Quebec City!

Saturday we walk down and check out the Red Bull Crashed Ice track. The scene of the event we will be watching that night. The World Championships for this ice skating downhill speedcross. Which translates into INSANITY!!! I know Canadian's take skating seriously, but this takes it to a whole different level!!! This track was built right through the middle of the city!!

 INSANE!!! The city is built on a hill, so it was essentially perfect. No video, the even occurred at night. It was HUGE!! Loud music, tons of people, crowds, noise, and lots and LOTS of smokers. What??? Quebec is a very clean city. We hardly saw any trash on the streets, but for the cigarette butts. I mean serious amount of cigarette butts on the ground. GROSS!! And that night in the crowds we couldn't get away from the cigarette smoke. I smelled like it, my clothes smelled like it, it was really very annoying.

 After checking out the race set up, which was really amazing - It must have taken forever to built!! - We headed out to check out the Ice Hotel. Completely made of ice. Really??? Really!!! You can stay there, if you want. In sleeping bags and long johns! People actually DO, I guess. They get married there. WHAT??? WHY???

 Ummm.........no.........

 Even with a fire place in the room..........no.........

 tables made of ice...........

 The great hall.

 The chandelier made of ice.............

 One of the bigger rooms...........

 Um......no.........

 OK, so the wall sculptures were cool........

 The hallway. There are no locks on the doors. Just drapes.

 The chapel.

 Driving around the city we came across these very cool sculptures of horses.........

 Very cool!!!

So, Quebec City was very pretty. Clean. GREAT food, we ate WELL. But, the cigarette smoking really put a damper on things. We had a non-smoking room in a non-smoking section, but I am SURE the guy next door was sitting in his bathroom with his fan on smoking. It would travel into our bathroom and stink up our room. We tried closing our bathroom door and leaving our fan running. Didn't work enough, we still stunk. The smell was really annoying. And walking around the city, so many people smoke!!! Cigarette butts littered the very clean streets. GROSS!!!!

Plus, it was FUCKING COLD!! OMG, even Rich who is pretty tough and hardy tried walking the city early Saturday morning, but came home cold. We were prepared for it Saturday night for the race, but still even in my big winter snow boots I got cold. Probably had I worn my snow pants I would have been OK, but I just had long johns with my jeans. We noticed many people wore snow pants. They must live there. They know. It was COLD!! Colder than it usually is this time of year. We still very much enjoyed the show. It was INSANE!!!! Canadians love their skaters, but the guy from Switzerland won.

YAY!! Snow free trails!!!!

It just makes life SO much easier!! We would like to see the sun more, but it tried to peek out today.

 See? A little brighter!! :D

 I waited for it to come out to get more photos of the cool merganser. It never really got "sunny", but definitely brighter.

 Such a cool looking duck!!

 It's mallard pals arrived. They have been hanging out together.

 Then I spotted a blue bird having a snack.

 We have so many blue birds around here!

A Red Breasted Merganser!! COOL!!

We saw this fancy duck yesterday on our afternoon walk. So, this morning I headed out with camera in hand. And there it was again!!! Too bad the sun wasn't out. Cool looking duck!!!

We are on a ROLL!!

This weekend........AKC Championship! We finished our MACH yesterday!!! Spur's fan club was in prime form!! The cheering was awesome, I know he felt it and it made him very happy!! He LOVED his victory lap and all the yelling and clapping and people making of him after!! I was pretty disappointed in the ribbon, this club does not spend any extra money. Most clubs these days save money on other things, but have HUGE and gaudy ribbons! This isn't the worst I have seen, but it is pretty puney. Shit, we spend hours and tons of money working towards these silly goals we deserve a great big ribbon!

I am very proud, though, that even though we did this at this club's trial (Bullmastiff club), we did it with fans bringing down the house for a little rescued mix breed!!! The Bullmastiff chair refused to allow mixes until this year. She is a bitch, plain and simple and was the last club to finally give in and agree to allow mixes. Bitch. She really is a bitch. I hear story after story about her. This weekend I go to put my raffle tickets in for the raffle items and I couldn't find one I would want to win!! It looked like a garage sale table. Used and dirty dog toys, old VCR training tapes. Who even owns a VCR any more???? Seriously bad.

I wish I had instructed the fan club to yell out......"WAY TO GO MIX BREEDS!!!", but I didn't think that clearly before our run.

Spur doesn't care about any of that. :D He was happy and pumped and SO very much enjoyed the cheering and adoration of his fans. I have never had a dog before that touched so many people. He isn't even that fast a dog and, yet, he has SO many fans!!! People are constantly coming up to me telling me how fun he is to watch. It just warms my heart! He is the nicest little boy and I am SO very proud of him!!!! It really is a HUGE accomplishment. I nearly quit doing agility with him, he was that worried about it. Now look at him!!! He loves it!!! And he loves his fans!!!

I HATE the wind!

OK, so it is better than freezing rain or snow right now, but still...........I HATE THE WIND! It is SO windy I had to shut the horses in their stalls so they could eat hay without it blowing away.

Last night we were kept awake by the shower fan vent flapping!!! >:/ This morning Rich installed a "damper flange"? or some such thing, that stops that noise from happening. I guess causing the vent flap to only go one way? It works!

This photo is just to remind us of things to come. This path will be covered in water and mud and slush for a couple of months, but some day this year it will look like this. I am longing for that day.......

Look who is a Champion!!!

I almost didn't get this. We needed on more gamble, for like EVAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH. It hardly seemed important at this point. He has had so many Q's in everything else, but only the four gambles and we needed one more to be named a Champion. This was a very easy gamble and in typical Amy fashion I am WAY too far ahead and leaving him in the dust when the buzzer goes off. We have like 17 seconds to DO the gamble and he was on the a-frame. Not a good spot, but we pulled it off. Even with me standing static waving at the jump before the DW. He took it, good boy!!! YAY!!! Finally!!! He is no longer Baby Spur, he is Champion Spur!!! Hah, can't believe I am even saying that!!! Good Little Monkey Pants!!!

We saw the sun two days ago

And had a LOVELY snow shoe!

 He saw a guy skiing. My little pointer!!!

 The crossroads.

 We went left. It doesn't matter, both end up in the same spot.

 The dork, leading the blind, followed by the dork.

The "blind" did well!! Really well!! She has been doing SO well lately! I guess I should get a blood test and see how her strangely high BUN value is. She is even eating hard cookies and gnawed on a raw bone the other day! It is a remarkable turn around!!!

 :D

 It was SUCH a pretty day. Two days ago.

Now we are in gloom. Damp, cold, grey days. And too "warm" for good walks because it is all turning to slush. Slush, mud, muck. It sure has been a nasty winter, so far. And to think that March can often be the snowiest month? I really would like some dry ground. REALLY!!!