BevLive: Mud in North Dakota

I’m camped at the lovely Butte View campgrounds in Bowman, ND. I spent the last two days at the Boudreau’s in Marcus, SD and drove up here this morning. Since it rained most of the time I was at Bud and Sarah’s, Rene, the trial organizer from the Big One has requested that all the campers stay at the campgrounds since the ground at the Kerr Ranch is too wet to handle us all driving in and out. I don’t know how they are going to managed all of the trucks each day but I’m sure they have a plan.

I’m delighted they haven’t cancelled these trials. The rain has been prodigious. Joni Swanke told me that while they normally get 12″ of rain a year they have had 9″ in the last two weeks, and that was befoe this week’s heavy rainfall. The ground is saturated everywhere and the dirt roads are in very slick condition as I can testify to first hand after slipping and sliding down five miles of the Boudreau’s road this afternoon. It doesn’t take much of a slide to scare me with that trailer following my truck into the mud.

The practice went fairly well. Joe is still the bright point in my day. Odinn, who has been lame the whole trip was sound and got some good work. She did some nice 500 yard outruns, also some pretty poor ones as she is still very easily confused. I’m hoping this will miraculously translate into adequate prep for the 900′ yard out run at The Big One. Seems unlikely but if I wasn’t a great optimist I could never dog trial.