and were cleared – whew, we thought we were in for more trouble but they just handed back our driver’s licenses and we were good to go!! {sidenote- wouldn’t you know it that just after we got the $100 test done I got the results form the Rite Aid in Fremont!!!!)

The rest of the trip to Charette and out friends the Bellerives was uneventful= got here about 7 – Patrick and Melanie were just leaving her parents house across the street so they stopped to greet us and then Claude came over and spent some time looking and dogs and talking!!!  They were pretty excited to see us!!! and that made us feel really good!

Yesterday was going on the website of the after-the-border-crossing-you-have-to-get-another-covid test-in-Canada!!!  They randomly chose Randy to be tested again, so they gave us this box at the border and we had to register on yet another website and make a virtual appoint with a health care professional to guide us through the process and observe we were doing it right………….so we did and now today the test kit is hanging on the garage door know of the Bellerive’s house and there is supposed to be a Purolator courier picking it up today between 9am and 6pm – then is 2 to 3 days we have to go back on the website and see what the results are!!!!  What a bunch of malarkey!!!!  And I am stressed every minute of it!!!!

Today we are hoping to run some dogs on the pretty crusty training trail after we hopefully get a little snow this afternoon – we have 6 dogs that haven’t run lately and we need to see how they are feeling –

We did get a call from the vet that performed the surgery on Peeps and MSU lab did determine that the growth on her intestine was cancerous – chances of her living 1 year are 75% and for 2 years 65%-  not restrictions just let her do what ever feels like doing – so we shall see.  Disappointing news to be sure – she is only almost 4 and has lots of potential as a leader – the best of the 4 in her litter.

Last nite was dinner at the Bellerive’s for pizza and dessert called “Queen Elizabeth cake”!!!  never heard of it let alone tasted it!!!  Kink of like a cakey fruit cake……..with carrots and who knows what else in it!!!

Friday we leave for Maniwaki – takes about 6 hours from here –north of Montreal up in the mountains – we are hoping they have good snow at that elevation and won’t get the rain that is predicted for tonite and tomorrow!!!  Will write again this weekend!!!

Hip hip Hooray!!!!

 Well by now you all probably know that Randy had an excellent first day at Laconia!!!  3^rd place!!!  It was pretty warm and 2 of his 12 dogs weren’t working very strong but they came in looking really good – they must have thought it was just a fun run because the trail was only 13 miles!!!  At home we had been alternating 12 and 20 mile runs so this probably seemed short to them!  Today is supposed to be a high of 49 degrees and so far it’s cloudy – so that’s’ good – they took 2 more miles out of the trail because some 4 wheelers had wrecked it – so that is not to our advantage – they will just be getting warmed up and rolling and they will be done!!!  I would love for Randy to hold on to 3^rd but we will see- there’s about 2 minutes between Kenny Chezik and Randy and the same between Kenny and first place, Guy Girard – there’s only a minute and 50 seconds between Randy and 4^th place so here’s hoping!!!!!

 

Saturday was even warmer and the dog team parking lot turned into a swimming pool!!!  Randy left the 2 dogs that were having a hard time the first day off and went with 10 dogs – they started in reverse order of finishing for Friday so he went out 8^th(now would be a good time for me to tell you how much I appreciated the help I got from Sherry Johnson – Neil and Carolyn Johnson’s 23 year old daughter that we have know since she was about 6 years old – she and her dad – who both her dad and mother were excellent open class drivers in Alaska and Laconia- flew in from Minnesota just to watch the race – and rather than go with her dad in the car to watch teams out on the trail she stayed with me so she could run the team up to the start and then back at finish!!!!  Thank you so much Sherry – I don’t know what I would have done without you!!!!  I was still hurting from slipping on the ice Thursday nite and would never have been able to lead them up to the start!!!)  it was about 50 degrees and the trail was very slow and punchy but Randy managed to inspire our dogs to keep up the pace – he would have actually done better times if the trail had been longer- he asked for more from them when the trail was good and they responded to his whistling them up!!!

So Sunday was much colder and the trail had frozen before they could get it groomed  and it was a mess of trenches and holes – thankfully they canceled and we ended up having the awards at the race site at 11 – it was extremely special for Randy to get 3^rd– the best he had ever done at Laconia!!!!  

After all the racers and help left there was just us in the icy parking lot so we decided (actually Randy decided ) that we should go out to dinner for Valentine’s day early and went to the same restaurant we went to for the draw on Thursday – and I got crab cakes!!  Delicious!!!  Tonite we are back at the Walmart parking lot and waiting to get the results from the covid tests we had done yesterday – as soon as we have results I will enter our information into the ArrivCan website and see if I can get it to cooperate with me this time (I had a horrible time in September when we came up to see Bellerives)  We are 2 hours from the border so I will start the computer work as soon as I have the test results and go from there!!

Let you know more tomorrow!!!!!

At least it happened near help.....................

 We got started to Laconia at about 10 in the morning and not even half way to Newberry I started to hear a clunking noise in the yellow truck...........so I stopped and felt the wheels for heat........nothing; got back in and drove another few miles and the clanking got worse!!!!  Stopped again and smelled and felt all the wheels and looked under the truck.......nothing!  Drove a few more miles and started feeling like the truck wasn't steering right; stopped again and this time I told Randy he needed to drive it and see if he could figure out what the problem was!  So that meant that I had follow Randy and had to drive the big blue truck pulling the trailer!!!!!!  Never done that!!!!!!!  At least it was on a relatively clean road with little traffic but it made me very nervous!!!!  Especially when we got into town and I had to make a turn following Randy into the Ford dealership!!  Didn't hit anything (phew!!!) and we dropped the yellow truck off to our friend Frank Caldwell - not knowing for sure what was wrong with it nor how long it would take to fix we just decided to leave it in Newberry.

Not too long after on the road Frank sent us a movie of the truck on a jack and he was able to wobble the tire back and forth sideways!!!!  He told us that the hub had exploded!!!!! and that it could have been "ugly"!!!!!  So a Blessing that it didn't happen farther away going 60mph!!!!!!!

We made it down to Dundee and parked for the nite in the Cabela's lot - got up next morning and shopped and had breakfast at Bob Evans - Tuesday nite we made it to Syracuse NY and stayed in a Walmart lot and then Wednesday pulled in to Laconia late afternoon and parked in the spot we have stayed for a few years - a dead end road going to some kind of city public works............we were all set to stay and got a knock on the door - the state police............!!  Someone had called and complained about the dogs and they told us we would have to move!!!  About a half hour later we found the Walmart and parked, only to find out it was a "no parking" posted area!!!  So we moved again!!!!!  Kind if frustrating!!

So today we are at Walmart and I am trying to figure out the covid testing schedule for us to try and cross the border into Quebec on Monday - plus it's going to cost $139 each!!!!!  That makes the $100 tests that we got in Port Huron to go to Canada last September a deal!!!!

Tonite is the "draw" meeting at Patrick's Pub so dinner out!!

I will write when I get a chance after the first leg of the race tomorrow!!!

Well it looks like we are really really leaving today

 It's 10 am now and we have one more load to take over in the pick up and then the dogs in 2 runs over so and then drain the pipes and we should be ready to head for Laconia, NH!!!

We got more snow last nite (it's almost becoming toooooo much!!!) but it has stopped snowing for now and the roads should be good-- I will be driving the truck down to Mt. Pleasant to leave at one of Luke's friends house so we can pick it back up on our way home!!

God Bless you all and keep you!!!

I will write when I can!!!

We have a plan!!!!

 Whether the border and the weather will cooperate with us remains to be seen!!!

We are going to pack and train once more over the next 2 days and then load the dogs to the trailer across the street and take off for Laconia on Monday - there is a huge storm following the same path we will take driving so we will see how bad it gets!!!

I am not looking forward to packing up the house and then unpacking to the trailer..................it's hard to remember what you have in one place and don't have in another - speaking of which, yesterday we went to Escanaba to get dog meat for the last time this year, and Randy dropped me off at Walmart to get some things we had forgotten in town last trip in.............so I self checked out and left 4 1/2 gallons of almond milk and 3 dozen eggs sitting on the checkout counter- that I just noticed today!!!!!!

Too cold today - started out at -7F and a high of 10!!!  It's not pleasant to be outside even though the sun is shining!!!!

We are back to the "good, the bad and the ugly"...................Q

 So no water for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, tuesday................

Randy did fix the cracked pipe in the bathroom..................then did put the new heat tape on the exit water pipe in the basement of Jim's house.............then while he was in the basement of Jim's the new morning, I was not feeling the greatest so was laying on the couch and heard this "water" noise......got up rushed into the bathroom and found water gushing/spraying all over from the bak of the toilet and flooding the bathroom and hallway floor...  OMG how did this happen?????????  I turned off everything I could think of or see to try and stop the water but didn't find the right one!!!  I kept running outside and screaming for Randy to come and even tried to honk the horn of the plow truck (the plow truck does not have a working horn) After the flood we used every absorbent item in the house to mop up the water from the brand new floors we had put in the bathroom and the hallway!!!!!! 

then he looked at it again and thought it needed a new valve.............put that on and turned the water back on and another flood!!!!

Finally, no leaks and water to be used everywhere - a week later..............

Trained several days - not the one where I didn't feel great or when it was -23 F.) and everybody is looking good except for the 4 dogs we won't be able to use the rest of the season..............

The trails look very good here and we can easy do a 12 mile training run and plan to jump it up to 20 in the next day or two.................

right now we are thinking to go to Laconia and race and then go to Quebec and race after that - we are entered in 2 races in Wisconsin but will cancel and lose more entry funds! and right now we only have 13 dogs that are ready to race!

will let you know when we make some final decisions about when we are leaving!!!  Stay warm!!!