Jay Richards

Wow, what a weekend. Not sure if I can keep a long story short but will do my best, not likely though. Think I snapped over 200 pics this weekend....pretty much toast...this is what I came up with.



Saturday morning, Jonell took Jake and another DL ski team member, Dylan, over to MT Itasca for a meet since the DL coach was tied up and Jonell was the coach for the day. I told Jonell at the coaches meeting that she should say she was disappointed with the skate deck on the downhills, they should of back tilled at 250 rpms higher to pull more snow back up instead of dragging it back down...but she didn't. Ha! Can't go wrong with a 18" base and PB grooming. Jake had a awesome race, finishing sixth. (bib #27 in photo above) and Dylan had a great race as well coming in 13th with only one day on snow. Grand Rapids pretty much dominated which was to be expected since they have been on that course for a few weeks now, training daily most likely. Jake was a few seconds in front of top 20 state ranked skier, Zac Oelrich and less than a minute behind Conrad Roberts, Wynn's brother and another top 20 state ranked skier. Jake beat some skiers that beat him at sections last year. MN Nordic skiing has a lot of fish in the sea and always interesting watching the season play out. Out of state interests don't quite understand the whole scene, imo. There has to be over 1000 hs skiers in the state so things are pretty tight.


Jens stayed at Jonell's parents on Saturday and went to town on what snow they had, shoveling away. Jon was on the road with some other parents with games in Little Falls and Wadena. Little Falls played tough and the team won 3-1 with Jon notching one goal. Up to Wadena a few hours later and won 9-2 with Jon punching in 6 goals to bring the season total to 20. No pictures of Jon.
Jack had basketball game on Saturday and birthday party as well and thanks to my Mom for covering and making quesidillas for lunch when back at the lodge. I was at home on call with the cathouse holding the flag for the groom guy waiting for my number to be called once the flakes starting falling...peeling grapes if needed for the ski teams that came up for the weekend in the mean time.

Flakes starting fall Saturday evening. Groomed for a few hours until midnight then snow stopped. Slept for three hours, woke up and no new snow, checked radar, went back to bed until 6am, woke up to 2-3" so started rolling. Groomed until 5pm with breaks for b-fst and lunch. Sunday morning, teams scheduled to leave but blizzard was a ragin' so they stayed another night, getting snowed in. Kids were stoked. MPLS SW had their bus here, running all through the night to keep things warm and what not. They had breakfast and rolled out this morning once the Goat Ranch road was plowed. The Wayzata buses went back on Friday after they were dropped off so they had to wait for their buses came back up. Buses tried coming up on Sunday but after 6 hours at 10mph near the end, they stopped at Wadena. And to make matters worse, one of the buses got in a accident in Wadena and the driver had to go to the hospital. Dr didn't clear the driver for driving today so that left one bus down. The other bus made it over just after noon and they sent half (50) of the kids home after lunch for those that had band concert etc. The bus company sent up two new buses up from the cities early this morning for the other kids. One of them stopped in Wadena for some reason and the second arrived after lunch. So back to the first bus, the driver filled up in DL and put #2 in instead of #1 diesel and things started cheezy in the fuel tank. So one bus gets the wheels moving and first bus gets 8 miles away and dies. Jonell and my dad shuttle kids back while I am out in the woods floating around, grooming, not knowing of the situation. They are able to get the bus back while the second bus waits so they can both head out at the same time. Supposedely the second bus was going to bring some fuel additive for the fuel but the driver forgot to put it in. So both buses get ready to head out and the first bus dies again at the end of the driveway. Kids run back, and Wayzata coach and I try to make arrangements with local bus company. Confirm different bus will come so second bus with orginal company heads out. Feed kids supper and charter bus comes with coach and finally at 7:30pm, bus rolls out. Guess the first bus, broke down in Little Falls and they had to get a replacement for it and the first bus riders got home at 1am after leaving at 5:30pm. Larry Myers, the Wayzata coach should win coach of the year honors for his handling of the situation. 80 hs skiers, parents from all direction trying to manage at home and a AD that was in San Diego fielding calls and calling here to figure out what was going on.
Jonell on kid management. Should be noted girl in white sweathirt had to go to ER on Saturday night. Was tripped up in upstairs of lodge, hit corner of couch and cut open. That makes 3 of past 4 Saturdays making a trip for stitch action. Didn't mention Jonell bonked herself with hammer last Saturday but avoided trip to ER.
When the second bus was backing up, backed up and hit tree. Nicely done on tree pruning. They had four bus drivers at one point. One Wayzata girl said "crazy toothless white haired driver" Personally it looked like they pulled them from the midway at the county fair.
Just before was ready to head home, bus company from the cities calls and asks if I will turn on stalled bus so it can run during the night to keep from seizing up. Towing service coming in AM. Don't think it has anything to do with fuel, more like the trany. Always thought it would be fun to be a local bus driver. Was thinking in the morning, before the tow truck came, should go to the north end of the lake, bust through the neighbors, hit the lake flying whip a few 360's. Never seen a bus on the lake before. No worries, won't happen.