Pictures from Copper Harbor

 The awards ceremony at 7 that nite - Randy getting 4th place

Red lantern for last place person

Randy getting his gear check - you can see the start line is 2 blocks away and then around a corner!!!!  Long run up and back for me!!

When we came into Copper Harbor this deer herd was just walking around - people feed them and there are about 20 of them all winter 

Final 2021 Season installment!!

 Little did we know when we left for Copper Harbor that we would not be able to communicate with anyone!!!!  No cell service in the town!!!!!

So we got there Friday about 3p and tried..........and I mean TRIED to find a parking spot in the town of Copper Harbor - we drove around blocks and finally parked on a side street next to a restaurant and went in to ask if anyone knew where we could park!  I did speak to the volunteer coordinator and she didn't have any idea!!!  So we drove around some more blocks (and almost took out a light pole..........) on the very narrow streets.............and decided to park on a dead end street - we happened to see both of the ladies that live on the street and neither had a problem with us parking there.  We dropped and fed and then Randy decided we should move closer to the race start so we parked on a side street that butted up to the main street where we though people would park for the race - to be.........banging on the door at 6am and telling us we had to move because we were in JR Anderson's spot - so around the block and waited in line for an hour and a half.........finally parked = 11 am vet check and that was all good!  3 p gear check (we had to have all the mid-distance stuff in the bag i.e. sleeping back, waterproof matches, dog boots, dog food, etc even though the race was 14.4 miles) and finally at 4 pm the Copper Dog 25!!!  the trail conditions were not the best, grainy snow, but it went very well!!!  Randy came in 4th!!!

Slept in our parking spot that nite and headed for Newberry in the morning.  Got to Houghton and I thought we had made a wrong turn so we ended up having to turn onto a very very very steep brick street in downtown Houghton, going down the hill, hoping our brakes wouldn't fail!!!!!  Come to find out it wasn't a wrong turn after all and that we were leaving Houghton on a different route that we came in so that was why it didn't look right to me!

Half hour out of Houghton it started really snowing and soon we were driving on a 2 lane hi way with 5 inches on the road and almost no visibility and no place to pull off!!!!!  Made it to Marquett 2 hour later and decided to wait out the blizzard at the Menard's parking lot - it did lighten and we got to Newberry/Deer Park mid evening where we parked in a lot across the street from where we stay at Jimmy O's - next morning spend 4 hours shoveling and plowing trying to get our Ranger truck out of the garage (so we had something to drive when we got back home that wasn't a gas guzzler!!) then stopped to Jan's and got invited to dinner - Had a lovely dinner and visit and when we got back to the trailer heard bad dog noises in the back and sure enough, there were 4 dogs that "poured" out of the back when we opened the door!!!  They all stayed right around but still stressful in the dark!

Next morning left for home with good roads and sun and made it here about 3 - Dee our wonderful neighbor had come down and started a fire so the house was warm and open!!!  Did have one major problem...........no water.  Randy tried to prime the pump to no avail............it had frozen during the cold snap (first time in 24 years living here)  So we called the guy that is going to put in a new well for us this spring and he came out this morning and brought a new pump that we will just exchange when he puts in the new one!!!!

So finally a shower and fill the hot tub!!!!!!

It's been great year - met many new people going to 3 new races and made new friends!!!!  The dogs did well for the conditions and Randy and I didn't get hurt!!!! So SUCCESS!!!!!

God Bless you all in the coming year and talk to you again next October!!!

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

 We took our daughter Amy's advice and took some days off in a place that was good for us and good for the dogs - being that there is a plowed football field lot for them to run in 3 times a day!!!!  sometimes running a bit too far.......... and thus some got re-tied up as "punishment"/"learning experience"!!!  It's quite something to watch our dogs run full speed the length of the lot and then come to a screeching halt and turn around and run flat out back again!!!!

The people are also enjoying the wifi though it stopped for some reason for 1 1/2 days - and we still don't have any cell service - just far out of town enough it doesn't reach.

Well today we are pulling up stakes (literally) and moving down the road on our way to Copper Harbor in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan-  there is a 14.4 mile race in Copper Harbor at the Copper Dog 25 on Saturday and it will be the last of the year for us!!!!!  Then we will make our way back to Newberry/Deer Park to pick up a few things from the house and our yellow pick up - we are assuming there will still be snow when we get home and the Mustang doesn't do very well in snow!!!

So I will let you know how Saturday goes!!!!  Stay warm and take care!!!🙏

Photos from the stage stop race

 

statue of Lincoln getting near Lincoln, Nebraska

Beautiful red rock on I80

It was so windy it made this dust storm onI80 - we thought it was a fire!!

Arch of elk antlers in Jackson, Wyoming

The ski area in Jackson right next to where we met at the rodeo grounds

A view from the pass going from Jackson to Alpine - doesn't really show how steep it was and how treacherous!!!

Decor on one of the buildings in Jackson

Antelope in southeast Wyoming

It's hard to see but because they let cattle roam free all over Wyoming, they have these grates in the road where they don't want the cows to cross

One of the 7 race starts!

This was the view going into the snowmobile trail where we trained and stayed for 2 weeks in Alpine, WY

Our first glimpse of the Rockies!!!!

Yes!!!!!! We got 4th place!!!!

 Friday Lydia and Moe did come for a brief visit and invited us to dinner after the race the next day - we woke up kind of early with all the activity in the parking lot (we parked in our spot on Friday nite) with people arriving and we wanted to have given our dogs breakfast before the 8 am singing of the National Anthem!  We helped Moe get up to the line and then found out when he returned he had a heck of a mess at the first road crossing!!!  His dogs blew through the snow fence and he ended up under a car!!!!  He managed to get things straightened out again and finished in 8th!

We didn't race until 1:30 and the dogs were very very excited to go - we still didn't know if we had made the right decision to just let them free drop for exercise since the stage stop race (what with it being so cold and all......) and it turned out to be a good decision!!  They took off strong and ended strong and got 4th!!  So we were very happy!!!

Lydia and Moe took us to dinner at a restaurant in Brule WI and I had the most delicious whitefish dinner ever in my life!!!

Today we moved the truck and trailer closer to the clubhouse because we found out from the owner and race coordinator that we could have free wifi!!!  so free dropped the dogs 2 more times today and don't know if we are going to leave for Calumet in the UP tomorrow or Tuesday - it's really a nice set up here all by ourselves with tv and wifi!!!!