the first one is done!!!

 Randy went out first this morning (as I said..........I won the computer leg because I got him registered  first!!!)

but did not come back first...............😕  Laura (who is driving her soon-to-be-husband's  Bruce's -team because he dislocated a thumb) came back 1st and left 4th, and Al Borak, driving Bruce's second team came back 2nd

We for sure knew we do not have a winning team though this is the year to be the most competitive because a lot of drivers backed out at the last minute and it's down to 18 teams (usually 25-30)

The weather was beautiful the trail was good and Randy is exhausted and taking a nap!

as soon as the parking lot clears a little we will be on our way to Lander for the next leg (our grand daughter that goes to college there will meet us!!!) and a dinner put on by the local people!!!

more later!!

elk herd on our way to Afton to do the school presentation

Dinner tonite at the National Wildlife Art Museum -

Bruce Lee who has been the "voice of the Iditarod" for the last 20 years!!!  I screwed up and said he looked much smaller in real life!!!

Dinner was fabulous!!  many luxurious appetizers and choice of rare red meat (Randy said it was buffalo) or chicken and met the owners of the Mars corporation!!
 

pictures finally transferred from the phone!!!

this is what our "train" looks like!!! notice the trailer=behind=the=trailer!!!

this is the vehicle and 2 guys that got us unstuck in the Walmart parking lot

this is what a mess the Walmart parking lot was!!

wyoming sunset

view from the pass heading to Alpine

Rocky Mountains ahead!!

 

the news worth knowing................???

 

One nite so far at Alpine and we are very happy with the choice – the parking lot is huge which we knew before we arrived having stayed here 2 years ago when we did this race.  There is much less snowmachine traffic as it’s the middle of the week and plus there is snow in more locations than there was 2 years ago –

Today is “school day” so we are going to the Afton (1/2 hour south of here) elementary school and do a presentation to 120 first graders= Randy seemr s not worried about what to say (he did a lot of those presentations after he did the Iditarod and then we have done some since in Anchorage) and I have little voice having picked up a doozy of a cold!!  So we shall see how it goes!!

We saw the big loader come in this morning and move snow out of the banks to make room for the trail to cut through to the parking lot when we race here in a week and a half- we will train tomorrow so it will be really good to be able to have the dogs finish the run at the same place they will be at the actual race here – (the last time we raced here we had been training coming back to the truck the way the snowmobilers do so when it came time for Yeti to turn gee and use the new path they had made to get to the finish/parking lot, he didn’t want to budge and it seemed like forever before he went the correct way!!!)

Last nite we went over to Ryan and Sarah Beaber’s trailer and had some delicious chicken and noodles that Sarah had made in her instant pot!!!  We were outside eating about an hour and then it started getting dark and colder so we came back to our trailer.  It’s so nice to have other dog people in the lot!!!

 

Tuesday was presentation at the school day!!!  We went to the Afton elementary school and did a 50 minute dog sledding presentation to 120 1^st graders!!!!  We wore our dog sledding clothes and brought a sled and harness into the school while the kids sat on the floor before us!!!  They had lots of question but the most questions were about Randy losing his finger tip while training dogs in Alaska!!!  They wer all very well behaved and are going come to the race to see us next Friday!  The first thing one little girl did was to give us each a piece of her candy and hug us!!!  We told them to call us Grandpa Randy and Grandma Cris!!!

Wednesday was training and deciding who will be in the pool of 14 dogs for Randy to run in the race we took 2 teams of 8 out with the snow machine (and God Bless us it actually worked better at the lower altitude in Alpine) and were reminded of how beautiful scary the trails here are  - lots of the trail in about 3 feet from the ledge of the cliff going down to the river 100ft!!!  Most everyone looked good and Randy made his final decision who to take to race (they will all be in the trailer but you designate who your actual members at the vet check)

This is Thursday and we have driven to Jackson Hole (about 45 minutes from Alpine) with good road conditions though a brutal storm is supposed hit the area tonight!!!  We were cordially invited and are going to a welcome dinner tonite at the Wildlife Art Center – so I will take pictures if I am allowed!!  We have good cell service here so until we move tomorrow nit to the Teton Park race trailhead I should be able to keep up the blog!!!

2 for 2 but with a few glitches!!

 So the 2 days we were up on the mountain south of Laramie Wyoming at 9 or12,000 feet we had trouble both days with the snow machine!!the first day we went out kind of fine and made it most of the way back - a driver of his snow machine told us that probably our fuel jets were not right for the altitude we were at - and he was right!!  when I say most of the way back we were probalbly 2 miles form the truck and the snow machine quit - so Randhy flagged down a snowmobiler and asked him to take me back to the parkinglot so I could ask someone to come out and give us a tow -and I did and Marco Rivet did bring a machine out and did tow Randy and the 9 dogs back!  the second run team we used Bruce's machine and had no problems--- Sunday not so much - went out with the first team and made it back but not with the second team - we had to turn them around in the trail and then did barely make it back to the parking lot!!!  Not to mention the times Randy got off and ran with the machine trying to get them going and the times that i got out ahead of the team and tried to get them to pull and then when it was going jumped on again..............

 

Tonite we are at Rock Spirngs and in the morning will leave for Alpine and then  after that, do the 1^st grade presentation on Tuesday afternoon, go to Alpine and train Tues and Wed, go to a dinner in Jackson on Thursday nite and Friday nite is the ceremonial start in Jackson – the one where I have to move the truck from the start to the finish, about a mile through the center of the city!!!!!

Randy is out on the snowmachine........

with quite a few other machines right now - could it be that it's saturday???

he is going to put in a turn around for us and then we are taking both teams out for a run - probably 10 miles , more later!!!

Finally made it to Wyoming!!!

 We were planning to leave the parking lot at Walmart today but didin't know when ---- we talked about it briefly just after giving the dogs breakfast and decided to get on the road as fast as possible - we thought we could pull out of the spot we were stuck at but we did need some help from this wild ducklike national guard like vehicle that pulled us out of a snow bank!!!

Once on the road got directions from Bruce and Laura to come to a training trail near Laramie and that's where we are tonite!!!  not much info but know that we are happy!!!!

lI'ts a beautiful snowy day in Lexington, Nebraska!!!

 We should know because we are stuck here with about 80 semi trucks in the parking lot of Walmart since last nite when they shut down I80 because of a major winter storm/blizzard - by now we have gotten about a foot of snow and I don't know when they will re-open the highway - meanwhile the dogs are getting re-acclimated to cold weather and snow and don't reallt care to come out of their nice warn boxes!!!!  We are missing time to train/prepare the dogs and us for the race but it can't be helped..................at least we are safe and warm and have shopping at our fingertips!!!!!

More when we know we can get started again!!!

 this is the screen showing the trailer behind the trailer from the cab of the truck

What can go wrong next????!!!!!

How does one handle a day when it goes from bad, to worse, to this can’t really be happening -----can it?????!!!!!!!!

Slept good at the rest area about ¼ way through Iowa………….that was the last good thing that happened………….

On our way and all of a sudden Randy notices that the truck and trailer lights are gone……….now I should interject at this point that we are not driving just your run-of-the-mill truck and trailer………..we are driving a train ----with a huge truck, very long trailer, and pulling a snowmobile trailer behind that!!!! (with a snowmobile and sled on it).  So we worry about that and try to imagine what’s causing it for an hour, stop to drop dogs and Randy has me trying to find GMC dealers close that would have time to look at our electrical problem- he gets frustrated and leaves me in the rest area building and I finally find some places to call-  the first 2 don’t answer and the 3^rd says he’s booked up but referred us – we went there and while he’s talking to the mechanic about our problem he thinks of what might be causing the issue!  So he gets the name of a “tractor supply-like” store and we go there and buy some magnetic tail lights for the snowmachine trailer because it appears the wiring in it is drawing power from the truck and trailer making the lights dim and go out--  we gorilla tape those on and we are on our way again!

So that fixed the problem and everything is working good again including the camera he installed on the back of the trailer so he can see the snowmachine trailer behind us.

We are going down the road about ½ hour later and Randy says “I wonder if we should call and get insurance on the snowmachine trailer?”   Talk about jinxing yourself!!!!  Not 10 minutes later Randy says “I can’t see the snowmachine trailer!”

We go to the next exit that we can turn around and sure enough, it’s gone………..  by the time we make it back to where it came off we see flashing lights and I’m just praying nobody got hurt!!! We talk to the cop and he gives us instructions to follow him and the wrecker that picked up our trailer from the middle of I80 with a bazillion cars and semis buzzing around it and we meet at the scale pull off.  It turns out we get a ticket for not securing our load ($112.50) and have to have the trailer put back together – so we spent the nite in the parking lot of the wrecker business in Altoona, Iowa (very quiet and no people to gawk, by the way…) and it’s now 10:35 and we still don’t know when we will be able to go………Have you ever noticed that these crises seem to happen every time we take a dog trip??? 

More to come when we actually make some progress towards getting to Wyoming where we can let the dogs get some exercise and we all can try and get acclimated to the altitude!!!

On the road again..........................

Well we are finally on our way to Wyoming!!!!  It’s been a very busy week or so trying to pack and see our friends at Deer Park before we leave and seeing Lori and Ken Chezik who were up for 5 days to train on the gorgeous trails!!!  Training was excellent the last week and we got to the perfect number of miles (30) just before it was time to go!!!  All the dogs are in good shape except for one 3 year old who was off for a while  with an injury so now she is only back up to 10 miles comfortably…………

We left Newberry on Saturday afternoon and traveled downstate to Baldwin and spent the nite there in the our church’s parking lot (no Mass or people at 8 at nite!!)  and had dinner with Lydia and Moe as we had a dog to bring him.

Sunday up and got a bit of a late start after breakfast and traveled to our house where we dropped of f the yellow truck and filled the blue truck with diesel from our farm tank.  We brought the yellow pick up down because we usually need it for something in the spring before it’s time to be able to get into the driveway at “Dog Camp”!  We didn’t start the day very well as Randy got up early in the dark and missed the step and fell out of the 5^th wheel bed onto the floor and broke the table!!!!  So a hurt thumb, hurt back and knee got his day off to a roaring beginning!!!  We were able to weld the table back together while we were at the house for a ½ hour so now it’s fixed already!!!

Left there about 12:30 and just now have stopped not too far into Iowa for the nite at a rest area – going to drop dogs shortly and then to bed – it will probably be a 2 day trip yet but I will keep you updated!!!

I know............it's about time I started writing again!!!!

The Christmas tree is still up here but today is the last day of our church's Christmas season...........so we are ready for 2023!!!

Since I spoke to you, we have been training 2 teams regularly - a team of 10 we are sure that will be in our 14 dog pool at the Wyoming stage stop race and the other 10, who for a variety of resons, got a bit behind in the training speed and miles (some age, some illness, etc.)  We have plenty of snow for the training trails (even though the Tahquamenon race that takes place within 5 miles of our rental house up here at Deer Park).  The race was canceled because the first 4 miles of the race leaving from the Muskalonge Lake State Park are on a dirt road and that part of the road didn't have enough snow on it when it came time to make the decision to go or cancel, to be safe for the dogs.  The rest of the trail system is beautiful!!!  As Randy just told some of our friends "you'd have to drive 5,000 miles to the Open North American race in Fairbanks to find a better trail!!!  Right now there is at least a foot of packed dense snow in the trails and miles and miles to choose from!  So far we have over 1000 miles on the dog trainers and about 800 on most of the dogs!!!  We will be sad to leave these beautiful trails when we leave the latter part of this week to travel to what will be our first race this year - the Pedigree Stage Stop Race in Wyoming - you can go to their website if you want to see the schedule of the races and the all different locations each day - include one race in Lander, where our grandaughter Aeja DeKuiper is going to college!!!  We are really looking forward to that leg of the race!!!  The first race day is a ceremonial race held in downtown Jackson and Randy goes our number 1 both for the ceremonial race and the first day of the stage races (because we entered first and that was because I was sitting on the computer waiting to be on time - I was so on time I did it first!!!!  so I guess I win the computer portion of the race..................)  The first real race day is at the Grand Tetons park near Jackson on January 28th and the next day we race in Lander and can see Aeja!  We are praying for good weather for the drive out there takin I80 west - it can be pretty unpredictable and was terrible the first year we went!!  We will go first to Alpine to train the dogs for a week or so and try and get both them and us used to the altitude (last time we both had some difficulty breathing and being tired!)  We are familiar with the area and so it seems like a safet bet to go to Alpine - that doesn't mean that we might not end up someplace else to train - we just saw some pictures of the training at west yellowstone and it looks great!

We were also supposed to go to a race this next weekend at Baldwin to our friends' (Moe and Lydia) race, the Baldwin Sled Dog Derby but they unfortunately also have cancelled due to little snow.  They have it re-scheduled for the middle of February (so our daughter Mitzi will still be able to run a team in the 6 dog) but it's not likely that we will be around.........if we are we will just enter again!!!

Also since December we have had some problems with the snow machine that we traded for our 2003 Harley - it has needed patching of the exhaust, new spark plugs, a solenoid x 2, new spark plug wires and it still sounds a little rough (I do love the rear view mirrors so I can see Randy when I am leading him and the team when he is on the sled!!).  The yellow truck had blown fuses twice and lost the tail lights (with our neighbor Frank Caldwell's help those are fixed) and the trailer had a flat tire that we needed to replace ( the tires were brand new last summer).............and all that before we even leave on a several thousand mile trip!!!

I hate the idea of packing up again (the 3 months have gone by really fast!!) but the thought of new places and people is exciting!!!

When I think of more I will write again!

Happy 2023!!