Breakfast went off on schedule, 7:30 back in the pub where we had dinner the night before. Snowmobiler’s breakfast for everybody, eggs, bacon/ham, diced potatoes, and juice/coffee.
We are planning on leaving shortly after 9am, as Dylan needs to run down to the pharmacy to refill his insulin prescription. If any of you are dilligent followers, you may recall Dylan’s medical alert last year at this overnight stay… He had carried his prescription in an outside pocket of his coat, we hit severe cold weather, and the juice froze and lost it’s effectiveness. Last year, the pharmacist opened up after hours to save Dylan’s life (I made that up for dramatic effect), this year, fortunately, Dylan was able to await regular business hours before seeing his neighborhood pharmacist.
By 9:15am, we were on the trail, with one more stop scheduled before really hitting the trail to make some time. Four riders needed to hit the local Ski Doo dealer, Rob needed a new helmet, Joe Snowmobile needed a new viser shield, Action Dan needed a new lower piece for his flop down viser, and I’m not sure what Dylan needed, but he went too. But first we swung into the local club’s relaise to use the bathroom facility, and let the 4 riders get a head start to the dealer and get their needs fulfilled.
After the 7 of us riders killed a few minutes at the relaise, we headed down the trail to the trail head where the 4 other riders would catch up with us. Naturally, we picked a spot to wait in the wide open, no shelter, and wind blowing like hell, and it was 2 degrees (I don’t know what the wind chill was, but it was COLD). We wound up waiting on the trail about 40 minutes before they finally got their shopping done, and down the trail we went.
The crew was humping today. The sky’s were clear, there was beautiful scenery, and the most traffic on the trails we have seen since we bagan, last Monday. We pretty much humped along all day, stopping for gas when necessary, and finally around the 140 mile mark, we stopped at the relaise on the trail, and had a quick lunch. I had vegetable soup, and I saw hamburgers ( well 2 hamburgers and then those were sold out) and hotdogs being served.
It was now 3:15pm, and time to get on the trail, as we have about 50 more miles to go to Perce.
About 100 yards up the trail, the train came to a screeching halt. Action Dan, our bullet catcher, has blown a front bogey wheel. This is the bogey wheel that is attached to the spring, and the spring was now stuck down into the track. We are going no where fast.
Chip spoke up and said,” I’ve got two extra bogey wheels on my sled, we can steal one of my sled, and put it on Action’s if we need to.” In the meantime, they had found the missing bogey wheel on the trail near the down sled, and Fearless Leader Craig searched his miscellaneous parts bag, found a front ski bolt and miscellaneous spacers and such to make it work, and amazingly it was a perfect fit for the found bogey wheel! A quick 20 minute down time on the trail, and we were back on the clock.
We arrived in Perce around 6:15pm, again in the dark. We quickly unloaded our gear, got our showers done, and headed accross the road to the restaurant for our dinner. On a side bar, while I was wondering around the front stoop of our drive up room, I heard the sounds of passion coming from the room between mine and Fearless Leaders. I looked around, and went to Craig’s room to see if Hedgehog had some porn playing on his phone. As I passed the dark room between us, it was now evident where the action was. It must of been good, because I couldn’t help but stop for a minute to be sure it wasn’t a tv, and quickly went and grabbed Hedgehog to listen in to what was now giving me great amusement!
When we all gathered at dinner, and I shared my story, the first 10 minutes of our dinner hour was the group speculating as to who the happy couple was!
Tomorrow we are headed to Murdochville, about 100 miles away. We have not had a day yet without some issue, tune in tomorrow to see if the problem solving continues, or we have a smooth day.
Bye for now,
Stick
