Off The Beaten Path Weather Report, 5:00 a.m.: 48 degrees, 88% humidity,  light rain, calm winds.

Weather Underground Forecast:

Today
Mostly cloudy. Isolated showers in the morning…then scattered showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs 58 to 63. East winds around 5 mph becoming south late in the morning… then becoming southwest 10 to 15 mph early in the afternoon becoming west late in the afternoon. Chance of rain 40 percent.
Tonight
Partly cloudy. A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening. Patchy fog after midnight. Lows 35 to 40. Northwest winds 10 to 15 mph. 

When I left at 5:00 this morning, Mark was still in bed “aching all over” with the chills.  I knew he wasn’t feeling well last night when as soon as we unhitched the dogs he said he was going to bed without having dinner.  By the time I got into the house, he was asleep.  Hopefully he’ll feel better by the weekend as we finally found a kennel/house sitter as we are supposed to go out of town. 

Lis and her dog Katz are on their way down the highway this morning heading for Milwaukee and then off to Washington, DC for a couple of days.  When she returns next Thursday she will be bringing her husband, John Neil with her.  (At least we hope she is coming back…we know we are going to miss having her around for the next week).  When they get back our first order of business after training dogs will be building one of two handler cabins.  We are beginning to think the well driller is never going to come and might not have time to get a garage or pole barn up before winter sets in.  The last message from the driller on Monday night said “maybe the first or second week of October”.  The one good thing is he said we are the first on the list when they get back up this way.  We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

I best be off to work.  Keep your fingers crossed that Mark gets better as this will be our first weekend away from home without dogs in three years.  Ahhh, the life of living Off The Beaten Path with 44 dogs……

Off The Beaten Path Weather Report, 5:00 a.m.: 38 degrees, 90% humidity, clear skies, calm winds.

Weather Underground Forecast:

Today
Mostly sunny in the morning then becoming partly sunny. Patchy fog early in the morning. Highs 60 to 65. West winds around 5 mph increasing to southwest 10 to 15 mph in the late morning and afternoon.
Tonight
Mostly cloudy. A chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening…then a chance of showers after midnight. Lows 40 to 45. Southwest winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40 percent. 

Hopefully I will get a call from the mechanic today that my truck has been repaired so I can get back to “blogging”.  Although it has been nice sleeping in until five as Lis has been taking care of morning chores for us.  Tomorrow morning will be early since we will be giving her a ride to down the hill to her car so she can go visit family for a week or so and when she comes back she will be bringing her husband, John Neill, with her!  More hands for pounding nails!

It finally cooled off enough last night to run the dogs and boy were they excited to run!  Hopefully we’ll get home early enough again tonight to run again. 

Off The Beaten Path Weather Report, 5:00 a.m.: 60 degrees, 90% humidity, calm winds, light rain.

Weather Underground Forecast:

Today
Mostly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of showers. Highs 55 to 60. Northwest winds 10 to 15 mph.
Tonight
Mostly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of rain showers in the evening…then partly cloudy after midnight. Lows 35 to 40. West winds 10 to 15 mph.

We are hoping the forecasters are right and the temperature will drop this evening so we can get the dogs out for a run.  Lis said yesterday afternoon it was 85 degrees Off The Beaten Path!  Pretty warm for the first full day of fall!

Off The Beaten Path Weather Report, 5:15 a.m.: 62 degrees, 90% humidity, clear skies, calm winds.

Weather Underground Forecast:

Tonight
Showers and thunderstorms in the evening…then a chance of showers after midnight. Lows 47 to 52. West winds 10 to 15 mph becoming northwest.

Tuesday
Mostly cloudy in the morning then becoming partly sunny. A 20 percent chance of showers. Highs 55 to 60. Northwest winds 10 to 15 mph.

We were pretty busy Off The Beaten Path this weekend since I was gone most of last week and had to work on Friday too.  I didn’t get home until after 7:00 on Friday and then we HAD to run up the Gunflint Trail to Trail Center for dinner.  We thought Lis deserved to get away from the woods for a few hours!  We listened to the local band Rod n’ Reel during dinner and then decided to head to Windigo Lodge for a nitecap when Trail Center closed at 10:00.  What a great night to pick to go out.  Another local band was playing at Windigo and just about everyone we know from “The Trail” (which isn’t very many) was there…The Proms, Brian Gallagher, The Bakers, our insurance agent, Jessica’s (Mini Moose Loop) older brother, etc. etc.  We had a great time but the alarm went off waaaaaay to early on Saturday morning for hooking up dogs for a run.  Both Saturday and Sunday warmed up fast so it was a good thing we were off the trail by 8:30 as by 9:00 both days the temps were getting close to 70. Saturday night it cooled down just enough to take the third team out, but last night it was still 62 degrees at 10:30 when we went to bed AND when we got up this morning.  The Indian Summer is nice, especially since the leaves are changing and are beautiful, my only wish is we would have longer daylight hours to enjoy it. 

Mark spent most of the weekend in an excavator while Liz and I worked around the yard.  Here he is digging an outhouse hole.  Lis started it last week by hand, but thankfully his boss brought this up for him to do some yard work.  He is also clearing spots to put up two handler/guest cabins.  Yesterday Lis cleared out, moved and re-filled one of our “Silver Bullets” in preparation for the garage.  Now if we can just get the well drillers here, we can start building that garage! I have a call into them so hopefully I will hear back later today that they are coming this week!

Hope you had a great weekend…I’m hoping my truck is done at the shop tomorrow or Wednesday, (timing belt was the diagnosis) and we can get into a “normal” routine.  Which of course is total chaos to most people, and only another dog musher and their family can understand.

By the way, our cell phone has been having issues.  If you call us and don’t hear back by the next day, leave another message.  If you don’t hear from us after the second message, assume we cannot get a call out and be patient.¼/p>

I can’t give an Off The Beaten Path weather report since I am in Grand Rapids until tomorrow afternoon.   However, since I left on Tuesday, it pretty much hasn’t stopped raining here and according to my phone conversation with Mark this morning, there either.  I remember Mark saying back in August when we hadn’t gotten any rain in nearly two months he said “you watch, once it starts raining, it won’t stop”.  So far, he’s right.  I heard on the radio this afternoon that the amount of rain we have received in the last couple of days has cut our two-year drought deficit in half.  That is amazing!  While it is definately great to see, now we are worrying about the opposite effect as there is currently flash flood watches for Cook, Lake, St. Louis, Carlton, Itasca, Koochiching, and a couple of other northern counties that I can’t remember!

At least I only have one more day away from home.  However, if you know of anyone that would be interested in taking care of 40 dogs next Friday, Saturday and Sunday, let us know.  Liz has to go back home on Thursday for a week or so and Mark and I need to go out of town….let us know if you have anyone in mind.  The pay is OK and the bird hunting in the area is great right now. 

Got to run, on the hotel computer and I don’t want to hog it!  Have a great weekend.  I’ll hopefully have my truck back early next week.  I heard from the mechanic today and fortunately the repair is in the hundreds of dollars, not thousands!