What a great weekend!!!

I didn’t do very good getting an update on the blog in a timely manner………busy, busy weekend – probably the busiest we will be until the racing season starts!

Friday nite dinner at Pine Stump Junction was nice – we got to know them much better – they live about an hour or less from Bellerive’s home – so it was probably nice for them to have someone to talk to that knows a bit about where they live – 

Saturday was a “training the pups” day and then I spent most of the rest of the time until the potluck making hot taco dip, peanut butter and chocolate covered rice crispie treats, bbq wieners and chocolate covered pretzls (only they ended up being “frosted on one side pretzls because I guess the chocolate was getting too old to stay “spreadable” when I microwaved it – what a pain individually frosting a plate full of little star shaped pretzls!!!!

The pot luck was great as usual – the thing that cracked me up was that I thought I was bringing kind of unusual things to share……………….and so did the other 5 people that brought hot dips and the other 4 people that brought rice crispy treats with chocolate on top!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Dave Turner from Fairbanks AK was the speaker and he was pretty funny describing how he trains and his experiences running mid-distance races all over the US.

Sunday was 2 team training and we passed another slug of dog teams head on – probably about 7 of them – and not small teams…..Magnussons were running 2 teams of 16 every time they went out and we have 11 – only one cluster with one of the passings out of the whole weekend which was very good!!!  We have one new leader this year that we haven’t run him in a race yet so it was good to see how he handled lots of dogs on the trailside and passing head-on! I would guess there were about 10 dog camps set up and even more people came for the day to train or potluck – so there were over 50 people at the dinner and presentation.

Sunday was adult training and then sitting around the campfire for the afternoon – luckily most of the 4 days was rain-free or only drizzle – so it all turned out very well! The chocolate pretzls didn’t go over that well so Randy and I ate them up while I watched some of my horror movies – I have maybe 20 to go and it’s almost Halloween!!!!

We did get 5 rabies shots on Saturday and the vet that comes from Manistique did them – he looked at teeth of 4 brothers we have that have chronic mouth problems (the vet says some dogs just have and mouth chemistry that enhances mouth problems and these 4 do…..) So 2 of them are going in for cleaning next month – and one of our leaders has a lump on his hip so we are going to have that biopsied also.

Today/Monday we trained pups and it was sunny for the first time in a long time – feels nice!!!!

If you are able there are lots and lots of pics and video from the weekend on face book  - if you want to get a flavor for how many dogs there were here!!!!

Friday

I was dismayed to look at the blog and see that I had not posted since Sunday!!!!!  Amazing how fast time cangofor 2 old “f…ts”!!!!  Here it is Friday ad we are in the middle of the annual training session and rabies clinic that takes place right herein  our neighborhood every year!

I guess Monday was dinner at Jan’s with Carol and John Waltman – good visit –Jan is not going to be here this y ear for the rig session and seminar that they started long ago because she is going to another seminar down in Arkansas – 

Trained through the week and it went good  =they are up to 10 miles now and we still have 2 months  to train here!  The weather has been pretty good for both dogs and drivers – about 40 dgrees.

Today we did run across the road to the trails that the Magnussons have set up for the training weekend (probably over 250 dogs on the trail)– they not only have many many dog teams for our dogs to pass but they also put up Halloween decorations on the trail for the dogs to see and get used to seeing different things on the trail! I will try to take pictures the next time we go out – it was raining lightly today so not a great photo op!

Tonight we are going out to dinner with Annie Malo and Marco Rivest – people we know from racing for over 10 years and from Quebec – though we have never spent “Quality time” with them before so this will be good to eat dinner together – more about the rest of the weekend tomorrow!!

Through Sunday, 21st

Friday was a very rainy day so it was the first time we haven’t trained every other day since we have been up here.   Instead we drove around more trails and almost got lost again but think we finally figured out how to make last year’s training trail a little longer (about 19.5 instead of 17.5).  We ended up having to run the trail backwards because we kept getting off track!!!  But now we have it marked and should be able to get around it pretty good.

So Saturday was moderately cold when we first started training and then it was on of those UP days where it gets colder as the day goes on!!  Even though it was only one more day off than they are accustomed to, the dogs were crazy to go!!!  It was all we could do to get their harnesses on in their circles (we do that now so that we hook them right into the line and are ready to go once we have all 8 of them in) and one of the leaders ate through the neck line so we had to replace that …….it’s amazing how much more energy they have with just one extra day off!!!!!!

We had one narrow escape while we were training –as we were about ½ mile out on the trail Randy saw Jan Shaw out on the trail walking her golden retriever, Katie.  He yelled heads up and her dog ran past her wanting to have a conversation with our dogs in the team so Jan did the only thing she could do………..tackled her dog!!!!  Now mind you, Jan is in her 80’s……….don’t we all wish we will be able to tackle at that age!!!!  Went to check on her after we finished the run and she was OK!!!!  Also we went farther than ever at 8 miles with no signs of any of the dogs being tired!!!

After training we went to Mass in Newberry and despite the “slower than we are used to” songs, it was a good sermon with Fr. Marty.  After that to the drugstore, then to pizza (not nearly as good as “Spank’s”) and decided to make it a “real date nite” and went to the movie theatre to see “Halloween” – the theatre was built in 1931 and has been wonderfully restored – even the Greco-Roman paintings that are displayed all over the theatre!!!!  It reminded us both of going to the show in Fremont and Montague at the little theaters there!!!!  The show was not as scary as we thought it might be (which was a good deal in Randy’s opinion……….) but good enough!!!!  Back home to our UP house at the outrageous time of midnight!!!!!!!!!!

Just finished making the "bedroom" area of the trailer to look like we will be sleeping in a sardine can!!!!  we put the shiny silver insulation all over the walls and the ceiling (including the windows.....we will see how the works out for claustrophobia..........)  Just is case it's really really cold this winter we should be very warm!!  A little snow on the ground this morning but it's mostly gone - supposed to be 50 tomorrow so we will have to get up and train early before it warms up!!

Below see photos of our "UP house" - look close and you can see the Halloween decorations above the table and on the cover of the couch!!!!

Wednesday

Awoke to more snow and high winds - we had it pretty messy and cold and hail-ey for the first team but it was even a little sunny for the second and third.   Still in the mid 30's for temp!!!!  The training went very well and everybody seems happy!!!  Including "dad"!!!!!

Tuesday color tour

Today was a “not training save the stress on my back” day!   We decided to go to Curtis and follow a color tour - which we hear advertised on the one and only radio station we can get clearly here – it’s advertised for an inn among other things – so we drove down to Newberry and then west on M28 to Curtis south of there – we did go by the Chamberlin’s Ole Forest Inn but it just looked like a big square white house on Manistique Lake so we didn’t stop.  When we did get to Curtis we did stop at a place overlooking the lake and I did have whitefish dip with chips.  Delicious!!!!

Suprisingly the colors are best right here within a  mile of us!!! There is a lot of outgrowth of maples from the clearcutting and they have turned beautiful colors – many of them you saw in the pictures I posted!

Tomorrow’s another training day and it’s supposed to snow tonite so we will see how it goes – it was so wet yesterday with snow that it seemed more like training in the rain – hopefully the snow won’t make it as wet tomorrow!