this is the flat part of Wyoming - nothing out there but some cattle ranches - you can see the mountains in the distance

Soooooo many log homes out here!!!!  at least 50%!!!

I think I was trying to show you some of the "Wyoming special fencing" that I have seen all over

flowers by Randy

this is the road approaching the place where we have lived 2 weeks in Alpine, WY

Where you see the headlights is where the trail head that we have been training on starts

That's our trailer in between Magnusson's and Beaber's 

A panoramic view of our 3 trailers that doesn't really show up that well on the blog

Thursday 1/28

January 28^th

Big Day!!!!  We are actually moving!!!!  Not that I am looking forward to it because we have to drive the scary pass back to Jackson tonite and then camp there at the rodeo grounds and be ready for the vet checks tomorrow – and then drive back here again (hoping we get a decent parking spot so it won’t be too difficult to get to the starting line!!) for the start of the first leg of the race on Saturday – from there I am almost clueless how this is all going to work – having never done it before it seems overwhelming and complex!!!

So we trained on Tuesday for the last time (thought we might train the 4 dogs today that are not going to run on Saturday but they all have foot problems so we thought it better to give them another day off than to risk making their feet worse……..) and had a really good run with both 8 dog teams – the only problem we had was with the Peeps and Yeti leaders team when we got to the turn around and I drove the snow machine off the trail to the side to get them to make a loop, when I looked back they hadn’t turned and were still facing the wrong way in the trail – so I didn’t know if Randy wanted me to try and make a loop again or get off the snow machine and pull them around in the trail – I opted for making another loop so I pulled around right in front of the leaders and this time they followed me around the whole loop!

Yesterday was a bad health day – felt like I had the altitude sickness again and slept half the day away-  we did go to the grocery store and were finally able to straighten out a $1200 doctor bill that the VA was supposed to pay but had not – so that was a load off……….

Today we helped a couple of teams and had breakfast of pancakes and bacon on the grill from the Beabers!

Later Buddy and Lina Streeper showed up on a snowmachine because they are parked in town at the motel and don’t want to lose their parking spot – they came down from West Yellowstone where they had been training and also 2 days ago Ed Stielstra and his kids and Laura Neese arrived – yesterday Jake Robinson came and he trained an 8 dog team today-  so they are coming together – tomorrow at the vet check we are supposed to stay right at our trucks and not socialize but it’s going to be a tough sell –today nobody is wearing a mask and we are 7 of the 25 racers right here !!

 

So for the vet check they have a team of vets that actually do a physical of each dog in your 14 dog pool, review their vaccinations, evaluate them to see if they are too thin to compete in this race (or too fat) and determine if they have a chip already, what the number is, and if they don’t , implant one – I have heard it takes about an hour for each team to be done –so we could be in Jackson for most of the day waiting our turn –hopefully there will be internet somewhere in our journeys in the next days so I can keep you up to date –

PS I haven’t been posting pictures lately because I am having trouble downloading the photos from the phone to the computer 

update as of 1/27

 

January 25

 

Cold one last nite – varying reports on how cold but certainly near and/or below “0”!!!!  I stayed snug as a bug in a rug but naturally, on the coldest nite we have had so far, the furnace quit working at 4am and Randy had to get up and go in the back of the trailer by the dogs and change the propane tank – and then of course it wouldn’t start working again for whatever reason… so he spent an hour working on trying to get it warm in here again – it’s been fine since but every once in awhile…………….

Everybody else trained today (I didn’t say it out loud but I was really glad we trained yesterday when it was warmer!!!) so the morning was full of dog activity – we helped get both of the other teams out then came in for breakfast.  The trail should have been harder than it was yesterday because of the cold temps – it was barely OK as far as being soft yesterday when we ran and we did end up hurting one girls feet with fissures – the little cuts they get in the “palm” of their foot from pushing down thru soft snow when they run.  Hopefully with good foot meds she will be healed up by this Saturday – she is a leader and point dog so pretty critical to the team – Speaking of critical, we have only 16 dogs on the truck, and you can use 14 for your pool of dogs to choose from for the 7 days of racing – I mentioned that Dannika is already out until we do shorter distanced racing so that leaves only one more to cut from the pool – we don’t have much margin of error!!!!! 

trained on Tuesday and are trying to figure out who the lucky "14" will be   still not sure 

in to town tonite - I felt sick last nite and today so good we trained the 8 miles with all the dogs yesterday - tomorrow we drive to Jackson and then camp there for the nite and then have the extremely intense vet check on Friday and then drive back here to Alpine for the race start on Saturday -  

sorry not so much information lately but we only have come to town in the last 3 days once and then I am having to deal with bill from the VA - so will maybe have better connection soon at the other race sites!!!

update for January 24

 

Well it’s January 24 =not much going on the last 3 days – giving the dogs and the people a break!!  We had two days of quite a bit of snow and thought the trail might hurt feet so we finally ran again today – the 10 best dogs Randy feels we have – and they did great going 15 miles~!!!  We also ran a 6 dog team and that included Dannika that had been injured and she did great so that was good!!  It was a beautiful day and sunny and the trail was almost packed where I ran over it going ahead of Randy – I even did good turning them around and didn’t get near the river this time!!!!  

In the last couple of days we have also had dinner with our “covid pod”  (Bruce and Laura and Sarah and Ryan Beaber and their handler Craig and son Cash – once tacos and once steaks on the grill with all the fixin’s!!!! 

Probably will train one more time – we have to do it on a day that Bruce does not want to use his own snow machine………………………

Hope everything is good in your world!!!! 

update through 1/21

Wednesday January 20

Trained the same distance today (I thought it was 17 miles but I learned it is only 15) both teams and when we came back from the first team run, Randy said it was the best run he has had all year!!!  At over 600 training miles that’s quite a comment!!!  The second team was a bit slower than the Yeti/Sidney team but still did good!  We had one little problem at the turnaround with the 2^ndteam…………I couldn’t see the tracks well from my first time leading the team around the tree and think some snowmobilers had made new tracks – so I cut back to the trail faster than I should have…..which took me over a snowbank…….which jostled me and made me goose the throttle and sent me all the way off the other side of the trail heading for the river!!!!!  I managed to turn quick enough to avoid the river but the bad part was the dogs were following me wherever I went, which meant they were off the opposite side of the trail too!!!!  I barely cut right in front of them going the right direction and they swerved and followed me!!!!!!  I did get yelled at………..the only time he ever calls me Cris is when I do something wrong………

We went into town again (now that we are unhooked from the trailer it makes it much easier!) and Randy surprised me by buying me a bouquet of flowers!!!!  (guess he wasn’t too mad at me………)

Thursday January 21

Not much action today – got up and helped both Bruce and Ryan get their teams hooked up, had breakfast and took a nap cause I was feeling pukey – Laura ran a small team with puppies in it for 8  miles and she took one of our injured/recovering dogs with her – she did fine for an old girl – so now we have to figure out how to work her back into the team slowly!!!

Going to town again – there isn’t any water here where we are parked so we are almost out of both people and dog water!!!