Currently we have poor internet connection, and food poisoning for the writer, but let's start from the beginning of the day...
We were all ready and ON TIME for our 10am departure from Mont Luarier yesterday. Surprising, because even with such a late start, somebody is always late.
Most of the sleds registered a 3/4 full gas tank, so the decision was made that we only had about 80 miles to go, and only 30-40 miles until the first opportunity to get fuel on the trail, so let's just head out. As soon as we pulled out of the parking lot Big Al flagged me down saying his gas gauge dropped to under a 1/2 since moving, and "what should I do? Should I get gas?" My response was, "you'll be fine, don't ride like a dink and you will be ok". Off we went.
The trails were surprisingly good, considering the reports we were getting, and improved greatly into the familiar Quebec trails we've always enjoyed. As long as we stayed on the marked snow mobile machines that is.
Our first stop of the day was at Devil's Mountain. There there is the Sultans Clubhouse, the local snowmobile club's trail side place to get a cup of hot chocolate, coffee, soft drink, or an adult beverage if your so inclined. Usually there is a great view looking over the wooded valley, as you are 2000 feet up. However, no view today. We had a steady snow shower all day, which made the ride even more enjoyable. It's always warming to snowmobiler's heart to see more snow on the horizon.
The first question a couple guys asked when we pulled in the clubhouse was "do they sell gas here?" Nope. You could see the anxiety building. We do carry gas on the sleds, but nobody wants to be that guy, because if you use somebody's fuel, your buying the bar tab that night.
When we left the clubhouse, we were headed a short distance to Windigo. A usually busy place, where we were going to fuel up the sleds. Problem #1: they are closed and boarded up! Now the anxiety is building. We now have 2 Sleds on 1 bar of fuel, Big Al and Jamie Elfstrom. From there we continued on, and somewhere we inadvertently got onto an ORV trail. While our leaders were following this trail to get the Team back to the snow trail, we did pass the local ORV clubhouse. They were less than thrilled to see 13 snowmobiles on their ORV trail, as they ran out the door as the pack was going by and quite clearly gave us the International Salutation of their displeasure.
We finally came out to a road, and Connecticut Jim and Action Dan ran the adjoining snowmobile trail to be sure there was gas nearby, while the rest of the crew sat on the side of a road. The logging trucks going by were not thrilled to see 11 sleds sitting on the side of THEIR road, and they also blew their air horns at us, and saluted as they went by.
And just as this story was getting juicy.... our trusty blogger 'Stick' lost wi-fi connection. So from the Command Center located here in Michigan here are some pictures I received throughout the day of January 28th to hold you over until what I am sure will be a VERY interesting FrostByte tonight!
Mrs. Mitchell at Command Central thank you for a job well done on picking up my broken pieces, now for the rest of the story...
Action Dan & Connecticut Jim quickly solved our fuel problem, and we jumped on the adjoining snowmobile trail to head to the gas station. On the twisty snow trail, Tina Bear blew a turn, rode through some thickets, or traction as Skinner Bell says, and was back on the trail with minimum effort. When pulled over to do a once over, her flame, Metro Dave, complimented her on her recovery and asked what she did. Her response was "I closed my eyes and hit the throttle!" Dave responded, " Well you did good, but let's work on keeping your eyes open!".
After fuel and lunch, we were back on the trail. Everybody was obviously still getting their sea legs, as around the 70 mile mark of the day, my wing man's, RS, headlight disappeared from my rear view mirror. I pulled over and waited my customary 1-2 minutes to see if he was coming, and he wasn't. I flip flopped and headed back about a 1/2 mile to find RS in a 6 foot gully filled with snow on the right side of the trail, sitting on his sled with his helmet in his hand with big grin on his face. When I asked just what exactly are you doing in there, his response was it was a good time to test his new skid plate. Metro Dave and Jamie showed on the scene next, and with Jamie taking pictures, Metro Dave & I, more Metro Dave, extracted RS from the gully and back on track we were.
We arrived at Meekos around 4:30 pm, refueled, claimed our rooms in the big lodge, and Big Al, the good trail rider he is, went to the main lodge and came back with a case of tasty Labatt Blue for the team.
This is where things went sour for me. Shortly upon arrival I began feeling funky, and by the time dinner came at 7:30pm I was in the rest room with, apparently food poisoning. I chose to eat my dinner in the bar area, away from the rest of the Team, just in case it was the flu or something that we did not to expose the rest of the Team to. I awoke around 5:30am this morning tip top, and started this blog again while everybody at the lodge wasn't hogging the limited wifi bandwith. That ended around 7:30 am as everybody was showing up for breakfast, hence the delay for yesterday's blog.
I am now at dinner at the end of Day 2, at Real Masse. I will, hopefully, be doing today's FrostBytes shortly there after.
One time in the Bush Bush...
Cheers,
Stick