Our day is done (the road crew, the chase vehicles, the trailer haulers or what ever you call us), but the snowmobile riders are still on the trail. It is now 6:00 P.M., and they are not expected to arrive at the motel before 9:00 P.M.
The day began on a sad note; three snowmobiles were stolen from the motel parking lot over night. All the plans, hopes and dreams were spoiled by some unfeeling and uncaring individuals who placed there personal interests above all others. I trust they are proud of themselves.
In spite of everyone's sympathy, "the show must go on," and so, it did; and right on schedule the 24 riders (joined by a host of 25-30 other riders who riding part way to Canadian border in North Dakota) made their way down and around the I-500 track before striking out on the trail.
With the snowmobiles on the trail it was time for the drivers to hook up the trailers and begin their own journey. Unfortunately, that turned out to be more of a task than it should have been.
When I went to hook up the truck/trailers rig that I was driving for Bill Bradfield (the organizer of the trip and President of MichCanSka), I discovered the key to unlock the trailer coupler would not work. Whether the key was the wrong key or the padlock was frozen, I may never know. After driving to the local hardware store to buy a hack saw, I returned to the trailer to find that the other drivers had already removed the padlock with a hand grinder. The problem was solved.
The rest of the day has been pretty uneventful. We arrived at Paradise expecting to meet the pack of snowmobiles, only to find that they had passed through Paradise without stopping, now more than, ten minutes earlier.
Having missed them at Paradise, we elected to not drive the 40 miles (round trip) to Grand Marais, out of the fear that history would repeat itself and we would miss them once again.
We now know that we were wrong in our thinking and were not accounting for the amount of time that it would take to fuel up some 50 to 60 snowmobiles and feed their riders as well.
This problem will soon disappear - we expect to have no more 30 sleds in the group by the time we reach Wisconsin.
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