Winter Racing Fun

Northwoods Journal

Saturday, January 25, 2014

The wind blew a gale all night long.  Pete and his friend kept the wood burner stoked in the night so thankfully the temperature inside didn’t drop too much until about 5 a.m.  Mark had set his alarm for 6:15 but when it went off he decided he didn’t need to get up that early after all and crawled back into bed for another half-hour.  We got a little more snow overnight.

The guys weren’t moving any too fast, even after a breakfast of bacon and eggs.  The wind continued to blow but the sky was clear and the sun shining.  The high today is supposed to be 9 degrees with winds gusting up to 40 MPH.  I think Pete would have been content to stay indoors where it’s warm but Mark was anxious to get into town for the park expose to see the condition of the cars before they headed to the first stage of today’s race.

Once they were out the door, I put lunch in the crock pot, got myself dressed and mixed up a pan of brownies.  Even though I don’t go to the race, one of the stages is Hungry 5 Rd. which just happens to be off our road, just a mile or so up from our cabin.  That means the rally cars have to go by our place to reach the staging area.  The first cars started going by around 10 o’clock so I bundled up in my boots, parka, scarf and gloves, grabbed my camera and trudged to the end of our driveway where I could get some pictures of a few of the cars and wave to the drivers.  Since I didn’t have snow pants on, I didn’t stay out too long but I did manage to snap a few photos.  Even though our road is not a timed part of the race, it still makes me feel like I got to see some of the action!

I was content to work on my jigsaw and read a bit and before I knew it the guys were back for a hot lunch.  A fine snow started falling just as they came in.  They didn’t linger long as they had to head out for the next stage of the race.  I used some of our precious stores of clean water to wash up all the dishes.  It looks like we will have just enough to get through the weekend.  I’ve been melting snow on top of the wood burner and the stove and that has made enough water for flushing the toilet.  We are also down to our last bit of firewood.  It will be a squeeze getting through until tomorrow.

Mark thought they would be back mid-evening and have at least a good hour to sit and warm up but it turned out there was a traffic jam getting out of the second stage so they only had time to run in and grab some drinks and take a potty break before heading out once again for the nighttime leg.  I have made good progress on my jigsaw but am finding I’m not a person who enjoys being alone for long lengths of time.  I’m not really bored, just not used to doing “nothing”.  I tried to do some writing but my mind was blank.  I have missed the dogs but am glad we didn’t bring them as wrestling them onto tie-outs with knee deep snow and -25 below wind chills would have been awful!  I also have missed watching the birds, but I used up most of my supply of bird food over Thanksgiving weekend and knowing we would have to drag our stuff in by sled, I packed light for this trip.

The progress of my jigsaw puzzle.

The guys returned just after 8 p.m. all stinking like wood smoke.  Mark said the last stage of the race was bonfire alley – so many people had fires going. He said he doesn’t ever want to smell bonfire smoke ever again!  Pete was tired and he and his friend will be getting up in the wee hours of the morning to head home, so it was early to bed for everyone.  I think a British driver named Higgins won the race.