Well it’s almost 9 Michigan time and we are nearing Grand Forks, ND – the wind is ripping across the flat lands and blowing snow across the freeway – we fed at 6 Minnesota time so we need to stop soon – preferably , I told Randy on the south side of a very big building so the dogs will be out of the wicked wind – we checked the weather service before leaving Johnson’s and they said the wind should die down by 6 their time…………guess the weather service can’t be right all the time…….or maybe only some of the time……..
Backing up to this morning – spent the nite at a rest area just an hour south of Fergus Falls, MN and drove to Fergus Falls and called Carolyn and Neal Johnson to say we would like to stop by – for many reasons, but one was to check with Neal to see if he had any ideas about a place to get the fuel leak on the primer pump fixed. Sure enough he knew a guy and the guy came to check it out and ended up getting us a new primer pump and put it in for us!!! The “Truck Gods” are with us!! In the meantime waiting for the truck fix, we spent time talking dogs and racing and Alaska with the Johnsons, had lunch with them and Randy and Neal trained the “A” team on their trail 14 miles – the wind had blown much if it in from the time Carolyn had trained in the morning but it was good exercise for the team. Carolyn highlighted the route that they take to Alaska (which is a lot better than just flying by the seats of our collective pants) and gave us good information on people to stop and see to train on the way up – they have done the trip from their house in as little as 3 days but that’s driving pretty much 24 hours a day – so we should be able to make it there by the 23rd for the driver’s meeting…………assuming the “Truck Gods” are still blessing us.
We are in Grand Forks now at a truck stop and filling up with diesel (we can hold 240 gallons and hope to make it into Alaska without having to buy Canadian diesel – though Carolyn says it’s very expensive in Alaska also) for $2.74 per gallon – we did see it for 2.55 by Chicago but didn’t really need any back then - Randy just crawled under the truck to look and make sure there’s still not a leak – looks OK!!
Time to drop the dogs and then for me to convince Randy that a strong northern wind on a east/west road in the dark is inviting trouble………talk to you tomorrow!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Off to Alaska!
Before I forget, we were amazed at how many Quebecers and other English speaking dog drivers wished us well going to Alaska!! They had announced it over the PA that we were planning to go to the Fur Rondy and so many good people came to tell us good luck! Thank you all…..it’s the dream of a lifetime, so to get there is the goal!
I think I left you last arriving home on Tuesday nite – we made good time and no problems with the truck or trailer (in fact the trailer with a furnace and electricity to have the coffe pot brew in the morning is wonderful!!) Got home about 6 and had to unload the dogs in the dark – the funniest thing that happened was the dog we got from Claude Bellerive, Anna was so excited to be outside in the snow in a circle that she did this like “ fairy dance” where she spun around and lept in the air – we have never seen anything like it and I wish I had had the camera!
Wednesday we spent doing some more things to the truck and trailer and I was having difficulty doing my computer work so went in to Fremont –
Thursday Randy trained the dogs 20 miles in preparation for the Rondy race in Anchorage and while he did that I had to go into town again to do my work – dinner with the Jesse DeKuiper grandkids for one last time before the trip!
Friday up at the crack of 8 and one last sit in the hot tub before draining it while we are gone- packing takes a lot longer than you would ever imagine for 2 people and 28 dogs!! Food, equipment, clothes, medicine, first aid supplies……….it’s overwhelming – and as of right now, I can’t remember anything we forgot!! After all that packing, left at 3p (my guess was 2, Randy’s goal was 1) and down thru Chicago!! Even at 7 o’clock the traffic was still bad before we headed north!! Makes me remember why I don’t live even close to a city! Stopped for the nite at a trucker plaza at a nice dead end road – slept well and got up at 8 again (must be our internal clock time to wake up!) and while we were feeding breakfast Randy noticed a fuel leak under the engine – so he walked up to the trucker store and asked around for some place to look at what could be a huge problem! They gave him a card and said it was up north one more exit ………….well we got to the exit, missed it, turned around and it was totally not even in the right state ( we were in Illinois and the actual address of the 24/7 Big Rig fix it shop was in Wisconsin! So we stopped to talk to a couple of police guys and they told up to go north…..way north. We get to the actual address and there is nobody to be seen (so much for the 24/7) and so we call the number on the business card they gave Randy and he calls back and says he will send somebody over = 15 minutes later he arrives, Randy has already diagnosed the problem (a gasket or washer that is leaking on the fuel primer) and the guy tries to tighten it, doesn’t have the right size wrench, tells Randy it’s tight, Randy takes his wrench and tries to tighten it, and says “you can’t tell me it’s tight cause this wrench doesn’t fit it” – the guy goes back to the office (can’t open the door ) and we decide this guy can’t fix it and go down the road calling everybody we could think of to ask if this is a serious, or need to do in the near future-problem; we now have traveled past St. Cloud MN and have already fed the dogs and it is 8:22 so we will probably stop in the next hour to drop again and sleep!
I think I left you last arriving home on Tuesday nite – we made good time and no problems with the truck or trailer (in fact the trailer with a furnace and electricity to have the coffe pot brew in the morning is wonderful!!) Got home about 6 and had to unload the dogs in the dark – the funniest thing that happened was the dog we got from Claude Bellerive, Anna was so excited to be outside in the snow in a circle that she did this like “ fairy dance” where she spun around and lept in the air – we have never seen anything like it and I wish I had had the camera!
Wednesday we spent doing some more things to the truck and trailer and I was having difficulty doing my computer work so went in to Fremont –
Thursday Randy trained the dogs 20 miles in preparation for the Rondy race in Anchorage and while he did that I had to go into town again to do my work – dinner with the Jesse DeKuiper grandkids for one last time before the trip!
Friday up at the crack of 8 and one last sit in the hot tub before draining it while we are gone- packing takes a lot longer than you would ever imagine for 2 people and 28 dogs!! Food, equipment, clothes, medicine, first aid supplies……….it’s overwhelming – and as of right now, I can’t remember anything we forgot!! After all that packing, left at 3p (my guess was 2, Randy’s goal was 1) and down thru Chicago!! Even at 7 o’clock the traffic was still bad before we headed north!! Makes me remember why I don’t live even close to a city! Stopped for the nite at a trucker plaza at a nice dead end road – slept well and got up at 8 again (must be our internal clock time to wake up!) and while we were feeding breakfast Randy noticed a fuel leak under the engine – so he walked up to the trucker store and asked around for some place to look at what could be a huge problem! They gave him a card and said it was up north one more exit ………….well we got to the exit, missed it, turned around and it was totally not even in the right state ( we were in Illinois and the actual address of the 24/7 Big Rig fix it shop was in Wisconsin! So we stopped to talk to a couple of police guys and they told up to go north…..way north. We get to the actual address and there is nobody to be seen (so much for the 24/7) and so we call the number on the business card they gave Randy and he calls back and says he will send somebody over = 15 minutes later he arrives, Randy has already diagnosed the problem (a gasket or washer that is leaking on the fuel primer) and the guy tries to tighten it, doesn’t have the right size wrench, tells Randy it’s tight, Randy takes his wrench and tries to tighten it, and says “you can’t tell me it’s tight cause this wrench doesn’t fit it” – the guy goes back to the office (can’t open the door ) and we decide this guy can’t fix it and go down the road calling everybody we could think of to ask if this is a serious, or need to do in the near future-problem; we now have traveled past St. Cloud MN and have already fed the dogs and it is 8:22 so we will probably stop in the next hour to drop again and sleep!
Monday, February 8, 2010
St. Luc de Vincennes in Quebec Race
Oh boy am I behind in writing……………….or what!!!!!! (that was for you, Ocean!)
Got in to Charette at the Bellerive’s about an hour later than we had hoped – good roads clear weather all the way there; dropped the dogs after feeding and went up to the house………nobody home and the door locked…….but we knew where to find them……at the restaurant!!!!! They were very surprised to see us walk in the door and had worried we were not there when we thought.. Lots of catching up to do; they had made a trip to Italy with the Charette priest and Melanie was allowed only one shopping day (in between churches and the Vatican) but did manage to buy some Gucci things! Claude drove us up to the “Sugar Shack” for the nite (they had kept the drive open all winter not knowing when we were coming to stay – this year with the new truck we can’t make it up the drive (too tall) and can’t turn around to come down again (too long!). Slept fast and up to breakfast at the same restaurant (it’s Claude’s relative’s) with Bellerives,, more catching up and I was able to show them the album we got from our kids and grandkids for Christmas – they were very impressed and told me a word in French that means “a very good memory book” but I don’t remember what it is (at first Melanie called it a souvenir – different meaning in Quebec!). Spent quite a bit of time working in Bellerive’s house (really fast wifi in the house) on my MoriningStar Health job on the computer and telephone (that also really makes the time go fast on the road!!!! And the pricing for aircard and telephone use is a lot more reasonable this year than last!) and we left for the race site (about an hour trip) for the draw meeting – well Randy had a poor draw (14 of 26 open teams) but I had the worst!! – 43 out 52 teams in the 6 dog ( as you will find out later it really didn’t make a big difference……..) Got to see lots of people from both US and Quebec that we haven’t seen in a year (Fran Plaisted, Steve Long and Lisa, the Butlers, Keith Bryar and Jimmy Lyman and their wives, Guy Dufour, Guy Girard, Lou Serre, Serge Pomerlou, John Boisennault, and many many more (sorry for butchering the spelling)
Saturday morning was cold and windy (so the hard fast trail was going to stay hard and fast……..not my first choice….). The 6 dog event was first and I had plenty of butterflies. Melanie had forewarned me that there was one bad corner that was hard and fast and banked the wrong way, so you would slide out of the corner even more that normal – but couldn’t remember which one! Ran the first 1/3 of the trail very conservatively, putting my drag down to slow them a bit before the curve coming up and got wobbly a few times where there was “stepping” of the edges of the curves, popped out of the woods, thought, “Oh my gosh, there’s a turn already, next thing I know (I know this is no surprise to many of you out there…….) I found myself lying on the outside of the “badly banked, horror turn” still gripping the driving bow!!!! Wonder of wonders, the dogs were standing still, I jumped up back on the runners and away we went! The rest of the course was pretty uneventful and the one-year old I had at point didn’t even shy at the people taking pictures and the road crossings as much as I thought she would. The leader, Molly that Randy loaned me from his team did a great job of keeping up with my boy, Spiff. Not so good on the standings…….my conservatism and fall only put me at 36th place – didn’t really plan on anything spinortinous (thanks, Mom Shirley for that word) but didn’t expect whale poop either.
Randy hooked up 18 and has been training 18 miles so was hoping they would do well on a 14 mile race; he took off well and came back feeing very good; only a slight hiccup with the point dog Ace with his leg over the neck line for about a mile until he got himself out of it; much to our dismay, he ended up in 13th for the day! Other than that it was a clean run, maybe a little too fast for some of the dogs in the team.
After feeding dogs took a 2 hour nap, dropped dogs and then went to bed on our very comfortable new futon (amazing how tired you can get falling down and wrestling with dogs outdoors in cold weather all day!!!
Up at the crack of 8 on Sunday, still very cold and windy, but many saying the course doesn’t look as icy today. 6 dog teams out at 11, plenty of time for me to be planning how to get around the trail without giving the dogs a rest today…….not quite as nervous and know not much at stake as low as I am in the standings. Good start except the 1 year old point dog, Spec was more shy today than yesterday, and to make things worse, Runzl the other point, thinks she is in season and wants to play kissy face around the trail – especially when I am in the loop coming home……..not good while making a turn! So I hear someone from behind say “stop your team” and I am thinking where did he come from cause we left 2 minutes apart but nobody caught me yesterday even when I fell!!! So I slow down and a young kid from Maine, Alex passes me and we’re now staying right on his tail…..and now I realize where I am…..at the dreaded curve…….wrench the driving bow, stay in the middle of the trail and make it around the corner and what is in the middle of the trail ahead……..Alex with his team stopped and trying to untangle his dogs!!!!!!!! So we pass him, then he comes up behind us and passes us again, then we get to the last ½ mile and who is off his sled trying to turn his dogs back onto the trail with trail help after they followed some other team’s tracks off the trail and so we pass him again! Of course every time we are doing this passing back and forth and back and forth the point dog is shying and is taking 100 yards to quit backing off and running again. So we finally finish and Randy tells me somebody must have goofed and let Alex leave a minute too soon after me which was why he was able to catch me so easily. The end result was I moved up 2 places and had good experiences for both me and the yearling!
Randy’s second day was a good clean run, no passes and ended up 14th! Our friends did better, Melanie 1st in the 6 dog and Claude 4th in the unlimited (after a bad day yesterday with a leader that didn’t work) A note to the Michigan mushers: Randy has 3 good females for somebody to run the rest of the winter that will be available in the next couple of days; give us a call on the cell phone 616.350.8780 – because thanks to Claude Bellerive we have 2 faster dogs he thinks will be able to do the 25 mile trail at the Fur Rondy!!!
Back to the Bellerive’s and dinner with them, early to bed, early to rise to get going, breakfast at the restaurant and very sad goodbyes - especially when we spent almost 3 months with them last year and this year only 3 days (We are leaving with wonderful memories as always of our dear friends, and a little special gift from Melanie to Randy…….his favorite sugar pie!!)
Left Bellerive’s at 11 and it is now 7:15 and we are almost out of Toronto – probably a half hour snail’s pace due to a small car-huge truck accident in the road; going to stop and feed shortly. Over and out for tonight!
Got in to Charette at the Bellerive’s about an hour later than we had hoped – good roads clear weather all the way there; dropped the dogs after feeding and went up to the house………nobody home and the door locked…….but we knew where to find them……at the restaurant!!!!! They were very surprised to see us walk in the door and had worried we were not there when we thought.. Lots of catching up to do; they had made a trip to Italy with the Charette priest and Melanie was allowed only one shopping day (in between churches and the Vatican) but did manage to buy some Gucci things! Claude drove us up to the “Sugar Shack” for the nite (they had kept the drive open all winter not knowing when we were coming to stay – this year with the new truck we can’t make it up the drive (too tall) and can’t turn around to come down again (too long!). Slept fast and up to breakfast at the same restaurant (it’s Claude’s relative’s) with Bellerives,, more catching up and I was able to show them the album we got from our kids and grandkids for Christmas – they were very impressed and told me a word in French that means “a very good memory book” but I don’t remember what it is (at first Melanie called it a souvenir – different meaning in Quebec!). Spent quite a bit of time working in Bellerive’s house (really fast wifi in the house) on my MoriningStar Health job on the computer and telephone (that also really makes the time go fast on the road!!!! And the pricing for aircard and telephone use is a lot more reasonable this year than last!) and we left for the race site (about an hour trip) for the draw meeting – well Randy had a poor draw (14 of 26 open teams) but I had the worst!! – 43 out 52 teams in the 6 dog ( as you will find out later it really didn’t make a big difference……..) Got to see lots of people from both US and Quebec that we haven’t seen in a year (Fran Plaisted, Steve Long and Lisa, the Butlers, Keith Bryar and Jimmy Lyman and their wives, Guy Dufour, Guy Girard, Lou Serre, Serge Pomerlou, John Boisennault, and many many more (sorry for butchering the spelling)
Saturday morning was cold and windy (so the hard fast trail was going to stay hard and fast……..not my first choice….). The 6 dog event was first and I had plenty of butterflies. Melanie had forewarned me that there was one bad corner that was hard and fast and banked the wrong way, so you would slide out of the corner even more that normal – but couldn’t remember which one! Ran the first 1/3 of the trail very conservatively, putting my drag down to slow them a bit before the curve coming up and got wobbly a few times where there was “stepping” of the edges of the curves, popped out of the woods, thought, “Oh my gosh, there’s a turn already, next thing I know (I know this is no surprise to many of you out there…….) I found myself lying on the outside of the “badly banked, horror turn” still gripping the driving bow!!!! Wonder of wonders, the dogs were standing still, I jumped up back on the runners and away we went! The rest of the course was pretty uneventful and the one-year old I had at point didn’t even shy at the people taking pictures and the road crossings as much as I thought she would. The leader, Molly that Randy loaned me from his team did a great job of keeping up with my boy, Spiff. Not so good on the standings…….my conservatism and fall only put me at 36th place – didn’t really plan on anything spinortinous (thanks, Mom Shirley for that word) but didn’t expect whale poop either.
Randy hooked up 18 and has been training 18 miles so was hoping they would do well on a 14 mile race; he took off well and came back feeing very good; only a slight hiccup with the point dog Ace with his leg over the neck line for about a mile until he got himself out of it; much to our dismay, he ended up in 13th for the day! Other than that it was a clean run, maybe a little too fast for some of the dogs in the team.
After feeding dogs took a 2 hour nap, dropped dogs and then went to bed on our very comfortable new futon (amazing how tired you can get falling down and wrestling with dogs outdoors in cold weather all day!!!
Up at the crack of 8 on Sunday, still very cold and windy, but many saying the course doesn’t look as icy today. 6 dog teams out at 11, plenty of time for me to be planning how to get around the trail without giving the dogs a rest today…….not quite as nervous and know not much at stake as low as I am in the standings. Good start except the 1 year old point dog, Spec was more shy today than yesterday, and to make things worse, Runzl the other point, thinks she is in season and wants to play kissy face around the trail – especially when I am in the loop coming home……..not good while making a turn! So I hear someone from behind say “stop your team” and I am thinking where did he come from cause we left 2 minutes apart but nobody caught me yesterday even when I fell!!! So I slow down and a young kid from Maine, Alex passes me and we’re now staying right on his tail…..and now I realize where I am…..at the dreaded curve…….wrench the driving bow, stay in the middle of the trail and make it around the corner and what is in the middle of the trail ahead……..Alex with his team stopped and trying to untangle his dogs!!!!!!!! So we pass him, then he comes up behind us and passes us again, then we get to the last ½ mile and who is off his sled trying to turn his dogs back onto the trail with trail help after they followed some other team’s tracks off the trail and so we pass him again! Of course every time we are doing this passing back and forth and back and forth the point dog is shying and is taking 100 yards to quit backing off and running again. So we finally finish and Randy tells me somebody must have goofed and let Alex leave a minute too soon after me which was why he was able to catch me so easily. The end result was I moved up 2 places and had good experiences for both me and the yearling!
Randy’s second day was a good clean run, no passes and ended up 14th! Our friends did better, Melanie 1st in the 6 dog and Claude 4th in the unlimited (after a bad day yesterday with a leader that didn’t work) A note to the Michigan mushers: Randy has 3 good females for somebody to run the rest of the winter that will be available in the next couple of days; give us a call on the cell phone 616.350.8780 – because thanks to Claude Bellerive we have 2 faster dogs he thinks will be able to do the 25 mile trail at the Fur Rondy!!!
Back to the Bellerive’s and dinner with them, early to bed, early to rise to get going, breakfast at the restaurant and very sad goodbyes - especially when we spent almost 3 months with them last year and this year only 3 days (We are leaving with wonderful memories as always of our dear friends, and a little special gift from Melanie to Randy…….his favorite sugar pie!!)
Left Bellerive’s at 11 and it is now 7:15 and we are almost out of Toronto – probably a half hour snail’s pace due to a small car-huge truck accident in the road; going to stop and feed shortly. Over and out for tonight!
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Back to Quebec!
2/2/10 - On the road again………….just can’t wait to get on the road again!! This time to Quebec to do the race at St. Luc de Vincennes (our friends the Bellerive’s race) and if this trip with the new truck goes well, then back home for 2 days next week and then off to Anchorage, Alaska for Randy to do the Fur Rondy (the 75th one so it should be a pretty exciting time!!)
A bit of history to fill in the gaps – The first race we did this year was Kalkaska Michigan because the new red truck needed more work (more than the almost double the cost of the truck that we already put into it-) and we were having trouble getting the furnace and the generator in the “bookmobile trailer” (I call it that because that is actually what it was/is – the Muskeon Township Bookmobile! - Randy took most of the stickers of but you can still see a lot of the printing) The 2 weeks after that we were getting a “cold leak” fixed(have you ever heard of that in a diesel engine – when the engine is cold the gaskets leak antifreez). We did train on our trails (which stayed good in spite of the rain and then “0” temperatures) and the dogs are up to 17 miles without too much trouble. We did have one bad training experience (more for the driver and not the dogs!!) At a part of the trail that Randy extended not too long ago to be able to get the 17 miles in, there were some small, but very sturdy, oak trees at the curve – I was following him around the trail with the snowmobile for the first time on the trail with the sled – just before he got to that curve, in his head he said he was thinking “ I wonder if those little trees are going to give when I go around the corner???” – you guessed it – sturdy little suckers stopped the runner and flipped him up in the air (I got to see the whole thing…….makes me feel not so bad about all of my falls!!) and bam, down on the ground and the team was off on a rollicking jaunt by themselves!!! I sped up to my fallen hero and thought he would jump on the back of the snowmobile we would catch up to the team and he would jump from the snowmobile to the sled like something out of a Roy Rogers movie…………nope, he told me to get in the back and he drove us up to the team, passed them and the leaders got caught in a small tree while they were backing off!!! Than God for snowmobiles! Randy is a little bruised but none of the dogs got tangled or hurt.
So in the morning we busily packed (you would be surprised how much stuff you need for 28 kids and their parents and the parents living/eating quarters!) and left the house at 3p – over the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron about 8:30 and figured that we got at least 10 miles to the gallon – which is super!! We got through Customs with only about a 10 minute grilling (always an anxiety-provoking part of the trip!!!!!!!) and stopped for the nite east of London at a car pool parking lot (that of course had a sign that said “no trucks” but which my husband said would be OK. Had a pretty restful nite on the new futon and the most wonderful thing was that, this morning upon wakening to temps in the 20’s in the trailer, Randy could reach over and turn on the generator and have the furnace start up automatically! Tomorrow morning we’re going to set it up so that the coffee pot will start too!! We are just getting into Toronto – time to start my “copilot” duties!
It's 6:10 pm and we are finally out of Montreal! Lots of slow downs - we thought it might be bad but we used up all of our "good road luck" going through Toronto!! We should be at Bellerives within the hour (just slightly later than we wanted to be) and then feed the dogs and hopefully have some visit time and be able to show them the "DeKuiper Kids and Grandkids" album. I will try and write again tomorrow - Goodnight Zoey, Aeja, Caitlin, Ocean and Oak and don't let the bed bugs bite!!!
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
2010 - first race Kalkaska, Michigan
Happy New Year!!!
This year has been good to us and is starting out with a good race at Kalkaska - great trail; stayed hard packed both days and we had good results (barring the issue with Randy's leader stopping on day 1 to poop and then get tangled and then hooked down to untangle losing 2 minutes and me on day 2 having my leaders overrun by the point dogs on a hill and fell trying to slow them down but being able to hook down and get going again!!!)- the best part was having our DeKuiper kids there for the race - first time for all the grandkids!! Aeja and Ocean ran the one-dog both Sat and Sun and came in 3rd and 4th!!!!! Also big time - the big red truck we bought this summer so Randy could have his "Dream Diesel Truck" and the trailer it is going to pull "the Muskegon Township Bookmobile" worked out so well with all of us (6 adults and 4 kids) - the futon we bought to fit in it was comfortable to sleep on and having a generator built in and electricity so we could use a microwave was wonderful!!!! Lots of problems and money getting things right but as usual, Randy is the "Renaissance Man" and it worked out perfectly.
Don't know for sure where we are going to race next or when but will let you know as soon as we do!!!
This year has been good to us and is starting out with a good race at Kalkaska - great trail; stayed hard packed both days and we had good results (barring the issue with Randy's leader stopping on day 1 to poop and then get tangled and then hooked down to untangle losing 2 minutes and me on day 2 having my leaders overrun by the point dogs on a hill and fell trying to slow them down but being able to hook down and get going again!!!)- the best part was having our DeKuiper kids there for the race - first time for all the grandkids!! Aeja and Ocean ran the one-dog both Sat and Sun and came in 3rd and 4th!!!!! Also big time - the big red truck we bought this summer so Randy could have his "Dream Diesel Truck" and the trailer it is going to pull "the Muskegon Township Bookmobile" worked out so well with all of us (6 adults and 4 kids) - the futon we bought to fit in it was comfortable to sleep on and having a generator built in and electricity so we could use a microwave was wonderful!!!! Lots of problems and money getting things right but as usual, Randy is the "Renaissance Man" and it worked out perfectly.
Don't know for sure where we are going to race next or when but will let you know as soon as we do!!!
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