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Well you are seeing right, I have never had advertising on this page but I think this is the best place to get a new phone if you are looking for one. Cathy, Melissa and I all just got new phones and the 2 droids were free with their 2 year plan. Their service is quick and if you buy after clicking on this link I even get to make some money on the deal so if you know anybody looking for a new phone send them to this site thru the link here on my page. Thanks, Pete

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Darkside Adventures Be sure to LIKE our Sledheads facebook page and share it to all your friends too. Saturday February 4, 2012 1:47 p.m. I just got here to frederic, been out showing houses this morning, not that I missed much here as there have only been 2 customers in so far today. As I was leaving last night a guy pulled up on a sled and said he had rode 75 miles off trail yesterday and that he had had a good time. Earlier in the day I saw one lone sled parked over at the Swamp. Havent seen or heard anything today. I did sink in Rattle Snake Creek earlier while showing one house and am covered in muck up to my left knee. So I really didnt forget to update today just took me a while to get here. Just wanted to get something quick on here right now. John Gregor is in here right now from Caro and is a first time visitor....Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------- Friday 2:45 p.m. Here is my newest video...I have to do something to keep myself entertained plus I could stand to sell a house or two.... You too can live in Northern Michigan Friday 11:30 a.m. I also wanted to point out that even with only having 2 decent weekends of riding this season that there have been at least 15 snowmobile deaths. Thats already 2 more than last season when we had snow for a whole lot longer time. Please remember to ride Safely!! Also you might find it hard to believe but our rental cottage is still available for this weekend.....(hint hint) Friday February 3, 2012 10:37 a.m. I just finishe a great breakfast of a couple coney dogs hand delievered to me from Zeus Coney Island in Lansing by Tom Rawlins (hopefully I spelled that right)& Deb & Keisha. A Big THANK YOU to them for the delivery and thinking of me. So the nasty conditions continue, it is so icy out here in the parking lot you cant hardly walk. Yesterday I looked out front and I wondered how my truck got parked on such an angle cause I know I didnt leave it like that. Even with the little bit of downhill grade there is there it slid towards the road and was about 10 inches from the cement cylinder that holds my light pole. Glad I saw it when I did or it probably would have made contact with the pole. The weather is supposed to be almost highs of 40s for the next few days which will make things worse than they are now and no prediction of snow till maybe next thursday. I am not sure if the snow chanting is doing any good at all anymore but hey it sure cant hurt. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thursday February 2, 2012 10:50 a.m. The ups driver just was in and brought me a new batch of trail permits...what the heck am I gonna do with those. I havent even opened up the other new package of them that I got on monday. The parking lot is an ice skating rink out here. Thankfully we really didnt lose any more ice or snow yesterday and today as its been below 32 but things are still a mess. This morning I saw a four place trailer at Mcdonalds in grayling and pulled in to ask them what they were planning on doing. They had just stopped and were on their way up to Munising. Greg stopped by last night on his way back from the Keewanaw and said if you were gonna ride in the u.p. it has to Munising and west of that. He said St Ignace looked worse than it did here. So there you have it, a grim outlook. As bad as it is on the trails here I think if you trailered to an area that has 2 tracks all through it that you could ride thru the woods. If you are going to ride that you will have to work for it. The darkside adventures guys are in the real snow and in looking at their sattelite tracking they are in the middle of no where, no roads even close to where they are at. I am so envious. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday February 1, 2012 10:30 a.m. In less that 24 hours we have gone from pretty decent conditions to back to square 1 and starting all over again. Ice all over in the parking lot and trails are mud paths with ice in them. I posted a picture of the trail north to gaylord on the sledheads facebook page that I just took up by the north end grocery. Not looking go good. So I guess we all agree that the trails suck so on to other things. The first year I was open here I remember closing and going to the u.p. to ride on valentines weekend because there was no snow here in frederic and that was in Feb of 98. On the other hand I heard from Greg from Ohio who has been up in the Keewanaw since saturday and he said it was pretty decent up there but they are way low on their usual amount of snow too. The Darkside Adventure guys are the ones that are in the good snow and not counting their sled problems it sounds like they are having a good time. Back to the story about the story from yesterday about the alabama guys getting a ticket I recieved this note from another reader after yesterdays posting....... Pete- Glad to hear you had a property closing! Just read today's update about the LA boys getting a ticket this past weekend. That totally sucks and I am glad you posted it. I too got a ticket unfairly a few years back in Grayling and it was obvious it was just about the money. You would think as hard as things are in Michigan, these small towns would not harass their guests while enforcing the law to keep people coming back. I do have to say, two weeks ago we came up for our first ride of the season, only to realize I left my re-newed registration stickers back home- down state. Of course, we decided to take our chances and ride anyways. We headed out from Gaylord towards Lovells and of-course ran into Gaylord Conservation officers at North/South Loop intersection. (within the first 15 min.) I explained that I knew I was expired, forgetting my stickers down-state, and the only proof I could show him was my checkbook entry to the State of Michigan for $30. He said he believed me, didn't even call it in to check, and told us to have a great ride. This guy was a great representation for the town of Gaylord. I really wish more law enforcement was like this. Just wanted to share a good experience since you usually only hear about the jerks. Back to Pete here, so not all run ins are bad but its still about the money. I want to send Happy Birthday greetings out to my daughter Haley who turned 12 today....boy that went fast. I remember doing updates on here counting the days till baby sledhead was born. Also a shoutout to Johnny O who was lucky enough to survive his horendus sled crash right here in Frederic on the night Haley was born, so its kind of his new birthday too. Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday January 31, 2012 10:30 a.m. The roller coaster of a winter is taking another low point with 24 degrees outside right now and high 30s to 40s predicted the next two days. We had a great new snowfall of 3 inches yesterday which was great but now it looks like it will melt away. Last weeks weather forcast showed snow everyday this week but that has changed to no snow for the rest of this week. Roller coaster is the best description I can come up with for this. Next I would like to talk about law enforcement on the trails and surrounding area, I have to say that I believe that alot of the times its all about the money they can raise by writing a ticket and not weather or not you are doing something really wrong, they will find something to pin on you knowing that its not worth the fight for the money. How about a $225 ticket issued in Antrim county this weekend for going over the center of the road. Sleds traveling at a slow rate but they curved out to move away from a group of people standing at the side of the road. There were no other cars coming the other way and the riders felt that they were doing the best thing by moving away from the crowd. Not so in the eyes of the dnr officer that wrote the ticket to one of the guys in the group of guys from Alabama. Like I said its all about the money, while I am all for someone getting penalized for doing something really wrong out there I would love to see them after the riders that really cause havoc out there. Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday January 30, 2012 10:15 a.m No new snow overnight but there is supposed to be a few inches this afternoon. One rider parked in the back parking lot right now who came up for a day ride from Howell. New snow would be nice to help the base and freshen things up from this weekend, predictions of 30s and 40 in the next couple days are not what we need. There were several trucks parked at the parking lot just east of the shop here on 612 and someone raided and stole several items from the trailer in the lot. Ramps, tie downs, oil and tools. So if you were by that lot saturday night between 5 and 7 and saw anything please let me know. The police were here and reviewed my cameras to see if we saw anyone coming from that way and they did see a couple of trucks coming from that way that they were going to check on. No way to know for sure if it was them but its a start. It really irks me that there are people out there that would do that to another sledder. Next I am posting a link to an article on hard core sledder about the bridge along 612 where the accident happened on saturday, I did forward this link on to the Kalkaska groomers. Hard Core Sledder article on 612 bridge Here is another link to my new video from this weekend Sledheads newest video I see the Darkside Boys are riding there way around Quebec and were near St Zenon, I would love to ride that area.....Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday January 29, 2012 10:00 a.m. Sleds have already been riding into frederic this morning but I am not to thrilled to see the sun popping out as bright as it is. We only had a little skiff of new snow overnight but yesterday was a pleaseant surprise to everyone that was riding here. Depending on where you were I would say the new snow varied from 3 to 6 inches. I made a big 150 mile loop (in my truck) yesterday and there were sleds everywhere, I was in Lovells, into grayling, out to dingmans and then to starvation lake and on up to the keg in waters and the stampede in gaylord, I shot alot of video which I should get on tonight or tommorow. Roads were snow covered most everywhere with starvation lake having close to 6 new inches there. I think sled traffic was way heavier than what I even was guessing was going to happen. I didnt have a fire outside here yesterday because it was so windy out. So maybe winter has returned for a little while...I took quite a few pictures at the places I went yesterday and will be posting them on my sledheads facebook page. I did hear of an accident west of frederic along 612 where the helicopter came in to take them away but havent heard anything more on that. Thanks for checking in and Please Ride Safely........Pete ---------------------------------------------------------- Saturday January 28, 2012 9:45 a.m. We had a whole new half inch of snow overnight. While there are sleds out there riding conditions definetly went downhill yesterday with the sun. The snow is still coming down now so that is nice. About 9 last night there were I would guess 40 sleds at Spikes Keg O Nails in Grayling and I talked to the Alabama boys last night and they had been out riding all day and they were up at Big Buck for dinner last night. And while I was planning to update right when I got here this morning the first customers of the morning were the Alabama boys, about ten of them and they were here quite a while buying up goodies and they did a video clip about their trip up here. They make it sound like nothing to drive a thousand miles to get here and they are heading back tonight but some will be back on wednesday. That doesnt make Toledo, Dayton or Columbus sound so far to come up here. Those guys even travel with their own IRS agent. I gave the kids with them a demostration of how I could shoot an apple off one of their heads with my bow and arrow....luckily we used the styrofoam head instead of one of the kids cause I missed. Trailer count this morning at Days Inn was 1 and Ramada was 3....a ways down from last weekend but still last night and this morning I was surprised at the trailers I saw at restaurants and gas stations. I dont know if they were staying here or just passing thru but it looked good. Lets hope this snow keeps up... I want to toot my horn for a minute about my daughter Melissa who is at Ferris, last night she recieved an award at the college called The Emerging Leader Award for being a freshman and demonstrating her leadership skills in the honors program and communications at Ferris. That makes a Dad & Mom and heck even the beagle feel pretty proud along with her being Valedictorian of her senior class this past summer....She certianly excells in areas I never did... Thats about it for today. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Friday 11:35 a.m. Its sunny with alot of dripping coming off of the roof here in frederic. There have been sleds riding into here already today and as I went into grayling there were 3 trailers at the restaurant and I did pass a few other trailers in town. Trailer count at the motels was pretty much non existent with zero at the days inn and 2 trailers at the ramada. The good news in all of this is that after midnight tonight we are supposed to start getting snow with 3 inches at night and another 3 during the day with snow predicted most everday thru next thursday. I only hope thats a true prediction. Trail crossing still surprisingly clean for what we have gone thru. Thats about it for now.... Friday January 27, 2012 7:00 a.m. There is a 2 hour school delay this morning due to icy roads. There was a light drizzle coming down last night, I would say this is going to make for an ugly day but the snow is supposed to kick in tonight. Hard to tell what the weekend will really be like. There were sleds out and about yesterday but I wonder how this ice is going to affect today. If it keeps this up I will be out back eating spam with the Mountain Man. I just talked to the lead truck on the Darkside trip and they are on the road just outside of flint taking their 12 hour drive to get to where they are going and then they do a short ride tommorow and take off on the big ride on sunday. They have their spot trackers on so you can follow them along their track into Canadia....eh.....Hard to believe but I actually sold a building and have a real estate closing this morning so that is kind of nice. Real estate business has still been pretty slow. I do all the things that make big money, snowmobile & real estate, at least everytime I get knocked down I get back up. There was a guy yesterday that said to me that he didnt know how I stay in business....sometimes I wonder that myself, but I do have good customers that keep coming to me and that really helps. 4 feet of snow would help too along with a housing boom. I will update again later today after I get to frederic and see what it is really like out there after driving. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday 2:30 I just got back from a run up to gaylord, I drove up old 27 looking at the trail and am happy to say that it was way whiter than I expected all the way up. I didnt see any dirt to speak of which surprised me too, there were sleds at both the Keg in waters and the Stampede too.....A new shot of snow would be really nice but it looks like my prediction is right on... Thursday Noon Thirty I have wondered all week if the Ohio State Snowmobile Association was going to go on with their annual ride this weekend or not. I hadnt heard anything so I just called the Ramada to see and they said that they have called off their ride for this weekend. Thats to bad as they always put on a great event for all of their members. The boys from Alabama were just in here on their sleds and those guys are road warriors. They were here last weekend and drove home and then drove back again this weekend to ride. They are coming back again in 2 weeks....It a thousand miles one way for them. The senior member told me that its easy, he said he crawled in the bed in his motorhome and when he woke up they were pulling into grayling...must be nice to have a chauffer..... Thursday Janaury 26, 2012 11;10 a.m. No new snow since yesterday and about 25 degrees out right now. Only 4 sleds rode into here yesterday and the reports from one set of people they said it was bad and they werent having a good time, but the other set of people said that they had almost canceled coming up from Battle Creek and that they were glad they came and they were having a good ride. At about 5 last night I counted 11 sleds over at the swamp. According to the weather this morning the snow is supposed to be starting friday night and everyday for the next week, at least thats what the weather report showed. So I still say the same thing that there will be riders this weekend but if you do just be careful of icy corners and ruts in the trails. The Darkside Adventures guys head out on their new trip up to New Brunswick. You can follow them live by satelitte along their adventure and go to their site at Darkside Adventures Our rental cottage is still available for this coming weekend if anyone wants a nice place to stay if you are coming up. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------ Wednesday 11:00 a.m. In view of the fact that the Sledheads Forum on the top of my webpage is not getting any activity we are going to switch that to the Sledheads of Frederic Facebook page where there is alot of activity. If you belong to the Forum you will be recieving an email from the webmaster saying that it will be taken down in about a month. Here is a link to the Sledheads facebook page. As always my blog will continue in the same spot every day. Be sure to LIKE our Sledheads facebook page and send it to all your friends too. Wednesday January 25, 2012 8:30 a.m. Its calm and quiet in frederic this morning at about 27 degrees out there. No new snow overnight and there is no call for any new snow today. I did already see one lone sled riding into town here as I got here. There were 4 sleds that rode into the shop here yesterday and they actually said it was pretty decent out there. My prediction still stands the same for the next few days unless it gets warm and hits us today. People are going to ride in this, well I wouldnt expect great conditions it is icy underneath but as long as there is enough snow out there to lube your slides the riders are going to make the best of it. I would say we had about 2 inches total of new snow yesterday. I had a phone call from CJ down in Alabama and he said he is still planning on coming up to ride. Thats a thousand mile trip....just to get to frederic...glad I only have to drive 11 miles. So thats about it for this morning, I hear the county snow plow outside right now probably leaving me a big pile along the drive. Here is the news release from the fatal sled accident from sunday. Sheriff Kirk A. Wakefield states that on Sunday, January 22nd, 2012 at approximately 11:55am, Deputies were dispatched to a snowmobile vs. Pickup accident that occurred on a logging road located west of Military Road in Beaver Creek Township. Upon arrival, MMR personnel and deputies found the victim to be deceased. The victim, a 45 year old Plymouth, Mi. resident was traveling in a westerly direction at a high rate of speed when he rounded a corner (left of center) and collided with an oncoming pickup truck. The driver of the pickup truck was not injured. Excessive speed is believed to be the major factor in this crash. Alcohol is not believed to be a factor. This accident remains under investigation. Mobile Medical Response personnel along with the Beaver Creek Township Fire Department and DNR conservation officers assisted deputies with this incident. Thanks for checking in and as usual in almost every sled death its always one of 2 things, or both, SPEED & ALCOHOL. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday January 24, 2012 9:55 a.m. The temps went down to about 26 overnight and that kind of stiffened things back up and lo and behold we have had about a 3/4 of an inch of new snow and there are big snowflakes falling right now in frederic. Its supposed to go down into the teens tonight which will continue with the stiffening up but there isnt much snow in the forcast. It supposed to be low 30s tommorow and sunny and then light snow coming in the next couple days after that. I just had a call from a guy in port huron wondering about this coming up weekend. Here is my prediction on that. From the way things look right now I think there will be riders out BUT its going to be really hard underneath along with maybe ruts in spots, that still wont deter the ones that want to ride and it could be that the rain that made the snow to slush actually leveled things out and then froze to make it smooth in spots. I see my lake in the back of the shop is very smooth right now and as long as it freezes up without anyone going thru it that will be a nice patch. Other than that its a wait and see what happens game. Here is a link to a quick video I made outside after I changed my sign around out front... Things turn bad really fast Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------- Monday afternoon 1:30 p.m The train is just passsing thru on its way back from gaylord and making a bunch of noise. Unbelieveable how much things can change in less than 12 hours, puddles everywhere the trails looked like big slush holes with puddles and dark on them. Will this help with the base? Will we get more snow?? Who knows, once again its a waiting game.....The back parking lot is geting a lake formed in the middle of it......Darn,Darn,Darn Monday January 23, 2012 6:35 a.m. Pouring down rain is not what we want at this time of year but its 37 degrees and my front yard looks like a slush bowl. Schools are closed everywhere and I sure hope that this past 10 days was the only winter we will have. Its hard to believe how fast things can change and the only thing we can do now is hope that it gets cold and freezes this stuff up. Riding was still good yesterday and Cathy and I even went cross country skiing yesterday afternoon for the first time this year too. There was a snowmobile death and crash here in crawford county yesterday afternoon where a sled hit a truck out in the guard camp. The man was 45 years old and from plymouth. I also saw on the news where there was a death in the u.p. Its to bad those things have to happen. I put together a new video that I did this weekend and I think I will make a new short one this morning showing you how nasty it is out there. Here is the new video. Weekend of Riding in Frederic Jan 22 Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday January 22, 2012 9:45 a.m. A quiet morning in frederic and the first 2 sleds of the morning just rode out of here. The snow looks well worn with the heavy traffic we had yesterday. I shot quite a bit of video in the past few days so I will get a new video posted in the next day or two. There was a guy in here yesterday who bought a hat and thinks that he left his wallet on the counter or what he calls a wallet. He has the exact same one that I do where he carries all his cash and credit cards along with his license wrapped by a rubber band. Thats the way I have done it for years so if you happen to get a big pile of cash your next expanding rubber band of a money clip will hold it all. Trouble is he cant find his and it also may have fallen out on the trail right here near frederic so if you find it please bring it to me and I will get it back to him. Its hard to replace all those items. Last night I attended the Indiana Snowmobile Associations banquet at the Ramada and they had a nice program put together for their riders along with a great dinner. They had prizes for things that they had hidden out in the woods which were mostly teddy bears with ISA on them. I want to continue the hunt for the missing bears so if you are out riding in our trail system and find one of the hidden teddy bears along the trail bring them to me and I will reward you with $5 and save them for next years ISA ride. That will give you something to look for as you are riding. Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday January 21, 2012 8:45 a.m. DANGER DANGER DANGER on the trail I wanted to start this morning with a warning to those that ride the trail just west of Cameron Bridge outside of Frederic, while the trail is groomed nicely and is on the road right after you go over the Manistee River right when you think its nice and smooth there are a couple of very big holes in the middle of the road. Please Ride thru that area with CAUTION!!! Its cold and crunchy out again this morning and there was heavy sled traffic all day friday, trailer count this morning at Days Inn was 7 and 47 (yes 47) at the Ramada along with sleds at all of the north end hotels and even sleds at my rental cottage that came in last night. Should be a good day for a fire outside here and to cook some yummy smores.....Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------- Friday January 20, 2012 10:35 a.m. The snow was good and crunchy all night and only a skiff of new snow overnight. I got here just before 9 and started plowing the back parking lot but people started riding in right away and I havent been able to finish that up. It is going to be a big weekend and right now I bet 10 more sleds just pulled up outside. Even the Ohio Pooper was just in here along with a bunch of canadians from Camp Cannuck....Its now 11:15 and I am back on this. Had riders in yesterday from Alabama or as they said when I asked them where they were from L.A. which to them is Lower Alabama. I told the mountain man that people are coming in now and want to meet him and get their picture with him....he gets a kick out of that. Gonna cut it short this morning so thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------- Thursday January 19, 2012 10:30 a.m. Its the ulitmate Frederic Michigan winter morning! Snowing and blowing with 3 to 4 new inches of snow on the ground since yesterday. I LOVE IT!!!! Schools closed north and west of Grayling and sleds out and about. With the way the snow and wind is right now while snow is great it will be hard to see while riding but there are already sleds out and about here. The Indiana Snowmobile Association has their ride in going on here this weekend and they are based out of the Ramada Inn in Grayling. So it looks like its going to be a huge weekend coming up. The weather this morning said maybe another 4 inches yet today....It took it to long to get going but it looks like the snow machine is in full gear now. Last but not least Happy Birthday to my daughter Melissa who turns 19 today and is down at Ferris which actually makes me quite sad today as she was my birthday present 19 years ago today and this is the first time we havent been together on our birthdays. I miss that part and wish she was here with us. Thanks for checking in and Please Ride Safely. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday 10:30 a.m. I just finished plowing all around the shop and I would almost say that there was more like 6 new inches out there. I had a heck of a time getting my plow on this morning as I think the slots that the plow slides into were packed with slush and ice. I ended up putting my salamander on it to make it thaw out. So trails looked great on the way here and I have seen a few sleds around this morning. There were many schools closed around northern michigan but not grayling schools. Gaylord was close. There were 3 guys that came in from Pensylvannia yesterday from the towns of Bedford, Hopewll and Everett. They are regular readers and they said they were having a great ride. Also had some guys in here that had rode up from St Helen. On Monday there were a couple different groups of people that stopped in here on their way back from the u.p. Darrel Thayer was in too to say that he had rode to Mackinaw from here this weekend and that was the first person that I have talked to that has done that this season. He said the snow was thin there but they did get pics of the bridge. Digger Doug Shepard from Ohio called me last night too and told me that when he was in here about 2 weeks ago to get a trail permit when I was out of them that he headed to gaylord to get his permit. I sure wish I would have had a permit for him because on his way back he got the monster HI YAH! from a deer that decided to knock him off his sled and bruise his ribs and lungs along with breaking his leg in 2 places. He said he was in the grayling hospital for 4 days. That certainly is going to put a dent in his riding for this season. He said he never even saw the deer that all of sudden he was on the ground.....Below is what I wrote earlier this morning. Wednesday January 18, 2012 6:50 a.m. MO MO NAH CHEE CHEE NAH!!! It was a great day yesterday as we had 3 to 4 inches of new snow come down on us. The morning started out with a little drizzle but it quickly turned windy and cold with the snow heavy at times. I rode home from Frederic during the afternoon to bring a sled to the people that were staying at our cottage. I only wish I could have rode with them after I got here. They got back in last night and said it was great out getting almost 200 miles in 24 hours on the sleds. They had rode back from starvation lake last night and the girls told me they downloaded an ap for their i phones that had the sled trails on it so they didnt run in circles like they did the night before. I would expect that this coming weekend the trails will be packed. I wil update again later this morning after I take a look at the trail crossings on the way to Sledheads....Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday January 17, 2012 9:30 a.m. There is a light drizzle coming down right now and its 32 degrees out. The temp is supposed to drop and get windy with snow for the next few days so that should make it nice. Sleds were out and about yesterday more so than a regular monday but I saw news reports last night of more sledding deaths. I think the count is pretty close to ten now and there hasnt even been a whole week yet of good riding. Yesterday morning I took Cathys car in to get checked and to get back to my truck I got to drive a new Chevy Volt. That was a different experience, just push the button to start it but when you push the button you dont hear a thing and when you drive there is nothing but road noise and then it really messes you up when you stop at the light and you think the thing is stalled. It had really good pick up to it and it made me wonder how long it will be till they come up with a sled like that. I heard from the "chosen one" Ohio Mike this morning and he is planning on coming up from ohio this weekend. Bill & Tracy from INdiana rode into here yesterday too along with her dad. Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------- Monday January 16, 2012 9:50 a.m. I have a Dream that we will get more snow.....Happy MLK Day....unfortunatley no new snow but there are still sleds hanging around and riding this morning. I took my first ride of the season yesterday. I rode into grayling and home and around Lake Margrethe where I ran into a group of about 30 guys from grayling out there on the ice fishing. They were having a good time and there was good snow on the lake. My whole ride was 33 miles round trip here to frederic and when I got back to fill up I ran into Toledo Bob & Amy and they were filling up and heading back to Toledo...Thats a long day trip ride but they said they had a good ride and they even got to meet the mountain man. I saw on the news last night that there were 2 sled fatalites in northern michigan over the weekend, one of them being a lady from ohio. Please Ride Safely......Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------- Sunday January 15, 2012 9:30 a.m. Its a quiet sunday morning in frederic. There were 2 sleds down at the four seasons diner when I got here and its about 9 degrees with no new snow. Sled traffic was heavy yesterday along with riders with their assorted troubles of the day. There was a group of Indiana guys with 5 sleds on a tall equipment trailer, 4 sleds broke down but with no snow banks to load them they called a rollback wrecker to put the sleds up on it and then put them onto the trailer, the fifth sled that was on the trailer and just fine they went to move and rode it off of the side of the trailer dumping that one and giving the wrecker one more to load up. I got some of that on video which will be in with the next story of a skidoo burning up on the street behind the shop here, that guy didnt have a good day either. Then there was the guy with no carbides on slp skis and his buddy hitched a ride back out to the truck stop where their truck was so he could come get picked up. Another group of guys were in and his buddy had been clipped by an oncoming sled on a curve and they needed zip ties to try and bandage his belly pan back together. I think its kind of like that first snow when the roads are slick and alot of accident happen. People need to get used to riding again. I am thinking of going out for a ride this afternoon. Here is a link to my video from yesterday. When I was taking the video of the burning sled I hid in front of the fire truck holding my camera up and around the corner of the truck because I really didnt want to get hit by shrapnel if the sled blew up. Toledo Bob & Amy just rolled in to go for ride. Saturday,Sleds, Riding, & Fire Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday January 14, 2012 9:20 a.m. Things got hectic yesterday afternoon and then I forgot to get one more update. There wasnt really anything else to report, definetly the best riding day of this season so far. Its sunny and 8 degrees outside here this morning and there was no new snow overnight. On the motel survey this morning it was Days Inn 4 and Ramada 13 and Fayes Motel had sleds parked outside of roooms, not a huge count but a start. I didnt even realize that this was MLK weekend which is always a huge weekend. I had a report of a fatality in the u.p. There was an accident here in frederic last night at the intersection of Kolka Creek Road and Cameron Bridge. The family that came upon it came in and told me that the guy on a new arctic cat landed in the yard at the end of the t intersection, flew thru the yard and stopped just short of a sled trailer. They said he was out for a few minutes and then didnt know what had happened when he came to. I understand he was hurt pretty bad so this goes back to please ride safely. Its now 10:20 and I am just getting this finished up. Quite a bit of sled traffic in here so far. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Friday the 13th 1:00 p.m. Gee I feel bad I missed my noon update but I have had customers..Sleds are out and about and this is the first real day of riding this sled season. Both Grayling Groomers from the Ausable Valley Snowmobile Association are out and panning the trails. I put a quick video together from this morning. Here is a link to it. Winter is finally here in Frederic on Friday the 13th I will update one more time later on this afternoon. Friday 8:40 a.m. A beautiful snowy morning in Frederic with 6 to 7 inches here on the ground. Its been a while since I could say that. The snow isnt as wet as what it was last night but still a great snow. I was surprised I didnt see any sleds on the way up here which surprised me but did see 2 on a trailer at the gas station. I also was happy to see that gas prices are at 3.45....what a deal. Someone hit a power pole north of frederic last night and put power out for most of the night and that moved made my main web camera move to a position that I dont want. I sure wish I could get that thing working right. I guess I better put my plow on....I will update again around noon.... Friday the 13th 7:00 a.m. A great day for all of us, total of snow now is 6 to 7 inches here at lake margrethe. Schools are closed from Pentwater to West Branch to Soo St Marie. The snow is perfect for riding as its packy and should last us as its supposed to stay cold all weekend. Only about 1 to to inches of new snow since I got hope about 12:30 this morning. I was pretty much the only truck on the highway coming home and I took it slow and safe. When I left Grayling yesterday gas was 3.46 but by the time on the way downstate I was seeing 3.69. I ended up going all the way to Rockford and prices were the same until I came back thru Cadillac and Miejers was still 3.48 which had to be the only station around holding at that. After getting gas there I headed on to Lake City and the first station I saw there was 3.84....I guess thats what we get for getting snow? I will update again after I get to Frederic..... Friday the 13th 12:28 a..m. It seems lucky to me after a 3 hour drive at 40 mph from Big Rapids, lots of snow all the way and I just took it slow. If I had a sled home right now I would go for a ride. 5 inches in my drive and its a thick packy snow perfect for ridiing. If the snow keeps up like this its gonna be our first "decent" weekend. Off to bed as I am still blinded from snowflakes....will update a few times during the day today Thursday Night 8:25 p.m. Coming at your from Melissas Dorm room at Ferris where we just returned from a break skating show in the auditorium. They even got me up on stage with them. Of course I was probably the oldest guy in the crowd. Pretty entertaining and there is about 2 inches of fresh slickery snow on the ground here and thats about the same as whats on the ground in grayling right now. The snow started in frederic around 3 and lets hope that it keeps hitting us all night long. I already have my truck in 4 wheel drive cause its so slick so I imagine its gonna be a slow ride home. The snow chants are helping and the snow is supposed to keep coming till about 7 tommorow night. I will update first thing in the morning with a snow depth report from Lake Margrethe Thursday January 12, 2012 7:11 a.m. Still calm and 29 degrees outside. It was up to 51 degrees yesterday and the beagle enjoyed her afternoon laying in the sun again outside of the shop. According to the weather the snow is supposed to start tongiht and be all done by friday night so what ever we are going to get for this weekend we will know by friday night how much its going to be. For our area they are saying 5 to 8 inches, you know how that goes so on Fridays updates I will do it a few times to let you know how the day progresses. We are starting over again so a miracle is what we need. The beagle and I are heading off on a road trip today to Big Rapids to see Melissa at Ferris and help her move some things and have dinner tonight. Thank you to those of you that have stopped in and made a donation towards her germany trip in the spring. I was pleasantly surprised to see considering how little traffic there has been that people have been helping her out..(and me too). Pretty soon if this no snow thing keeps up you might see me standing with a cardboard sign and a can up on the corner of I 75... So lets keep our fingers crossed that the snow will really start hitting us tonight. Thanks for checkinng in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wednesday January 11, 2012 10:12 a.m. Sunny and 27 this morning...starting to sound like a broken record...It was up to 44 yesterday and we lost yet more snow...The weatherman is calling for snow thursday and thru the weekend with a "supposed" winter storm coming at us. I will believe it when I see it. So everyone is wondering should they stay or should they go now.....like the song says....who know. The wait is still on. Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday January 10, 2012 10:30 a.m. Sunny and calm and 29 degrees outside with not a darn thing to report on about Frederic. I did stop in town this morning and had a big bundle of wood loaded up to put under the carport outside just in case we ever get to have a campfire outside and try roasting somores out there. I think we only had a couple fires out there last year and its looking like its going to be the same again this year. Last year I brought 2 of those big bundles up here and we hardly burned any and then I have to get rid of it so I thought I would just start with one and see how that goes. If anything it will give the mountain man firewood for his woodstove. I wrote another friend yesterday who lives on Hawkins Island which is just a couple miles offshore from the harbor in Cordova. I asked him about the snow situation and am pasting his response to me next....He says their snow is more like only 6 feet instead of 18 feet. We should have that problem. He talks about Valdez where they have more snow and I remember from when I was there that nobody has snowplows because when it snows there they get feet and not inches. Everybody there has loaders... Here is Dennys note about the Cordova snow. Hey Pete, I think the news is somewhat exaggerated, we have only had about 6 foot on the ground at a time. Since November they say we have had up to 18 foot of snow fall (but the ground was bare at Christmas). I think the people taking the pictures are angling their cameras on an uphill grade to make them appear more impressive. A lot of the pictures are of snow berms or where the snow slid off a building. Before it rained the other night we had high winds so we did get some drifts. The buildings that collapsed where due to no one shoveling them before it rained. We were in town today to get mail & see our new grandson. We did shovel both our vehicles out which had very little snow on them. We did talk to a few National Guardsmen whom were wonder why they were needed. They sent those men to shovel the school roofs & harbor docks which could have been done by the city workers or local people willing to work...but the city does not want to pay so they declared an emergency. Valdez has three times or more of the amount of snow as we do. We have a granddaughter in Valdez too. I wonder what all these new people in Cordova will say if we get 28 feet like happened in 1972? Oh Ed would have enjoyed sharing his knowledge & history of the many snows he had to deal with. I sure hope you get your snow. Take care. Denny So thats Dennys input on the big snow in Alaska. Thanks for Checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------- Monday January 9, 2012 10:30 a.m. There was frost on the windshield this morning but no signs of any snow. I am even hearing that its gonna be 40s for the next 3 days. So much for MO MO NAH CHEE CHEE NAH. A hint of snow for thursday though. I saw 2 sleds riding into town yesterday morning when I got here but that was about the only ones I saw all day. Everyone else that stopped in here was in a car and I certainly doubt if much will happen today. I did see alot of people out ice fishing on lake margrethe last night so at least those guys are enjoying the outdoors. I had a report of a sled death up in grand maraias this weekend where a lady fell off a sled and was hit by another one coming at her. She died at the scene. That puts the count at 4 so far this season. I put a link on my sledheads facebook page to a story from alaska where the city cordova has had 18 feet of snow in the past few weeks. I wish we had that problem here. I went to Cordova a few years back to visit my old friend Ed Bilderback that lived there. A great little town on the edge of Prince William Sound that you can only get to by plane or ferry. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------ Sunday January 8, 2012 11:00 a.m. Its a calm 20 degrees in frederic this morning with only a micro skiff of new snow overnight. Sled traffic was heavier in frederic yesterday than I expected with the conditions that they are. The old southern ohio boys were in and said they had rode 145 miles on friday and that was enough riding for them as they said it was bad but that they still had a great time. They were just hanging out yesterday. I dozed off last night but woke up about 11:30 and thought I would take a run thru grayling to see what was going on. The ole barn had a band and only about 6 cars in the parking lot. Spikes was empty, The days inn had still the one trailer from saturday morning there, the ramada had no trailers and the bar was just closing with nobody but workers in it and the grey rock had 2 cars outside of it and thats what was going on in grayling on a winter saturday night just before midnight. Unbelieveable how dead it was. I did post the video from the roof on the sledheads facebook page as some were asking for it, I just wasnt sure how to do it but figured it out. So right now I have the sunday morning service on from the New Birth Baptist Church outside of atlanta georgia. They always have a good upbeat message and lord knows we all need that right now. Until tommorow, thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------- Saturday January 7, 2012 10:10 a.m. Its 32 out and we did get a tiny skiff of snow overnight. I saw 3 sleds go by on the trail a bit ago but am not expecting to much traffic today. There was 1 trailer at the Days Inn this morning and 2 trailers at the Ramada. The 47 degree day yesterday really put the hurt to the little snow we did have. I had a friend over here yesterday and we went up on the roof of Sledheads to see if we could figure out why the webcam isnt working right. I did find a broken wire but still dont have it working right from inside here but in any case just before we were ready to get down the wind blew the ladder down so there we were stuck up on the roof. I called one of my nieghbors who is also on the fire department and asked him if he was on a call because the trucks had gone out a while before that, he said they were on their way back so I told him we needed to be rescused by Frederics Finest. In a couple minutes the fire truck pulled up with the siren going and followed by a cop car to boot. The guys got off the truck and put our ladder back up and saved the day....I did get a video clip of it on my phone and its posted on my regular facebook page. I dont know how to link it to my sledheads page. That at least made yesterday afternoon interesting. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday January 6, 2012 10:10 a.m. I feel like I have been run over by the Spam truck and now its going to back up on me. It was 34 degrees when I went to bed last night and 39 when I got up this morning. Right now its 41 in frederic and that is not ideally what we would love to see. The trails along 93 by hanson hills looked white but thin in the middle and down in the swamp along there they were bad but thats not unusual. Both crossings by the hight school still looked pretty decent but this 40 degrees stuff is going to hurt. I have already seen a few sleds buzzing thru town here this morning. We just have to take it for what it is and wait for more snow. Matt Melling aka Mellman just stopped in on his way up to the u.p to ride with Don from the fox river motel around seney so I am sure he is going to have fun. Yesterday Digger Doug Shepard was in with a friend who was here for the first time so I offered him one of my "free" key chains. When he opened the box he jumped back so hard he broke thru the glass on my cube display with the t shirts in it. He wins first place for the biggest jump ever on that, even beating out the funeral director who jumped back to the door years ago. We had quite a bit of glass pieces to clean up. If you decide to come up I will be here and my rental cottage is available too if you are looking for a nice place to stay. Here is a link to my cottage website. Wayside Inn Cottage Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------- Thursday Janauary 5, 2012 11:00 a.m. Its sunny and about 25 degrees outside, not what I want to see. The trail crossing up north of the high school was nice and white except in the middle of it where I could see a dark streak. There have been 3 sleds in here so far this morning and they said its been o.k. out there. With the forcast for tommorow and saturday I would say we are going to be losing snow and maybe it will snow sat or sun afternoon. It didnt look real encouraging to me. My prediction is that there will still be a good amount of riders on saturday because they are sick of waiting. We need a big shot of snow thats all there is to it. I have a new collection just on the counter here in the shop. My daughter Melissa wants to go on a Study Abroad trip to Germany in May so she wanted me to put a donation jug out to help with her trip....so if you come in and can spare a little it would help alot. I wish I could go to Germany. She asked me if she should do it and I said yes and that she should do it while she has the opportunity. Its thru and with one of her classes at Ferris. Thats about it for now. Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------- Wednesday January 4, 2012 9:15 a.m I see first of all that I put 2011 on yesterdays update, gotta get used to punching in 12.. Its a calm and cool 13 degrees in frederic this morning. The snows have stopped and from all the reports I have heard and riders I have talked to there is more snow north of us and west..Thats just typical each winter but while we had 5 or 6 inches total I saw where it said gaylord 12 to 18 inches..sure wish that would come a little more south. Sled traffic was steady but light yesterday in town here and it doesnt look like any new snow till maybe sunday with temps to maybe hit 40 for saturday...not what any of us would like to hear. I had a note from Eric this morning who is planning a ride to the bridge this weekend, thats the first I have heard of anyone trying that yet this year. I hope they can do it. If you have been watching the camera at all you might notice a camper in my back parking lot. It seems I have inherited the "Mountain Man"....He brings camping to a whole new level as he has been camping in his trailer for over ten years all over the place. He called me the other day and his transmission had gone out on his truck so I went and pulled him into here and told him he could camp out till his truck got fixed so he is now the Sledheads security guard. He looks like you think a mountain man should and is a little intimidating looking but he really is a nice guy so if you see him around just say HI Mountain Man......thats what he likes to be called. Also I hit the front page of todays Grayling Crawford County Avalanche with a big picture of a couple sleds I took out front of the shop on monday. So not a bad plug for Sledheads. Now if the snow would just pile up more. Thats about it for today. Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday January 3, 2012 9:45 a.m. Its a chilly cold 15 degrees here this morning. We havent had any new snow since yesterday and I finally put my plow on for the first time. The only reason I need to plow here is because of the piles the county truck leaves after it goes by. I want the parking lot to get packed down. Schools in Traverse, Gaylord, Elmira, and Wolverine were closed this morning so I think they got more snow overnight. There were sleds around yesterday but not a ton of them and everybody said pretty much the same thing that the snow was better north and west. I have heard of another death down towards west branch from this weekend. I also would like to send a shout out to Dangling Chad & GM who were kind enough to drop me off a little present and its right up my alley as its a t shirt from Virginia Coney Island in Jackson..I guess they must have at the coneys. .Thanks Guys.....I love it.... .Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday 11:00 a.m. Groomer Sighting correction. I have had a couple calls, on groomers this morning. The one spotted by Hanson Hills was not Graylings groomer, it belonged to the ski park. None of Graylings groomers are out. I had a call asking me about someone seeing the groomer yesterday heading south on the i 75 trail, the only reason that one was out there was it was going to the truck stop for fuel. Also with the snow brings Death, a 49 year old lady was killed by lakes of the north saturday. I posted a link to the story on my sledheads facebook page. Monday 9:00 a.m. Its still snowing and blowing in frederic, in the parking lot here I measure 3 to 5 inches depending on how the wind has been hitting it. I checked things out on the way here this morning and there already sleds that had been across 93 by hanson hills and out to the first parking lot west of town I saw probably the same sled tracks, no trailers there yet. There were tracks at 93 and 27 by the high school and north of the high school at the trail crossing I measured 5 inches and no tracks there. As I got into frederic there were no tracks at the frederic parking lot but I have already seen 5 sleds here in town. I just got a groomer sighting report of the Grayling Groomer out by Hanson Hills. I will check in with Keith today and find out what his plans are with the groomers. I would guess they are just panning right now. So till later on today..... Monday January 2, 2012 7:11 a.m. Nice and white and we have had about 2 to 3 more inches of a nice packy snow since I wrote about 8 last night. So overall I would say we are up to about 5 inches total. The great thing its a packy snow. I am certain this will bring a few out today but it is by no means time for the groomers to head out. I will check things out on the way to frederic this morning and update later on this morning. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday night 8:15 p.m. It snowed pretty hard and made it nice and white but only about 2 inches. I have been home a couple hours now and only a little skiff has fallen in that time. Its a start.... Sunday Afternoon,3:15 p.m. Snowing and Blowing hard in frederic, about 1 inch so far....MO MO NAH CHEE CHEE NAH, I am heading out for my last try for Big Don as this is the last day of bow season. The way its blowing out there I dont know if I can set still for a couple hours. I will update again later tonight and let you know how much is at lake margrethe. Sunday Jan 1 11:30 a.m. I just rolled in to frederic here about a half hour ago, had 5 people in right off the bat but it was raining hard most of the way from home until about halfway here and now its turning to snow, so will we really get the storm? Brimley Bob called me and he was heading south for the motor city and he told me he had left the Soo at 9 a.m. and that it was snowing very hard up there and some of his way south. So now back to where I was when I was still at home this morning, Ohio Ron showed up about 5 yesterday and he had been the first one in in about 3 hours. The only reason I was here so late was that my truck was getting new u joint in it and it wasnt done yet so Ron was nice enough to give me a ride to gaylord so I could meet up with Cathy and Haley. I was supposed to meet them up there so we could go to new years dinner. Ron and I stopped at The Stampede at the north end of otsego lake and we had a drink there and Cathy and Haley came on down to pick me up where we then headed off to Ruby Tuesdays for a great dinner. I hadnt been in the Stampede Saloon in quite a while but the owners Mo & Dakotah are alway gracious hosts and they have done a great job turning that place into an up north destination for dinner and snowmobilers. I told her I felt bad we were going to Ruby Tuesdays but we had a gift certificate for there. I had planned to go home to change and meet the girls and we were going to go to dinner then but the whole thing with my truck threw things off. I still had on my tall camo boots from looking from my deer in the morning so I was looking quite fashionable in a frederic sort of way. I even hit the Ramada Inn and The Ole Barn where I even did the electric slide with my boots on which was kind of fun. Then made it home about 11:30 to watch the ball come down and welcome the new year in with my girls. Its now up to 1:00 p.m. and its taken me this long to get to this point as I cant beleive how many people have been in here so far. Mostly people getting trail permits. Hard of Hearing Mike from down by Columbus called me a couple days ago to say that he and his snow bunnies were supposed to come north for New Years but canceled out because of the no snow. I guess I will wrap this up now for today as about another half hour has gone by. Thanks for checking in and do some snow chanting. Pete January 1, 2012 9:45 a.m. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! So much for our winter storm, I was up at 3:30 and it was 33 degrees, up again at 7:30 and it was 34 and now at almost 10 its 35 degrees and raining outside. No one came into frederic the last 3 hours of the day until Ohio Ron showed up. (gonna finish this when I get to frederic, bacon is almost done at home, give me an hour or so) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday 2:00 p.m. Just heard JC the weather man on the radio and its nice to hear him say we are under a winter storm watch for tonight, tommorow and into monday. Lets hope he is right. Saturday December 31, 2011 10:35 am.. Well its the last day of the year and all that has happened since yesterday is what little snow we had is a little less today as its been staying around 31 degrees. The snow is supposed to hit us tommorow and monday so that gives us a bit of hope. There were 3 sleds that rode into here yesterday and I have had reports of other sleds out and about. I went out hunting again last night and did land one last night but we stopped looking for it last night and went back this morning and it was only 15 feet from where we stopped looking last night. It wasnt big don so it looks like I am going to have to wait another year to try and get him. I have been out each day since last sunday and its been a nice week to spend the afternoons in the woods. If we get snow tonight I would expect things are gonna kick in here. Lets hope its a Happy New Year for all of us. Talk to you in 2012. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Friday December 30, 2011 10:00 a.m. It was a warm night staying around 31 degrees and we did get about an inch of snow yesterday and what is out there is packy. Once again just for the heck of it I drove thru the Days Inn and Ramada this morning and there werent many cars at either one there werent any sled trailers either. While walk in traffic into here has picked up just a bit from people who came north anyways it is still very slow in Frederic. I also have been meaning to talk about my webcams on here. For those of you that have been looking at it the main camera is stuck on pointing out back. If I unplug it and replug it back in it moves but I cant make it scan like it should. I need to get someone to check that out as I have tried everything I can think of on it. I finally got the side view camera going again last week. Now to change subjects the past 4 days I have been leaving early to go to the woods to still try my luck for a deer and while I was happy for a while last night because I finally got a shot at a deer unfortunatley it wasnt a great shot. My friend Jack came with Haley and I along with Willie another friend to track it down. After about 30 yards we found my arrow and the blood trail which was just small specks of blood. We tracked it for almost 2 hours still following the tiny specks and a couple spots where it laid down. About and hour and a half in we ended up having a visitor just ahead of us on the same mission and that was to track down my deer. Unfortunaely I think our visitor was a bit more succesful than us. It was a Bobcat that had picked up the trail and it was following too. There were tracks right alongside the deer tracks and at one point it jumped up on a long downed tree and walked along the tree right above where the deer tracks were. As much as I was disappointed with myself on not making a good shot mother nature was still at work in the sometimes cruel circle of life. On the other hand it was a nice night for a long walk in the woods. Haley was getting pretty tired by the time we made it back to the truck. We actually came out on a trail about a mile away from where we were parked so we called another friend to come pick us up and take us back to our trucks. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday December 29, 2011 10:30 a.m. It has warmed up since yesterday and is in the 20s now and we had only a micro skiff of new snow overnight. The weather is calling for maybe a couple inches yet today. I will believe that when I see it. I had a phone call yesterday from a writer from either the free press news asking me about sledding here and the effect on business and while I havent seen it yet I already had an email that it is on the front page. That still doesnt help with the snow here yet but we have to be getting closer. I had a guy call yesterday and he said he had a 2012 4 stroke grand touring skidoo and he wondered how long his carbides should last because they were gone already.....gee I wonder why they are gone...I ordered him 2 new sets to pick up today. At one point yesterday there were 7 sleds over at the swamp but they never came over here. Here is a link to the video I did yeseterday of the first sleds into here for the season. First Sleds of season I see the Darkside Adventures guys are still riding the mountains in wyoming. I followed Bob Youngs spot on his trip yesterday and I would give about anything to be out there riding with those guys. Darkside Adventures Website Gee this wyoming trip they are on is just a warm up for their big trip coming up the end of January. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday Noon NEWS FLASH!! I knew it had to happen sooner or later, the first two sleds of the season just rode into here. Dirk & Zac from waterford are from Waterford and they just rode here from Lakes of the North where they say there is about 2 more inches than there is here. That would make 2 inches as we have no inches here. Dirks Skidoo has a broken recoil so they are going to fire it back up and ride back there. Vide to follow tonight. Wednesday December 28, 2011 10:20 a.m It was a great night for making ice and freezing up the ground as it was about 10 degrees out and still is but we only had a skiff of new snow. I still got the reports though that it was snowing good yesterday in Flint and Angola so at least they are seeing snow. Weather wise it looks like the snow is in the south and not in the north, something is backwards. I will leave it at that for today. Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday December 27,2011 10:00 a.m. The only thing that has changed weather wise since yesterday is that we have less snow now and there wasnt much to start with. I have talked to people that said they heard sleds out last night around frederic but I checked the trail on 612 just east of town and there were no tracks on it. At least riding at night you cant really see how bad the conditions really are. There is a prediction for light snow today....I wish I had better news. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------- Monday 2:30 p.m. Its sunny and 40 plus outside, snow is melting fast out there but I have seen 5 sleds go by across the street today, still none have rode into the shop here. I am closing early and going to try my luck again for Big Don. I had a note from Jake in Toledo who is still trying for Big Jim down there. Monday December 26, 2011 9:40 a.m. Its sunny and 30 degrees out right now. Downtown Grayling looked like a early sunday morning with nobody around. Just for the heck of it I took the motel survey. Days Inn was no trailers and 11 cars and the Ramada was 14 cars and no trailers. Our total on the ground here is maybe a half inch. I saw Kieth from Fays Motel this morning and he said he was out doing some trail work the other day and saw tracks out in the woods and I talked to Cindy from Residential Excavating here in Frederic and she lives right on the trail and she said 5 sleds went by last night. There were just 3 guys in here that said they are going to ride back here so they can be the fist sleds in of the season. I told them good because I have carbide and slides I can sell them. I also had a note from Denny from the Potawamini Snowmobilers down in Angola Indiana and he said he has been doing the snow chant but I think he needs to kick it up a notch. This is supposed to be the start of Hell week where there are so many people around that you cant keep up with everything. Well I dont see that happening. I wonder how many people were planning on coming and decided not to..regardless I will be here anyways. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday December 25, 2011 9:25 a.m. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! From our Sledheads family to yours. We just finished opening up presents and everyone is excited. The beagle especially likes tearing into presents and tearing them open just hoping to find a treat in there. Haley did a great artwork drawing of me which I will have proudly displayed in the shop as she did a great job on it and I am even wearing a Sledheads shirt in her rendering. Not a flake of new snow overnight just a little frost on the truck this morning. Have a great day! From Pete, Cathy, Melissa, Haley & EDB (Ellie the diabetic beagle). ------------------------------------------------------- Saturday December 24, 2011 10:30 a.m. All is quiet in downtown Frederic, I came in just to get some things done and hopefully maybe help a couple customers. Still not enough snow to talk about and my plow still sets all alone back in the corner of the shop. I did see 2 different county snowplow trucks out scraping the road and wasting lots of county money for no apparent reason. Last night I went over to Ron's place on Danish Landing for a great dinner. Ron just bought his place on Lake Margrethe thru me a couple months ago. (one of the few I sold this year)He had been looking for a lake house for a long time and finally is getting settled in and like everyone else is getting itchy to ride. He had some friends over and they cooked a prime rib over a fire out in the yard. Boy was that great even though Cathy said I chased her out of bed this morning because I smelled like garlic. I did learn an interesting thing over there about the similarites between Greeks and Croations but I cant type it here. Also a big thank you to Tom the fudge man from downstate that sent us some of his fudge he makes. That is some good stuff. Merry Christmas to all and lets hope Santa brings us lots of snow. Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- getting settled in Friday December 23, 2011 9:30 a.m. I am beginning to believe that a real winter is just a figment of my imagination kind of like Big Don that I have spent the last 3 nights in the woods looking for. There is light snow in the air here in frederic but still we are at about a half inch on the ground, While it makes it look nice and white its not anything to ride in. Last year at this time the first sled of the season came in on Dec 3 and this year we still havent had a first sled plus I had business most everday since the 3rd last year and this year basically zero. Lets hope Santa is good to us. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday December 22, 2011 7:20 a.m. Yee Hahh!!! Its the first day of winter and its about 30 outside and we even had a skiff of new snow to make it a little white outside. Still a long ways to go to get to ride. Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday December 21, 2011 10:35 a.m. Not a thing has changed since yesterday, so we are still waiting for snow and this morning was way warmer than yesterday morning. I wish I had more to say.....Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------- Tuesday 11:30 a.m. Just got off the phone with the Bob & Rod of the Darkside Adventures crew. They are doing a little warm up trip to Brooks Lake Lodge in Wyoming. Seeing that there is no snow here to ride if you want to watch someone having a good time watch these guys. You can track them in real time by going to Darkside Adventures Website and click on the satellite tracking and then click on Rod Campbells tracker to see where they are at. Right now they are just outside of Chicago. I just checked the Brooks Lake webcam and it looks like there is lots of snow out there. If any of you want a real adventure for the big Darkside Trip check for the info on their site as there are a couple openings yet if you want to go for a ride of your lifetime. Their site is at www.DarksideAdventures.com Tuesday December 20, 2011 9:45 a.m. It was a chilly 7 degrees when I got here in frederic this morning but of course no signs of any kind of snow and the outlook still doesnt show any promises either. I did find out more about the lady in Lake Margrethe. It took place just to the right of the end of McIntyres Landing main entrance road. She had walked out with a flashlight during the night and gone out about 200 feet where the water was about 5 feet deep and then must have turned to go back in and made it to about 50 feet from shore where she died. Certainly not a nice way to go. So the wait is still on for snow. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday December 19, 2011 10:00 a.m. Its cloudy dreary and 39 degrees here in frederic this morning. It was warm most of the night with the constant drip of melting snow. Then I just had a phone call from a guy wanting to rent a sled. He said he thought there was enough to ride in but I dont know what world he was calling from. I am pasting a news story next about a lady that was found dead in Lake Margrethe yesterday. I dont know anymore about it than what is in this story but I do know of some people from the Kzoo area that have a house not to far from me.. The body of a 49 year old downstate woman was found Sunday morning at a lake in Crawford county. The sheriff's office says the call came in this morning shortly after nine a.m. from the family of the woman. They said she was in Lake Margarethe near Grayling, and they believed she was dead. They said they followed footprints from the residence to near where she was found. The woman, identified as Elizabeth Ann Herberg of Portage, was found about 200 feet from shore. A deputy brought her body to shore where she was pronounced dead. The sheriff does not suspect foul play. Here is a link to a little video I did yesterday and now conditions look way worse than what this video showed. Sunday Dec 18, 2011 in Frederic Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------- Sunday December 18, 2011 9:00 a.m. Its about 28 degrees out and we had about another inch of snow overnight. Its still not enough to go riding on and this snow is more of a system snow than lake effect so there is a little packing to it. I was around frederic most of the day yesterday and only had a few people come in. I went up to waters in the afternoon still halfway thinking I would see a set of sled tracks on the trail just because there is always someone that cant wait but there were no tracks. It is getting closer though. It depends on how much warmth we get again this week. Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday December 17,2011 9:50 a.m. Its about 20 degrees out here in downtown Frederic with about 3/4 of an inch of snow on the ground. I just drove down here from Marsh Ridge up by gaylord and stared at the trail all the way here and even though its white and Otsego Lake is skimmed over completley with ice there were no sled tracks on the trail. By no means is it time to ride yet but there is always somebody that cant wait to get out there. The weather forcast is back to the upper 30s again come monday so lets hope Santa pulls it out of his christmas sack for us and gives us all a foot of nice new snow. Lake Margrethe has no ice at all on it except for some slush up against shore. Last night I drove here to frederic and as I got here I saw that the swamp was pitch black with no lights on but at the same time I saw all the lights on at the Frederic Inn. I thought that was strange and as I drove around the building here I wondered why none of my motion light came on. I looked over at the swamp again and then at the gas station and the whole nieghorhood and everything was pitch black. Then I remember the Frederic Inn has a generator. Turns out someone hit a pole and power was out for 7 hours. Cathy and I were on our way to Marsh Ridge for our Century 21 Christmas dinner and we spent the night there. That was a nice time. Bob Kuiper and his 2 friends from kzoo are the first people in here of the day. I wouldnt expect to many people to come in today. Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------- Friday December 16, 2011 3:50 p.m. Just walked in the door at home after being on the run all week. Its nice to see snow on the ground here but only about a half inch but it makes the ground all nice and white. No snow all the way from GR until close to here. So we still need to wait for more in order to ride. Temps are in the high 20s right now so it would be nice to see them dip down a ways. I left kzoo yesterday afternoon and headed up to Rockford for our annual guys night out shopping trip where 11 of us went to the mall in grandville and after shopping dinner at Logans. I had a message from a friends wife who saw that I was in GR on facebook and she sent me a message saying she needed a ride home to grayling. She had returned from florida the night before and her husband couldnt come and get her because of the icy roads here. It worked out well so I had company coming back home and it gave the beagle a new lap to set on too. We also stopped in Big Rapids at Ferris to have lunch with my daughter....so now that I am back here its time to get back to work and see if frederic is still in one piece. I just tried to get on the camera up there and I dont know what the deal is but it wasnt on...I will have to check that. Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday December 15, 2011 11:35 a.m. Still in kzoo and when I went out first thing this morning all I was wearing was a t shirt and it was plenty warm enough. It is starting to cool down now and its about doing the same in grayling. It poured here all day yesterday and it did up north too....Its going to take a miracle to get us some snow and some riding in. I have had a nice couple of days just hanging out with my mom. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------- Wednesday December 14, 2011 8:16 a.m. Its a dreary rainy morning here in Kalamazoo and I hear its misting and drizzly in grayling too. I cruised down here last night to have a nice home cooked spaghetti dinner with my mom which was of course very good. We watched tv afterwards and for the first time I saw the 1954 movie with Bing Crosby & Danny Kaye in it, White Christmas. It was a good movie and it was nice just setting and watching it with my mom and having her talk about how that was the big movie when she was a bit younger. She is 88 now and I dont get to spend enough time with her. That movie reminded me of something that I see to often about how when a person gets older they are forgotten by their friends no matter how important they were in their public life. I have seen it with many old timers that I know around grayling. So seeing that we cant go sledding today take a minute or two out and give someone you havent talked to in a long time a call. I am certain it will be time well spent. I was surprised that when I went thru Lake City yesterday that Lake Missauke was completly frozen over and there was more snow on the ground in kzoo then in graying or frederic. Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday December 13, 2011 11:20 a.m. It rained most of the night and is overcast and cloudy in frederic today in the mid 30s. Its going to sound the same most of this week. We need some major snow chanting going on out there. MO MO NAH CHEE CHEE NAH....Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------- Monday December 12, 2011 1:00 p.m. The Milford boys were just in and bought trail permits and wondering when the snow is going to hit. Still no signs of it and it was 45 yesterday afternoon as I headed out to the woods and is about that again today. Just now as those guys were leaving it reminded me that I havent updated today, not like there is anything to report though...Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday December 11, 2011 10:20 a.m. Another cool and sunny morning here at Beautiful Lake Margrethe. While there is no snow to speak of the ice has been forming along our shore the past couple days on the east shore of the lake. I talked to 2 people that each said they walked out about a hundred yards onto the ice with about 3 inches of thickness. While that doesnt help our snow situation any it at least tells you its been cold at night. I spent the night in my camper at my property and planned to get up and go hunting, only thing was I must have been pretty comfy as I didnt get up till 8:30. So much for Big Don, maybe I will head out this afternoon. I have been wondering how it was to stay in there when its nice and cold out and now I know...its just like home....There were a few people that stopped into frederic yesterday and everyone and everywhere I have talked to people its the same story as we all want snow. My buddy Jack just picked up his new 800 retro long track arctic cat which looks pretty cool and of course he is anxious to test it out. I told him we need to load up and head for the Keewanaw....Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday December 10, 2011 Noon Thirty Its sunny and cold here in frederic, I actually got here a little after ten but have had people in and out of here since I got here so thats a good sign. The weather outlook for next week is not so good as its gonna be warm again. If you want to ride I know where you can do it, I talked to Bruce at The Gay Bar up in Gay Michigan yesterday afternoon, he said he plowed outside for an hour and a half the night before and that they have good snow on the ground there. For those of you that dont know where Gay is, its about 350 miles northwest of frederic on the keewanaw penninsula....awsome place but a long ways off. There are pretty much only 2 things in Gay, which is The Gay Bar and The Gay Fire Department. Here is a link to the news clip from 9 and 10 news last night about the lack of snow,,,that really is nothing unusual anymore but I am always open for a plug for sledheads. 9 & 10 News Clip on the lack of snow in Frederic & Grayling Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday December 9,2011 10:50 a.m. There have been a few flakes in the air here in frederic this morning but still no real snow. Weather says its gonna be back to 40s next week. I picked up Haley from the school dance last night and we went by the ski park over by our house and they had the snow makers out churning out some snow on the hill, I wonder if I could borrow those to get some snow in the lot here. The first call I recieved this morning was from Ann Marie at TV 9 & 10 and the first thing I asked her is if she called to hear me whine about no snow and lack of business,,,,thats exactly why she called so if you get that station watch for my smiling face on the news tonight. The only customer so far today was Ohio Mike and his side kick Charles and they were kind of enough to stop and see me and buy a couple trail permits.... Later tonight I will be Santa at a christmas music event......HO HO HO and thanks for checking in. SANTA ----------------------------------------------------- Thursday afternoon 1:30 p.m. Its sunny, very windy and cold outside here in frederic but not enough snow to hardly even mention. When I left home this morning and looked at the lake there were huge whitecaps out there. Thursday Dec 8, 2011 7:00 a.m. Nothing has changed since last night, the beagle tracks on my front porch were still there from ten last night. So we get teased with 1 inch of fluff. At least its all nice and white out there. Lets see what today brings. If it looks any better when I get to frederic I will get on again. Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday Night 10 P.M. Just let the beagle out and was surprised to see about one inch of fresh snow out there and its still coming. It feels like fluffy lake effect but it sure looks nice. Its supposed to get up to 40s again this weekend so I wouldnt get really excited about this. Wednesday December 7, 2011 6:55 a.m. The news had me hyped up last night saying we were going to get maybe an inch of snow....guess what..?, not a flake out there yet. On the other hand they did say that the Lake Effect machine should start in on thursday bringing us a light amount of maybe an inch. I should give my favorite weatherman JC a call at tv 7 & 4 in TC today to see what he has to say. Last time I talked to him he said december would be off to a slow start but then it was going to kick in hard. I hope he is right. I did hear from a few people yesterday after my posting, Ohio Mike & Toledo Jake checked in with me along with Chris from somewhere downstate and Darrel called up and ordered a helmet which he is going to pick up this weekend. I dont know how I am going to make myself get there first thing in the morning by 8 or 9 once we get snow because it seems like everyday I have things going on in Grayling and dont make it to Sledheads till 11 or 12. I dont miss any calls because I have the Sledheads number call forwarded to my cell. I guess the thing that will motivate me to get there on time is the fact that I get to see all the familiar faces and oh yeah maybe, money.......Thanks for checking in and if anything happens exciting during the day I will post again. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday December 6, 2011 7:00 a.m. I see that there have been alot of you reading about what is going on up here. At least this morning I can say that this is one of the coldest mornings we have had so far at about 22 degrees outside right now. Unfortunately there is not a sign of any snow along with that. I have had a few people calling to get parts lined up so that they can pick them up when they get here and that helps out a little on keeping me out of the spam. I have still been hitting the woods in search of Big Don but still no luck. If there was some snow on the ground its alot easier to spot them out there milling around in the woods under my nose. I wonder about all the regulars out there like Ohio Mike, The Detroit Diesel Boys, Illinois Mike, Toledo Bob & Amy, Toldeo Jake, The Ohio Pooper, Little Catie, Ohio Brian and the many others of you that are probably out there just waiting to come to the big metropolis of Frederic. I will be there when you do finally make it. When I left Sledheads yesterday there was one car at the Swamp just to show you how busy it is in town. One other thing that happened yesterday was that Haley was in seventh heaven after school as she was awarded a five pound Hersheys Chocolate Bar for being the top seller of candy for the fundraiser for sixth grade camp. Thats alot of chocolate and we even ate some of it last night. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------- Monday December 5, 2011 7:11 a.m. Its a calm morning outside here at Lake Margrethe as I was just outside with the beagle. Its about 30 outside and the rain stopped last night, just not cold enough to make it snow yet. The rain kept up most of yesterday and if only it was cold enough to snow we would be up to about 2 feet right now....Still waiting and chanting....Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday December 4,2011 9:10 a.m. Just rolled out of bed here at home to walk outside and feel the balmy 45 degree temp out there with the rain still coming down. Any traces of white that were out there are now long gone and winter is still a ways off. Like Herman Munster used to say "darn, darn, darn". Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Saturday December 3, 2011 12:30 p.m. I just rolled into frederic here at Sledheads on a rainy, dreary, 37 degree day. I just left grayling after watching the start of a canoe race on the river just a while ago. Most of the white is gone now but there are still slick and slippery spots out there. For those of you that have been checking my cameras the big one has been stuck in one postition all summer and the side view connector came apart a month or so ago. I need to go to radio shack and get some connections and then hopefully I will have things back up and running right. Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------- Friday December 2, 2011 6:30 a.m. We had a skiff of snow over night to make the grass a little white and the cars white but it was still warm enough where everything that hit our concrete porch melted already. The wait is still on. Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday December 1, 2011 7:00 a.m. Here it is the first official day of the new sled season and its calm and about 35 outside and it looks like October out there. No signs of any snow. I only wished we looked like the news clip I saw of Lansing last night where it was nice and white. So the wait is on, How long till we can ride?. I will be anxiousley waiting just like everybody else and remember to Please Ride Safely and Repsonsibly. Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday November 30, 2011 11:00 a.m. Its a cool but sunny morning here in frederic and unfortunately a sad day with the death of a nieghbor and snowmobiler killed in a car crash just west of frederic on 612 this early this morning. Jason Torok has lived right behind the shop here for as long as I have been around and died this morning from injuries in a crash out near the orv trail west of town. You never know when your time is up and my condolences and prayers to his friends and family. I have seen plenty of pictures of snow from downstate since last night including a posting by a rider on facebook that already got in his first ride in fowlerville....I dont see that happening here with the way things look right now. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday November 29, 2011 Noon thirty Its cloudy and 35 here in frederic and I hear its raining like crazy downstate but for us its nice and dry. Doesnt look like there will be snow here on the first for the official start of the new sled season. I did have a phone call from a guy over by manistee lake that had both of his sled trailers stolen on Nov 2. He said he is going to email me more info on them so I can post it here. Looks like the thieves are still out there and working hard. I have had a few customers who are getting ready for sledding season and if you are coming up and need anything be sure to call me a couple days ahead of time and I will have it readdy for you when you get up here. Thats about it for now. THanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday November 24, 2011 9:35 a.m. Happy Thanksgiving morning to all from foggy Lake Margrethe here in beautiful Grayling Michigan. Its very nice outside in the mid 40's and I think it will be miracle for us to see snow by the first. I keep forgetting to mention that Toledo Jake stopped by a couple weeks ago to say hi and to see the beagle. The bad part about that was that I had just put the beagle up front and was heading to the back and I feel bad I didnt get her out to meet Jake and his bride. I also heard from Indiana Bob this week still hoping to get up here for a ride. The new trail permits came in yesterday so I now have them for only $45, so if you want the good permits and not the printed ones come and see me. I was hoping we got a raise this year with the permits going up ten bucks. I used to make 1 whole dollar for the pleasure of selling you a permit and guess what? Now that they went up another $10 I still get to make 1 whole dollar on them....thats why they have to be cash only when you come in to get them. I guess first we need to get some snow on the trails to make use of them anyways. So Cathy is busy in the kitchen making our thanksgiving dinner. This is the first time in a few years we have stayed home but it does make it relaxing instead of the hustle bustle of traveling. Thanks fro checking in and Have a great Turkey Day. ------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday November 23, 2011 3:30 a.m. The past week has flown by and while I have tried to get on this at home to update for some reason my laptop wouldnt let me on but I just got it to work. The only reason I am up right now is due to one stupid beagle waking me up to go outside but anyways nothing new or exciting has happened around town unless you count the gas station in frederic getting robbed at knife point last week while I was gone to the cabin. Naturally it was some local geniuses who were promptly arrested at their house.... Once again nobody at our cabin got a deer. I used to be the only one there that ever got anything but ever since the fire in 2003 it ruined our 40 acres of hardwoods and seems to have moved the deer off. One great story that happened to me while I was down there was that I went to the Oak Grove tavern in Irons on saturday night while I was there. When I walked in I saw a couple grand rapids guys I knew and sat down with them. I noticed that there were 2 guys next to us and one was wearing a KTFD shirt and I asked them if they were from Kalamazoo which they were. I introduced myself and the to ladies sitting next to them heard me say Kalamazoo. I introduced myself to them and their names were Teresa & Kathy. Teresa said to me "your Pete Kocefas?, you used to live on crest drive in kalamazoo?". Of course I said yes. She said we had never met and I had moved from crest drive in 1967 when I was ten years old, so here was this little girl all grown up and now 56 years old telling me how she remembered me from back them. She went on to tell me how her heart ached for me after my Dad died way back in September of 65. That just floored me that it was that much of an impact on her as it certainly was a tough time in my life. You just never know how you touch people without even knowing it. Then Kathy asked if I knew Debbie Cunningham which I said, Wow I loved her in third grade. Turns out Kathy is best friends with Debbie who now lives in Colorado. The people that those to ladies knew that I grew up with before 1967 were just incredible and we had a great time talking and remembering times from long ago. Before I left the cabin that night I told my buddy Jason that I was just going for dinner and that I would be back in a little while, unless I was having a really good time. It turned out that I did have an incredible chance meeting and a great time. You just never know whats in store for you. Now back to Frederic and only about 2 weeks till the trails are supposed to be open but this friday its gonna be fifty or sixty so I dont see any snow hitting us soon. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday November 14, 2011 1:15 p.m. Coming at you this afternoon from the Wellston Library as I am down here to try my luck for Big Don while hanging out at the cabin for a few days. Had a great walk thru the woods this morning and was lucky to spot a blue jay and that was it. Its been pretty warm out so we lost the little snow that we had, now just waiting for the cold to come back. Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------- Friday 11:00 a.m. We have about 3 inches still on the ground here in frederic, but it is melting. Looks nice and white though. I measured the 3 inches on my picnic table out back here. Friday November 11, 2011 7:15 a.m. I see snow on the ground in frederic thru the cameras and we have a couple inches of wet slushy snow here at lake margrethe. Its supposes to hit 40s today so this wont hold but it sure looks nice and white out there. Also its Veterans Day today so A BIG THANK YOU! to all that have served. Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday November 10, 2011 6:30 p.m. We had our first signs of snow today in frederic about 1 oclock and just before that I was up in gaylord and they had white on the ground and the rooftops. Weatherman is calling for 1 to 3 inches tonight but its supposed to hit 50 on saturday. I had a call from Bob who has called me regularly over the years and he wants to get up here for at least one more ride, he is 50 and has stage 4 cancer and doesnt have alot of time so lets all do some snow chanting for Bob, MO MO NAH CHEE CHEE NAH!!! Here is a link to a quick video I shot outside of the shop this afternoon when it was snowing hard, Frederic, first snow of the season Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday November 8, 2011 8:00 a.m. Its trying to spit a little snow this morning here in grayling although we have had much colder mornings than what we have right now. Nothing new to report on the snowmobile front besides that I am slipping in my old age as I forgot to mention that the Novi snow show was last weekend. I used to be really hyped up about that and while I am sure they had a good show my feelings on it is that it just isnt what it used to be. I havent heard from anyone that was there but I would love to hear your comments on it. Back in the good old days I always had a booth there but like everything the rent goes up and the sales go down so I stopped going. I always had a good time there and I guess I should check in with my friend the sticker king who usually has a booth there too. Who knows when the snow will hit but I have had a couple calls wondering if we did have some yet. Thats about it for now. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday October 31, 2011 7:00 a.m. HAPPY HALLOWEEN to all!! Only one month and one day till the trails open and dont we all wish we were as lucky as the people on the east coast. 30 inches in massachussets....we should be so lucky. I went to the Vintage sled show & swap that was in Kalkaska on saturday and they had a nice turnout for a first time event plus it got everybody in the mood for whats coming. I did a short video that you can watch here KalkaskaTrails.com Vintage Sled Show & Swap I made it back home from bois blanc on thursday night after a nice week over there. Still no big don and didnt really see to many deer but it was still nice to be there. Stopped at the airport there wondering if anyone could take us up for a circle tour of the island and as luck would have it a plane was coming in and he had time to take us up. Circled around the island and as soon as we got up there I spotted where the camper was setting. We went up the north end out by the mackinaw bridge and then over mackinac island too. It was nice to see those things from the birds eye view. The one thing I did learn is that there is alot of swamp not far from where we were camped. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday October 22, 2011 9:30 a.m. Its a chilly frosty morning in frederic. Nothing to great happened around town this week but I did learn of a antique sled show and sled swap meet that is being put on by the Kalkaska County Snowmobile Association next saturday the 29th at All Seasons Resort in Kalkaska. That should be a good way to get in the mood. I just made some new signs for the Kalkaska groomers so they will be on display there too. I havent been out hunting to much so far this season but am heading off to Bois Blanc again tommorow in search of Big Don. This is going to finally be the time we meet...Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday October 17, 2011 10:40 a.m. One Million Five Hundred Thousand was the lucky number that came up on the hit counter for Al Reich of Farmington. I am sending him off a sweatshirt and a hat today. I still feel bad about the one millionth hit as I had gathered up quite a few prizes for that and had some conatact with the guy that emailed me the pic of his screen at one million the same way Al did today. Most of the prizes for the millionth were local and he said he couldnt make it up here but I still have his shirt and hat here. If you are still out there reading give me a call. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------ Saturday October 15, 2011 7:45 a.m. Its a windy, cool, rainy morning here at lake margrethe. I just checked the cameras in frederic and it looks the same there too. I see from the hit counter that there are only about 720 hits till it hits one million five hundred thousand hits.....if you are the lucky one to land on that number take a shot of it and send me a pic for a free sledheads sweatshirt and hat....its taken 2 years to get up another half million hits. Well we finally got the building painted on monday and there is a picture of it up above here. I have most of the signs back up so it looks more like a functional business again. The one thing I have to say that I have learned the hard way is never believe a paint chip color. I am not thrilled with the color it turned out as its more creamy orange than the tan color that I really wanted. I wanted to just go a little darker than what I had before. So the moral to the story is if you are going to paint a big project like that go buy a quart of gallon of the color you think you want and do a test paint in a back corner, dont go out at buy the whole 25 gallons at once. I always seem to learn things the hard way. In any case it is a new color and I like to think of it as a big creamsicle. I am going to have to take alot of group pictures of sleds this winter for any more pics I use in this website or have on the counter. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday October 11, 2011 1:00 p.m. OOPS.... After a phone call from Bob Young in Flint about a half hour ago wondering if I was out of business because it said my website was suspended. He said he had 3 people call him wondering what the deal was and thankfully he called me. My hosting had expired and all it took was 75 bucks to have them set me back up. There is hosting and domain fees each year and I guess I dont pay much attention to that stuff.. Thanks Bob for waking me up. I visited Bob last week in Flint and had lunch with him and his facebook friend Rod. Its hard to keep Rod out of facebook but he did buy us lunch so that was nice. He is the only guy I know with a facebook credit card. So anyways those guys are heading up the all new Darkside Adventures ride for 2012. They are venturing up into Canada for another 2000 mile trip thru the outer reaches of Canada. I just saw their video from last year which really can make you appreciate what they went thru on their trip and how tough it was for 2 weeks on the trail and not to mention all the beautiful scenery they went thru. Be sure to stay tuned on what they have planned by watching their website at Darkside Adventures.com Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday October 8, 2011 11:20 a.m. Its a beautiful day in the grayling / frederic area. I think the colors peaked around here last week as the drive up here isnt as brilliant as it was earlier in the week. I see they put new pavement over the sled crossing just north of the high school. They had that hard concrete stuff for a crossing but now its back to asphalt. Tuesday morning I headed down to the motor city stopping in flint to visit a couple friends who took me out to lunch. Headed on down to my motel in livoina and met up with my brother and we went into town for the tigers game. It was fun to be there but the game thursday night would have been way better to see. We rode bicycles around downtown after the game and ran into my favorite blues player, Paul Miles who was playing his guitar right outside the stadium. I met him years ago and he always does an impromptou song for Haley about riding her bicycle. He can come up with a great tune in just a second and its always good. Dinner in Greektown was good before the game but of course we had to hit the coney island afterwards. My brother wanted to ride down by the river and I didnt think that was to good of an idea but we went and had no problems. Riding our bikes around reminded me of that video from last winter during the snowstorm with the guys riding their sleds in downtown detroit with nobody around. Wednesday morning we got up and hit Nikkis coney island just outside of Livonia on our way to American Jewlrey and Loan, which if you watch True Tv is on there under the name of Hard Core Pawn. I like waching that show and just had to go there to see it in person. After getting my picture with Rich who works there and is on the show once again I was surprised at where ever I seem to go somebody knows me. Jeff who is the jewler at the pawn shop came and asked me if I was Pete from Sledheads and said he has a place near here and has been here too. He proceeded to give us the nickel tour of the whole operation there which was very interesting and now I know how a pawn shop operates. Thanks again Jeff for that guided tour. After leaving there we took 8 mile into downtown and since my last trip to the far east side a few years ago they have torn down alot of the really bad parts but they still have a ways to go. I went to look for my grandmothers old place but it was long gone but my moms child hood home was still there but it needs to be torn down. Some of that stuff is pretty scary to check out but we had no problems. Back to downtown for some more bicycle riding and more coneys. I think I hit 7 different coney places while there. Then back to the motel to get to my real reason for being down there as it was time for our annual Century 21 Conference in Livonia. So that sums up this week and we are now that much closer to snow. I still dont have the building painted yet but that should come this week. I stil have to get all my signs back up. I stripped and am redoing the big sledheads sign too. Sometimes I bite off more that I should. Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday October 4, 2011 6:45 a.m. Its going to be a nice day here in grayling as I was just outside and there are alot of stars and a nice temp out there. We made it back home from the island sunday night. What a nice weekend there even though once again Big Don eluded me. We saw several deer while we were out driving around and while in my spot I was winded twice and snorted at by deer that caught me being there. On the boat trip over on friday I was surprised that there were about 6 people on the boat that knew who I was from my bois blanc island videos including a father and son, Chris & Spencer from Freemont. Spencer said all his friends from school had seen my videos and we got our picture together so he could show them. Its like a whole different world over there with there being hardly any people and lots of quiet and secusion. I have had phone calls from 3 different people in the past week inquiring about sled rentals so that makes me think people are starting to think about winter. Lets just hope that the nice hot weather warmed up the big lakes enough to get us a season of over the top lake effect snows. Mo Mo Nah Chee Chee Nah. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday September 30, 2011 Noon Thirty, Well its that time of year where I am pretty excited as its time once again to begin my quest for the monstorous whitetail known as "Big Don". Maybe this is the year that I will come aross him but no matter what I am hyped as I am on the boat tonight to Bois Blanc Island to see if I can find him and its just Cathy and I and EDB. So heading out of frederic shortly to head home and get the camper hitched up. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday September 29, 2011 10:40 a.m. Oops I made a slight mistake on the earlier update by putting in the wrong link on the first sled death of the season so if you click on it now it is right. Thursday September 29, 2011 8:30 a.m. I have been meaning to update the past couple days but this one got me to get on right away. FIRST SNOWMOBILE DEATH OF THE NEW SEASON SEPT 28, 2011 here is a link to a story from the detroit news sent to me by my fried GM First Snowmobile Death of the season Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------- Friday September 16, 2011 8:00 a.m. Its another frosty morning here in frederic for the second day in a row. The whole roof on the building was frost when I got here. Still no snow but we are getting closer. This weekend is the Firemens Memorial in Roscommon which is where I will be all weekend. Lots of firefighters from all over the state will be there. Myself and EDB (Ellie the diabetic beagle) will be there so stop and say Hi if you you come. Also finally after about 2 months of being dirt they are paving 612 by the park and fire station in frederic. 2 days ago they tore down the old hobby club next to the fire station. Frederic township bought the old school and moved their offices over to there and the library is going to move there too. I found a box of old pictures down in my basement this year and it was full of great things I I have forgotten about over the years. One of the things in it was a picture of me on my first sled which was a 68 olympic. I will have to bring that up here and hang it up and when I scan it I will post it on the sledheads facebook page. Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------- Monday September 12, 2011 11:00 a.m. Its a great day in frederic cause I actually just had a couple snowmobilers in here. Steve & his son Mike from Taylor stopped in to get a new Sledheads T shirt. They know the snow is a ways off but Mike said he had a hole in his old shirt....So winter is getting closer and you need to be a well dressed Sledhead. I could stand a new shirt myself. It was a great weekend up here in the north and I have set my summer record with 3 days in a row on the pontoon. Its supposed to hit 80 today and I might just make it to 4 days in a row. We even got to cook out on the grill on the boat too...I jumped on a friends boat saturday night for a high speed cruise around the lake and his lower unit ended seizing up and we were dead in the water for about an hour and a half till we got someone to come and get me to give me a ride back to my pontoon so I could tow the dead boat back.....All in a day of fun and games and even though it was dark out there there was a full moon and it was nice and warm to boot... Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------- Sunday September 11, 2011 9:00 p.m. Like most of you today has been a day to reflect on what happened to all of us ten years ago today. I was working in frederic that morning when I found out about the attacks out about the attacks. It was a day that will never be forgotten and with all the coverage today it brings it all right back. Years ago for 9 months I lived in Newark NJ and spent alot of time in NYC and was up to the top of the trade centers several times and I still have a picture of my sister and I up on top. When you took the eleveator to the top of those towers you actually walked out on to the roof of it. We all will always remember where we were when that happened I just wanted to say a few words about it here. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday Night September 3, 2011 11:05 p.m. Coming at you tonight from my camper at Indigo Bluffs campground near Empire. Its west of traverse city and near sleeping bear sand dunes. We got here yesteday and got settled in. The girls went shopping and the beagle and I went for a ride in the truck and went south of here down thru Beaulah, Honor and many 2 track trails. I was on snowmobile trails for quite a bit of the trail riding when I remembered I had all the sled trails in michigan in my gps so I fired that up and just cruised the sled trails. Came out near chums corners and then took back country roads back up to empire. The past couple weeks we have noticed that the beagle has lost alot of wieght and has been not quite right so I took her into the vet yesterday morning and found out that she has diabetes, so now we have EDB which is short for Ellie the Diabetic Beagle. I have to give her insulin every morning and night from here on out and no more treats and big plates of food for her.....I should listen to that advise too because I hope that me having to give her shots twice a day doesnt just turn into practice for what might be coming to me down the road......We are here till monday and I am kinda bummed that I have missed my annual canoe trip down the pine river for the past 2 years now. Heading off to the sand dunes, glen arbor, leland and northport tommorow. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday August 31, 2011 3:40 p.m. GROOMER SIGHTING!! Not just one but both of the big green John Deere groomers from grayling were here in frederic today. They were both parked at the frederic inn for lunch and I heard Keith beep at me when he drove back towards the trail. I am sure they were out doing trail maintenance, heck I even heard from John on the Kalkasa Trails yesterday. They must be getting the inch with 3 months to go till the trails open........ Last thursday was a tough day for both Cathy and I as we took Melissa to Ferris to get her moved into her dorm, it took us all day to get her situated and I have to say it was very hard to leave our "baby" there as she has never really been away from us... Now almost one week later its still hard but she seems to be getting situated well. I told her she could skip college and have her own business right here if Frederic but she didnt seem to interested in that....(I think she sees how well off her dad is)......Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday August 24, 2011 3:00 p.m. We had some hard rains in grayling and frederic overnight so that is making it pretty humid today. I dont know what is going on on cr 612 as they have been working on it to the west for at least 3 weeks..hopefully they are going to pave it and make it pretty nice and smooth. Last friday Haley and I headed down to Michigan Adventure for the day and then on to kzoo so I could go to a friends 25th wedding celebration. That was fun at the Gull Lake Country Club and before that I went to visit one of my old high school teachers that lives at Gull Lake too. The last time I was at his house was after our 15th class reuninon.....now its 22 years later...boy time flies by to fast. After a nice visit with my mom on sat it was off from kzoo and back to grayling for the final night open of Growlers Pub in Grayling, (formally the plaza bar). The city has bought the property and is going to tear it down for a parking lot. I have been a little down the past few days as tommorow we move Melissa to Ferris to start her fall classes. I feel bad that my baby is leaving home, it seems like she was just in kindergarten....she has enough stuff packed to last her a long time there. She just left the shop here and we went down to the frederic inn for lunch. So I guess enough rambling for today. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday August 17, 2011 4:10 p.m. Its a cloudy afternoon in frederic, nothing new or exciting to report. Spent the past weekend in TC with my girls at the state park. They went shopping and I rode the bicycle path from TC to Suttons Bay and then on to Lealand. I decided to hitch hike back with my bicycle and stood at the bridge in Leland with my cardboard sign eating greek olives and salami. I was getting a bit worried after about ten minutes there that I wasnt seeing any trucks that wanted to pick up a slightly overwieght bike rider when all of a sudden a tahoe pulls over and I am hoping they have a bike rack on the back, the guy rolls his window down and I just started laughing as it was Dave and Robin Curtis who have been nieghborhood friends for about as long as I have been at Lake Margrethe. They loaded me up and delievered me back to the campground in TC. Funny thing about them is when we were at Mackinac Island a few years ago we ran into them there too....I had not been to Leland since about 25 years ago after a long night out on lake michigan. WE had left Northport on a boat and went to Boyne City and then during a huge storm trying to get back to Northport we thought we were finished. Huge waves almost swallowing the boat and no land in site till we spotted the lights of shore which we thought was NOrthport. Luckily we saw those light cause we werent in Grand Traverse Bay like we thought. We were in Lake Michigan heading for Wisconsin and if not for those lights I probably wouldnt be typing this....So for not visiting Leland in 25 years I was back there on monday night for a salmon fishing trip. We headed out to the north side of Manitou Island (about 20 miles out) and tried our luck for the big fish. I ended up catching about a 2 foot lake trout and a small salmon....all in all a very nice calm and warm night. We spent about 5 hours on the water and were back to grayling by about 1 a.m. Thats about it for now. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday night August 7, 2011 WEll this not being able to update thing has been bugging me all day and I think I have it figured out finally, my laptop here at home was blocking me out and after I figured it out at frederic and our other home computer I figured out a way to outsmart what it was doing to me.....I am glad for that...I have been trying to catch a walleye out on the lake but just cant get them to bite..... Sunday August 7, 2011 1:30 p.m. Its a sunny afternoon in frederic and its been very frustrating still trying to get this page updated. I got on o.k. here at the shop but there are alot more steps to do it than there used to be and I am beginning to think that maybe my problem at home is with a pop up blocker. I have been thinking of maybe switching formats here and using a different way to update. I am open to suggestions. Nothing has happened around frederic or grayling exicting but on my way up here today I was behind a guy that had a polaris sled on a trailer....I wonder where he was going.....Thats about if for now. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday August 2, 2011 noon I am still having trouble getting logged in on this but did manage to get in somehow today. Well we just passed the 4 month mark till the trails open. This past week was the big week in grayling with the parade and canoe marathon. We took part in all that and Haley and I had fun selling tickets just before the race for the thousand dollar drawing which I did not win. Haley wanted to pick up cans on the bridges during the race so she could get enough money to buy Harry Potter glasses and she got more than she bargained for as we had quite a load in the back of my truck with $73 worth of cans...she was pretty happy about that. We also took our camper to north higgins lake park for the weekend and it was nice swimming down there (less the swimmers itch) and thank goodness the camper has good a/c in it.....So now we are into august and I am hoping to make a run out to south dakota next week to sturgis. My friend Putts and her husband Chuck were here from Florida last week as she was here for her 50th class reunion.....Boy we are all getting older to fast....Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------- Thursday July 21, 2011 2:00 p.m. YES, I AM STILL ALIVE...... I havent been able to log into my page since the first and I have had my webmaster on it and here I am again...Just here in hotter than heck frederic talking with Doug Shepard who just rolled in from Ohio....No snow here but it would be great to see some right about now. Had a call earlier from my friend SAK aka Steve Kramer in North Carolina a while ago to see if I was still alive too....Rebecca finally got me back into this so here is what you have missed....the frederic home fest went over very well with the laser light show being the highlight of that and even the parade was pretty nice for a sunday morning in frederic. We went to the u.p. with the camper the fourth weekend and camped out at st ignace and taquamenon falls and then off to Oswalds Bear ranch in Newberry. And then on the fourth weekend there was a murder in Frederic out near manistee river road where two brothers were arguing and the one shot the other in the leg where he hit his femoral artery and he was gone in no time. Even Fred Fedak rode into here on his ranger today, so a few people have been by. I have been working on my sledheads building and have all the signs down off of it and contrary to rumors around frederic I am not going out of business, I am just going to repaint the place and spruce it up a bit....I only wish I could retire....The real estate market is still darn slow but there is more interest lately than there has been. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------- Friday July 1, 2011 5:00 p.m. Only 5 months till the trails for the new season officially open....but for now we will hope for a Happy fourth of July. Frederic Home Fest is this weekend in Frederic with different events going on in town with entertainment in the park at 9 on saturday night and a laser light show at dark. Mud runs on sunday....so stop and check out the action if you are in frederic this weekend. We are heading off for the U.P. so I wont get to see it.....Nothing else to exciting going on around town, so thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------- Monday June 20, 2011 9:20 p.m. The summer is flying by and its been hectic around our house and with just life in general. We had Melissa's graduation party yesterday at Camp Graylig at the NCO club. That was a great place to have it and it was fun to see everyone that came. At first I was afraid we werent going to have enough food but we ended up with alot left. My brothers and my mom came up from kzoo and so did my lifelong friend JT Oorbeck and his bride. They camped out at Hartwick Pines where it was a nice weekend for camping. I only wish we had our camper out there too. We had the place decorated up nice and Melissa had put a great dvd together of her pictures from thurout the years. Boy the time flies by as it seems she was just a baby. We spent last friday at Ferris in Big Rapids for orientaition and school starts the end of august. Not to much going on around frederic but on my way home one night last week an old timer in a van passed out heading north and crashed on the west side of the road in the curves. Luckily he didnt hit anyone heading south but he really plowed thru some trees. He was hurting pretty bad as they got him in the ambulance but I havent heard anything since then. Below I am going to paste a note that the girl who was in the sled accident from this past winter who was life flighted out by the high school. She posted it below the youtube video I did and she did it three weeks ago. I am the girl who was in this accident. I am doing well, back to work full time with only minor issues now.My iron level dropped which caused me to pass out while riding. Luckily I was going slow and had all the right gear on.Thank you to each and every one of you who did an amazing job and saved my life that day. I will always be very grateful for everything you all did!! Back to Pete here, it was nice to see that things came out o.k. for her as so many people have asked me if I knew what happened to her. I finally put the pontoon in the water last week which is the latest I have ever put it in in twenty years. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------ Wednesday June 8, 2011 7:30 a.m. The news says the fire is now 100 percent contained and they are calling it the howes lake fire, so that is good news. Reports have been 800 to 1000 acres burned with about 6 structures burned. Heading off to school with Haley this morning and we are canoeing the ausable with her class, from town to stephan bridge. It was 94 yesterday and supposed to do it again today so it will be a great day to be on the river. Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------- Tuesday June 7, 2011 4:10 p.m. Forest Fire burning hard just south of Frederic along Manistee River Road and north of 72. They have been evacuating people and the sirens have been going all afternoon. I put a video clip on youtube thru my phone but I see its not on there yet. Its no problem seeing the giant cloud of smoke from here at Sledheads.....hopefully they can get it under control... ------------------------------------------------------------ Sunday June 5, 2011 5:20 p.m. Its been a beautiful day in Grayling and a great day for the Grayling High School Class of 2011. The School foot ball bleachers were full of friends and family and they had a great presentation for all the graduates. Melissa did a very nice Valedictorian speech and it had both her serious side and the comical side to it. The principals speech was also very good along with her failed attempt to try to get Johnny Depp to give some words to the class but then she read off some great words of encouragement to the class from Ted Nugent. Tonight they have the project graduation project which is an all night celebration at an undisclosed location for all the students. We were all very proud of Melissa for all her accomplishments.....Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday June 3, 2011 3:00 a.m. I woke up from a bad cough and the beagle got up too and wanted to go out. The stars are out and its quiet and calm outside. I could hear a lone loon that was making quite a ruckus out on the lake. Yesterday across the street there was a baby fawn curled up under a tree all day long until it decided to move last night just before dark when it moved to my nieghbors front porch and was curled up next to their front door. They are still in Florida so hopefully the mother is back to get it. I tried to get a picture of it but didnt want to get to close. The DNR said to just let it be as they said its not uncommon but if its still here later on this morning I am going to call them again. I am off to Avalanche Bay at Boyne today with Haleys Saftey Patrol group this morning so that should be fun. A friend showed me a bunch of giant white morels that they just got this week. It sure seems like the mushroom season is going late this year and it wsa a very good sesaon. I still havent put the pontoon in the water yet and with the way the winds were the other day I am glad it wasnt there yet. I am missing a bunch more shingles off the Sledheads building. Sunday is Melissa's high school graduation so we are hoping the weather holds out as they are having it in the high school football stadium. Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday May 30, 2011 6:25 p.m. Its been a beautiful Memorial Day here at Lake Margrethe. I started the day off at the Memorial Day Service at the Cemetery in Grayling which I go to every year to remember those that have served. As usual it was a nice service. Cathy and went out for a nice canoe paddle down the lake shore for a couple hours earlier which was nice and we have been camped out in the camper for the past couple days too. Town was buzzing with traffic this weekend and I saw about 8 or 9 horses tied up at the Swamp in Frederic. So summer is underway. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------ Saturday May 28, 2011 2:00 p.m. I cant believe two weeks has flown by since I have been on here. I have been wanting to get on several times but just havent made it. I think the mushroom season is over but last friday we went out and got another 160 so that was good. Its cool and breezy in frederic today and I have only been here a little while but a few people have stopped in. Not to much else exciting happening except with Melissa upcoming graduation and her preparing for her Valedictorian speech and other activities related to that. Last wednesday was honors night where she recieved some scholarships and then the monday before that we all went to Traverse City where tv 9 and 10 had a luncheon for what they called Best of the Class where about 80 valedictorians came from about Big Rapids and North all the way to the Soo. They shot video and took pics of all of them and will start airing it on 9 and 10 once the graduations start. That was a really nice luncheon that they put on but it was cold and when they had all the graduates throw their hats in the air they really flew, lucky the wind was blowing the right direction as it was right on the shore of the bay. So I am off to go and try to sell a house. Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------- Saturday May 14, 2011 8:30 a..m. I am a few days late getting this on here but it really is mushroom season now. With all the rain and warm weather we have had this week they are out full force. Cathy and I spent all day out yesterday and we came up with 217 which I think is the most we ever picked in one day. We saw lots of other people out there and saw a couple with bigger sacks than we had. Last sunday we were out looking and had the beagle with us who managed to get on the track of a rabbit and took off after it, she was so far out there we couldnt hear her barking anymore but she was back in about a half hour. Spent 2 days in Kzoo earlier this week visiting my mom and riding my brothers bicycle around my childhood nieghborhood....My brother just got a new to him 68 suprebee with a 383 in it and we went out for a ride in that...that car will look good setting next to his 56 chevy.. Thats about it for now. thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday May 5, 2011 8:30 a.m. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BEAGLE TODAY. Hard to believe Ellie the beagle is 8 years old today, we are going to have cupcakes for her tonight. Nothing new to report on in frederic. I thought mushrooms were going to come on hard with all the rain but its been back to cold and I havent heard of anybody that has found any great amount yet. We have only gone looking once but now that its gettnig warm again maybe its time...Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday May 1, 2011 11:30 p.m. Its a nice day but windy in Grayling. I just drove by Hanson Hills near my house and there is still alot of snow up on the ski hills and I saw some along a trail road I was on yesterday. Not anything new or exciting to report on around Frederic besides its been a pretty dreary week with alot of rain. While I have seen a couple atvs buzzing thru Frederic none have stopped in to sledheads. The mountain man stopped in for a visit earlier this week and showed me his new beagle that he had, her name is Maggie and she had a fun time playing with my beagle Ellie. I knew that mountain man had good taste.....Thats about it for now. Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------- Friday April 22, 2011 10:50 a.m. I believe that winter is over now although I did ride a sled this morning for about a 100 yards to load it on a trailer and bring here and there was still snow in the pines where I loaded it up at. Now I have to unload it and put in my back room here. So for the third time this so called winter I am going to sign off for the season and say that I will try and update about once a week and when anything comes up exciting in frederic I will let you know. Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday April 21, 2011 8:10 a.m. It was nice and cold overnight and still at 30 this morning. While we lost some snow yesterday there is still quite a bit out there. I dont imagine it will make it thru today but the trail on the south side of m 93 this morning looked great still but the north side of 93 is wet as usual....if you were here right now and wanted to get a ride in you still could. I see from the camera that the snow is still all there in frederic. There was alot of viewers on the cameras yesterday and I am glad I got my ride in. I saw one sled riding in grayling on my way home last night and the only sled that rode into sledheads yesterday was Jake the canadian who stopped in to visit because he had read my report and said I sounded lonely.....Here is a link to my video from yesterdays ride. I thought I got Jake on there as he rode away but I didnt hit the button on the camera right as he was leaving.. Late Spring Ride in Frederic April 20, 2011 Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday Noon Thirty Just got back from a great 39 mile sled ride. Rode the trail to grayling and stopped in to see my buddy bob at Terrys Sport Center but he wasnt there, from there I got back on the trail to make the loop around back towards frederic. Went back up to manistee river road and back to frederic. Right now I say conditions are perfect but its not going to last past today as its 40 right now. I shot video and will put it togehter tonight. Passed maybe 3 different sets of sled tracks but never saw any other sleds. My friend Jack at Skips Sport Shop in grayling said he has seen 3 sleds ride past there so far today. I wonder if any sled will ride into Sledheads yet today... Wednesday 10:00 a.m. Here in downtown frederic I measure 5 to 6 inches in the parking lot at sledheads, the snow is wet and you pretty much sink right to the ground as you go thru it. I am going to take my sled out and just go around the building and maybe up the trail and see how I get thru...... Wednesday April 20, 2011 8:50 a.m. SNOW DAY!! Over 100 schools closed at 6 a.m.this morning we decided to sleep in. I measure about 2.5 to 4 inches of snow in front of my house and its a wet slushy snow. Great for making a snowman which I have already done. So off to Frederic and I will see what its like on the way there. Not to sure if I will really go for a ride or not. So till later on this morning thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------- Tuesday AFternoon 4:30 It snowing a heavy wet snow outside,,,I wonder if its gonna start piling up..... Tuesday April 19, 2011 Noon The Big Storm is coming our way. Predictions of lots of snow. Will it really show or not, will I be able to take a ride with a few other lucky people tommorow?? Only time will tell, It will be interesting to see.....Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------ Monday April 18, 2011 10:00 am.. There is stil alot of white around and in the woods and its 32 out. I left a bucket of water outside on saturday and its frozen solid. Rumors have it there is 8 inches coming on wednesday... We will see if that gets a late april sled ride in....Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------- Sunday April 17,2011 8:30 a.m. SNOW!!!! Its all nice and white out here at Lake Margrethe and also up in Frederic if you check the camera. Its about a half inch of nice white that came overnight. It was snowing both in Traverse City last night where Melissa was at her prom and at houghton lake where grandma was driving back from saginaw and it made it hard to see while driving....not quite a enough to think about riding but its nice to see even though Im sure it wont last......Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday April 16, 2011 11:11 a.m. Its a rainy ugly day in both Grayling and Frederic and pretty cool too. The ice finally was all gone off Lake Margrethe either early yesterday or late thursday night. I drove back to some property I have not far from my house this morning and was surprised to see quite a bit of snow in the woods along the drive in there, so there is still a small amount of white out there. There was one day this week that was very nice and warm and that was good to get some things done outside. I already have my pontoon out of storage as I was the last one in so that makes me the first one out. Still not ready for the water yet. I am here in frederic today to do a little work on my camper as I am about ready to get that out and take a test nap in it. Nothing to else exciting. There is a birthday party today down in Ocala for our friend Elly who is only 81 years young. She is where our beagle Ellie got her name.....I wish I was back in florida today, I am sure its a great day for a birthday party.....Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday April 11, 2011 12:40 p.m. AHHH!!! It sure is great to be back in Frederic, no traffic jams or honking horns here. We got home about 11:30 last night after another day of many stopped and slowed traffic situations on I 75.....It was a great trip but the drive home was the worst of it. The girls have to be back in school tommorow and now maybe I can get a chance to relax as we were on the go all the time down there and didnt get much of a chance to "kick back"....I checked out the ice on the lake this morning and its looking pretty dark but there is still alot of it out there. I heard there were people out fishing on it on saturday still. I think if I am going to fish I will wait till I can get the pontoon in. Its very windy today and that should push the ice around and probably ruin some lakefront front yards. I will update again for the summer and shoot for once a week and let you know of anything happening around Frederic. I know the Happi Trails ATV club has some events planned and will post them here when I get them. Their big event is for fourth of july weekend.....THanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sunday April 10, 2011 8:30 a.m. Coming at you from Athens Tennessee this morning. We left Gainesville yesterday and headed north after spending the night with our friend Elly at her house. We had a nice visit and dinner with here and she just happens to be the namesake of one certain beagle named Ellie too.....It was good to see her and visit. The drive north yesterday was a tough one as traffic was very heavy and slow. Huge traffic jams on I 75 and we took side detours then made it back to moving good until about 40 miles before Atlanta where once again it was slow going so we took side roads again which were very scenic but slow going. We ended back into Atlanta where we stopped for dinner at the Varsity again and then after that the traffic was flowing good which got us to this point. Hopefully we will make it home sometime tonight. I just checked the camera at frederic and it looks like all the snow is finally gone with it being about 30 degrees. Thanks for checking in. Pete ===================================================================== Friday April 8, 2011 11:15 a.m. I see from the webcam that there is still snow and ice on the north side of Sledheads along with some along the house outback. I talked to my friend out by Lake Margrethe this morning and he said that the ice is starting to melt away from shore but for the most part the lake is still covered with ice, unlike this morning down at the pool here in orlando where it is nice and toasty. We did our second day at universal yesterday which went much faster than the day before which gave us some pool time here again yesterday. We ran into 3 different sets of people from grayling at universal that we knew so that kind of a fun experience. We are packing up here and heading out of here shortly. Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday April 7, 2011 7:20 a.m. The sun is just rising here in Orlando, we spent all day yesterday at Universal Studios and the girls were thrilled to go to see The Wizarding World of Harry Potter yesterday....what a crowd of people and the land of long lines, but it was alot of fun. We are heading back over there again today. Temps have been comfy and not to hot....I see from the thermometer in frederic that its still below 20 degrees this morning and most of the snow is gone but there is stil snow and ice along the north side of sledheads....It should be gone by the time we get back...Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday April 5, 2011 10:20 a.m. Setting here at the Best Western on staring at the stormy ocean in Daytona Beach. We got here yesterday afternoon and visited with my brother who is staying in Ormond Beach. Out for a great pizza at Stavros Pizza and then off to the beach for some crab chasing and catching which was alot of fun. I was setting down at the pool this morning watching everyone walk along the beach and things were pretty nice then all of a sudden the wind and rain blew in hard and furious......It figures one day to hang at the beach and we are inside.......Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------- Monday April 4, 2011 8:30 a.m. Snow on the ground in Frederic, I just looked at the camera and see we had a couple inches.....I doubt if there will be any sleds out though....Its been a hectic couple of days, Haley and I had a great time at Wrestlemania last night, what an event and a we were just little specks in a sea of people. They said it was the largest crowd ever at the Georgia Dome with 71,600 people at it. There wasnt an empty seat in the stadium. They put on a great show. I started out sunday morning by crossing something off of my bucket list that I have always wanted to do and I have to say if I actually lived here I would just keep going every week. I got up early and went to the New Birth Baptist Church just outside of Atlanta. What a huge church which seats 5000 people. They had a choir with over a 100 people in it along with a full orchestra and what power that choir had. The songs and singing along with the whole congregation was very moving. I would say its pretty safe to say I was the only greek in the crowd and everyone was very nice to me....I only wish I could have got the girls to go.....So we are off from Atlanta and trying to get packed up to move on. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday April 2, 2011 5:50 p.m. Its been a cool and breezy day here in Atlanta and Haley and I started the day off with a trip downtown to the library for the Wrestlemania Reading Challenge where school kids from all over the country along with 3 from Germany and 1 from Canada qualified for the finals. Haley did try for this but didnt qualify earlier this year but we came to see the outcome. Their were 3 different age groups and the winner of each group got ringside tickets for Wrestlemania. After we did that we headed back to the motel where Cathy and Melissa were just relaxing. Now Haley and I are back off to the WWE Hall of Fame Induction cermonies which will air on tv at 8 this coming monday night on I believe USA network. I talked to my brother today who is down in Daytona and he called me to say that he had just run into a girl at the flea market wearing a Grayling shirt and he asked her if she knew me. It turned out to be my friends Jim & Brooke Laurent who are down there on vacation too....Funny how he runs into people. He did that same thing in San Diego a few years ago by running into an optometrist from Grayling there too.....So we are off from here shortly. Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday April 1, 2011 11:50 p.m. Well now that the day is pretty much over I want to wish my Mother a Happy 88th Birthday. Unfortuanely we couldnt be there to celebrate it with her, but we did talk to her first thing this morning. We are coming at you from Norcross, Georgia about 20 miles northeast of Atlanta. We left our house at 4:30 yesterday afternoon for a power drive on the road to Wrestlemania. We got into Atlanta this afternoon and spent the day at Wrestlemania Axxess where Haley and I got to experience all their events and had a great time there. We even got to meet and get our picture with "Snooki".....We started off in ATlanta with lunch at the Varsity which is always a must stop at place when we pass thru here...Cathy and Melissa didnt want to go in with us tonight so they hung out in the lobby and Melissa being the Valedictorian that she is worked on more homework....so she said on the way to the motel that her dad brought her to Wrestlemania but made her do homework......(it was her choice).....so hopefully a good nights sleep to come and then off for more events in the morning. Thanks for checking in...Pete & family.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thursday March 31, 2011 3:30 p.m. Well its the last day of the riding season and oops, I almost didnt update. Its been a hectic day but the one thing I did that really surprised me was drive from county road 571 west of manistee lake on 612 all the way back to frederic and I kid you not there is a stretch along the pipeline on 612 from manistee lake all the way to sunset trail that you could ride with what looked like great snow. Manistee Lake was still snow covered as was the trail heading north by sunset trail. I would have rode down that too, but alas it really is the end. If you want to follow along on our family trip those will be my next updates as its the start of spring break and we are heading out shortly. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday March 30, 2011 Noon thirty Its up to 39 and yesterday reached 42 which made the snow soft and fading away. Believe it or not still snow along m 93 and the lake is still snow covered with what looked like fresh sled tracks this morning. So considering tommorow is the last day of the "official" riding season, things are really over. I have rode in April before but its not going to be this year. If you have been watching the camera you will stil see alot of white out there but its slowly fading. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------ Tuesday March 29, 2011 10:50 a.m. Its sunny and up to 30 today but was cold again at night. I was here till about 7 last night in frederic and saw 3 sleds come riding into town about 6. The trail along 93 was still white this morning but it sure cant last to much longer as the weather said we are heading for 40s....Not to much else exciting for today. Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------- Monday March 28, 2011 10:00 am.. It was another cold night out so there is still snow on the ground. Trail crossings look about the same as yesterday with still alot of white but alot of bad spots along them. Along M 93 this morning still the same. There might still be a few die hards out there today but its hard as a rock right now. My brother and I took another short ride yesterday up to waters and back. We had lunch at the IGA with some of their very yummy pizza. So this week I added about another 250 miles to my riding for the season and I think I ended up about 750 which 650 more miles than last season. Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------- Sunday March 27, 2011 11:10 a.m. Its sunny once again and 24 degrees. It was down to zero overnight. I was supposed to be here and open at 10 but I lost my brother up in the apple orchard on our way here this morning and I had to go find him. We were riding sleds back to Frederic from my house. We started off on Lake Margrethe this morning and took a combination of 2 tracks and the sled trail to get here. The riding is getting closer to over with. While there is still alot of good spots on the trails there are an awful lot of bad spots with dirt. I just checked out my carbides and they still look good. There is still 6 to 8 inches of great snow on the two tracks but the trails are pretty worn as 12 inches of nice snow and 4 days of sunshine mixed with alot of sled traffic only goes so far. My brother Alex showed up here from Kzoo yesterday and at 5 we left Sledheads and started out towards Gaylord. Except for right in waters behind the Keg where the trail was ugly but the rest of the way to Gaylord was nice. We met Cathy and the girls at Gobblers in Gaylord for a great dinner and then we were off for our second trip down Otsego Lake and back on the trail towards Lakes of the North where we ran into what I think was the Gaylord Groomer which made the trail great into L.O.N. We stopped in the Settings at LON and warmed up a bit, by then it was about 9. Lots of sleds at the settings and then went on to Starvation Lake where once again there were lots of sleds at the hide away, even Larry & Diane from the Lil Country Store were there and Diane said she had a busy day at the store and they even ran out of gas. From the hideaway back on the trail all the way to the parking lot at 72 and then the lakeshore of Lake Margrethe back to my house made a nice 92 mile ride last night and then we did about 20 more miles this morning. I have to say the best riding was Frederic to Gaylord to Lakes of the North then after that it got a bit ugly. This was a great bonus weekend all around for everybody. The businesses sure welcomed it and so did all the riders. Keith at Fayes Motel said it was his busiest weekend of the whole "not so good" season. So thanks again to everybody that stopped in and for the next couple days if you are gonna try to ride its going to have to be the 2 tracks for the most part. Thanks for checking in. Pete ==================================================================== Saturday March 26, 2011 9:45 a.m. Still cold and cruncy as it was 2 below when I got here at 9. Trails still looking nice and white and still getting good reports except for the road crossings and the slush puddles. Just had guys in that had looped down to Higgins yesterday and talked to a guy that had been to lewiston, the one riders that said the lovells trail had alot of bad spots in it was the only complaint I heard. I still think its gonna hold thru sunday and I have heard of good reports coming thru fishweb. There were 4 trucks and trailers parked out in the back lot yesterday and just sold 3 trail permits to guys that are staying at beaver creek that just spent 6 hours driving up here from southern indiana. The trailer counts this morning were 5 at the Days Inn and 10 at the Ramada but I think I should only count 9 at the Ramada as one of the trailers had a Gold Wing on it....sure dont know what that guy was doing. JC the weather man is on the radio right now and he is saying another cold night and still only high of 30 tommorow....I recieved a note a couple days ago thru youtube from the girl that was the person in the life flight video that I did on Jan 23. She said she is doing well and has finished physical therapy and will be back to work full time next week. She actually seemed upset that I posted the video but she also explained the reason for her accident was that she started to pass out and was only doing 25 mph. I told her I would post her story if she sent it to me but I havent heard back from her. I am just glad she is doing well and of course I sure didnt mean to upset her as I am certain that "safety video" has made people think of easy it is to get hurt out there. She seemed upset because somebody had posted that "slow down people".....which I say I have to agree with. Thats about it for now. Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday March 25, 2011 9:15 a.m. As I was driving into frederic I could see a sled on the trail heading south and that was about a half hour ago, as I got closer I thought that one headlight was way to high for a sled,,,false alarm it was the early morning train. Cold and cruncy out there this morning, it was 6 below here in frederic and I talked to a friend east of town that had minus 14 and we were at about zero at lake margrethe. First sleds have already been in and that was Dave Klemish and his crew stil out on a birthday ride with their friend Darrin King. Trailer count this morning was days inn 2 and ramada 3 and sleds at the motel by lewiston grade and 5 sleds that I could see at Fayes motel. While it was sunny yesterday the high temp made it to 31 and the snow really didnt get hurt. All trails looked good this morning along m 93 but down in the low spot it was all slush as it usually is and both crossing up by the high school looked good. Yesterday afternoon I saw 6 trailers at the parking lot across from Larrys up in elmira and then drove back to frederic from gaylord along the trail and it looked excellent all the way,,,flat and white.... I just heard jc the weatherman on the radio saying its gonna be near zero again tonight and still highs of only 30 so I still think we will make it thru the weekend o.k. Also just had a guy leave here that bought a trail permit and had a person call yesterday too that said they were coming for permits.....So thats it from downtown frederic for now. Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday 10:30 a.m. Downtown Frederic looks like real winter like it should have last month. Still only up to 19 degrees. Fresh panning marks along both trails up by the high school. The only bad things I saw yesterday on the trails is where puddles had been and the snow their slushed into them. I saw that at one of the crossings this morning but that is the least of our worries. I have talked to alot of excited people that want to ride. Well I wouldnt expect it to be real busy this weekend I do think there will be a fair amount of sled traffic....just remember to PLEASE RIDE SAFELY!! Its been the safest winter in years with 14 less deaths than last year which was at 26, so lets keep it that way. Thursday March 24, 2011 8:18 a.m. Its 6 degrees and sunny out. The trail along m 93 was freshly panned and the weatherman is calling for sunny the next couple days and only a high of 24 today. If it all plays out like they are saying it should be a pretty weekend for riding. I am at the c/21 office right now and will be going to frederic about 10 and will look at the trail crossings on the way up there. I have talked to several other people that rode yesterday and last night and it was all great reports. Till later on. Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday night 9:20 p.m. Here is a video of the trail up near lakes of the north from this afternoon... Winter Storm Sled Ride Wednesday March 23, 4:18 p.m.. Just got back from an incredible 64 mile 3 hour ride. I left here and headed north up the trail planning on going to gaylord, lovells, grayling and back to here but I stopped at the corner of mt frederic road and there was a sled riding towards me, we stopped to talk and it was Don who has a cabin in frederic. He had rode up past waters and the snow was so deep that he was working his sled hard to get thru which was the same reason I had stopped at the corner thinking it would be a work out to do that big loop. Thats a problem that we dont have very often around here and for those of you with the 2 inch paddle tracks you should be here now. Don and I paired up and headed on up to starvation lake. Stopped for gas at the lil country store and Diane said she had talked to John on the Kalkaska groomer and he said they are planning on running tonight and all weekend. As we headed out of starvation there were 3 sleds at the bar and thats the only sleds we saw on our whole ride, we went on to lakes of the north and back around here to Frederic. 64 Miles of pure great deep ungroomed and first ones down the trails.....You cant ask for better than that. I did take a little video and will get that on later tonight. Its still snowing too.... Wednesday March 23 2011 10:00 am.. March 23, 2011 Video This is GREAT, 21 degrees still snowing, I walked all around the building here in frederic and measurements range from 5 to 9 inches in different spots. NIce tight snow not just fluff. I talked to my friend at blue lake and she said they had 10 to 12 inches. The grayling groomers are heading out to pan and pack it down so it lasts longer. The temps are supposed to stay below 30 all weekend. Hard of Hearing Mike from down by Columbus called and said he is on his way for his last ride of the season. This is the snow we should have had in January and Februray but it is still a welcomed sight. I havent had my plow on my truck since sometime in mid feb but I am using it now. Thanks for checking in. As things progress I will be on again. I just had a guy call that said he rode all the way to lake city and back from grayling this morning, he said he left at 4 a.m. Wednesday 7:00 a.m. SNOW DAY NO SCHOOL! 4 inches now on my front porch here at lake margrethe and its still snowing. So is it really time to ride again. I am pretty sure some will try it. We are still a long ways off from 12 inches. I will let you know again after I get to Frederic. Wednesday Morning March 23, 2011 2:40 a.m. Day of the "Big Storm" Just peeked outside and we are up to 2 and a half inches. I went to bed at 11 and there wasnt a flake of new snow so its hitting us fast now. Its a tight packy snow not to wet but not to dry and still coming....will be on again in a few hours.....MO MO NAH CHEE CHEE NAH!!! Tuesday Night 10:00 p.m. The tv has been flashing winter storm warnings for 3 hours and so far not a flake of new snow. I know everybody is wondering and I have had a few calls from people hoping to get one more ride in....stay tuned... Tuesday March 22, 2011 11:30 a.m. Winter Storm Warning,,,will it snow or wont it. My guess is our 12 inches will be two inches but wait till morning to see. I am half hoping I can jump on my sled and take a short ride tommorow. My other more exiciting news is that my daughter Melissa was notified yesterday that she is Valedictorian of her senior class. That makes me one PROUD Dad.....Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------- Monday March 21, 2011 Noon So its 36 and foggy and hazy outside and I have had 3 calls this morning saying that we are supposed to get a foot of snow by wednesday.....that should be interesting if that comes around. I have seen stranger things happen. Had a good quick trip to kzoo over the weekend and was at the swap meet all day and spent some time visiting with my mom. Now its back here in frederic trying to fend off the spam salesman. I will keep you posted on the impending storm.....MO MO NAH CHEE CHEE NAH...Pete ------------------------------- Saturday March 19, 2011 8:30 a.m. Its a pretty quiet morning here in frederic and I find its a little hard to stop the updates cold turkey when I have been at it steady all winter. I forgot to mention yesterday that there is a Race the Face sled race at Treetops in Gaylord today so if you are looking for something to do there it is. Sledheads will be closed today as I am attending my daughters forensics meet in gaylord and I figure I am sure not gonna miss any business here....the bright side of the winter ending is that I am not so tied to this place and have a little freedom. Tonight we are all heading off to kzoo and I will be helping my friend sell shirts at the motorcycle swamp meet at wings stadium all day, so if you are in kzoo and go to the swap meet stop in and see me...just to fit in right I am going to wear my Charlie Manson shirt that I have had forever.....Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------- Friday March 18, 2011 9:25 a.m. O.K. O..K. I concede, winter is really over. I went and looked at the orchard where I was hoping to take a ride today, and while there are still patches of white out there, there is alot of dirt and grass too so I really dont want to admit it but its over. It never really got started well this season as we only had about 4 decent weeks of riding which makes it the shortest season on record. The AVSA in grayling groomed 1000 miles less than their shortest season on record this year. Many familiar faces were no shows this year so now its time to start counting till December 1 to see what the next season brings us. I looked at Lake Margrethe this morning and even though there were still trucks out on the ice on tuesday this week it is looking pretty covered with water out there now. I think it will still be a couple weeks till all the ice is gone. So a BIG THANK YOU to all that came in here to visit and do business with Sledheads this year and practice the snow chants over the course of the summer. I am going to cut back on the updates to about once a week and will jump on when there is any news you may be interested in. I will post out any atv news that that the Happi Trails ATV club keeps me up on. The atv traffic in frederic has picked up some the past couple years with the roads being opened up to them. I need to get one of those myself as I have never had one. Also remember if anyone you know needs screenprinted t shirts or signs or banners, that is part of my summer income along with Century 21. The past couple weeks there has been more activity than there has been in a long time with people inquiring about properties. So thanks again for your business and friendship, and thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday March 17, 2011 11:30 a.m. Its 49 degrees here in frederic and while the trails still looked pretty good yesterday they are pretty much black mud and water puddles today. The snow depth in the woods dropped alot and the only hope of riding now is trailering to a spot that there is snow and riding there. It made it to 56 yesterday and that really dropped the snow. The lot here in frederic is some ice and mud with still snow scattered around. I will let you know how things make it thru today in tommorows report.....Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday 11:00 a.m. I just noticed I have had the camera stuck in one spot since monday,,,sorry bout that, I had zoomed in on 2 sleds that were setting on the corner and forgot to turn it back on. Still alot of white out there but it will be gone sooner than we would like it to be.. Wednesday March 16, 2011 8:25 a.m. Its 26 here in frederic this morning. I checked out the trails on the way here this morning, m 93, both crossings up by high school and the trail north to gaylord at the north end of frederic, and surprisingly there is still alot of white on them, I could see down into the curves by the high school and that was black but still mostly white. It didnt get as warm yesterday as they predicted so its still hanging on by a snowflake. STill lots of white in the woods but if you think you want to ride just prepared to work for it as it cant last to much longer. I had a guy call for a set of carbides yesterday morning but I was gone from here and not open as we spent the day down at Ferris for a campus tour. Depending on the warmth today it will be interesting how long it takes to get the trails to all black and dirty. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday March 15, 2011 7:00 a.m. There is frost on the car this morning but we are heading for another warm day. It got up to 41 yesterday and there were only 3 sleds that rode into sledheads. I did see a few others around town but we did lose alot of snow yesterday. I had a guy call that wanted to come to ride today and I told him I didnt think he should. So it is looking like we really are done for the season. Thats about it for now. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday March 14, 2011 11:10 a.m. Its sunny and up to 29 from 12 degrees earlier this morning. The end is upon us but things are still great today. I just had a guy in here riding a cat and he is all hyped up about how great the trails are, he had just rode down from waters and confirmed the report I already had this morning that it was freshly groomed and he was the first one on it. As I said earlier this weekend the reports came in from everywhere on the good trails and it was just pure luck it ended up that way. I am going to post Johns trail report from the Kalkaska groomer that he sent out last night and he says the same thing I have been saying all weekend. Here is his report, Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 20:47:54 -0400 This week end was (imo) about the best one of the season. It did not matter where you wanted to go, it was great! We had friends up and on friday they rode all of the grayling trail, down on the fireing range,over to manistee bridge and fife lake,back across the Mis-Cal and home via the cranberry .330 miles in all and it was all white and groomed. Saturday was the same conditions, over to lovells,around the grayling loop, thru gaylord to indian river and chandler hills,back down 131 to home,another 330 miles,all white and groomed except along 131,which had a lot of bare areas. Today we ran powerlines and gas lines for a while in the morning, then over to kalkaska,trail 55 and 5 to pegeos,back to our place then one lap around the bear so that the weekend total was 902 miles.As on fri and sat all was white and freshly groomed. On the bear it was still very nice from this morning's groom and not one sled was passed! Saturday on the bear was a bit different though ,as traffic was pretty heavy. Still, the reports I got were that it held up well. All of these trails stayed nice because of the 4 - 6 " system snow last week that was mixed with some freezeing drizzel. This made a very wet heavy snow that packed down tightly. 2-3 inches more fell on friday night and made it even better. If the forecast is correct,it will be in the 40's with some rain later in the week and I think that will finish it off. It was a great finish to a so-so season though if that does happen.I took the pics on saturday,east side of the blue bear. The KCSA meeting for next saturday, 19 march,has been cancelled. There is a scheduleing conflict because the DNRE ORV trail start-up meeting is next satuday in Rosscommon. Because we maintain the blue bear ORV route ,our attendence is required,so myself, linda,nancy and jerry will be there. Had we known about it sooner,we could have perhaps moved our meeting,but thats not how it happened.The next regular meeting will be 16 april2011. That ends Johns report and with the prediction of warm weather and 50s a couple days this week if there is any riding to be this coming weekend it will be off trail or in the old apple orchards near frederic, that is always the last place I ride for the season cause when its all gone on the trails whats left up in there usually lasts a while longer. I also just put a video from the guy that just rode on the sledheads facebook page. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday March 13, 2011 10:45 a.m. 30 degrees out and only a little skiff of snow since yesterday. Sleds were out in force yesterday and the clipper finally came thru yesterday afternoon and gave us a few inches of new snow. It was snowing pretty hard and steady for a while. The stories and reports of great rides and high mileage rides continued to come in yesterday. I havent heard that before but my theory on it is that everybody feels this is it and die hards were out and the ones that didnt think conditions would be as great as they are stayed put. I just talked to a couple that rode in and they came from Alba and followed the groomer over that way this morning and they said other areas there had already been groomed and were great. Talked to Dave Klemish this morning who has been at the Ramada since friday and he said they have had great riding and were just heading out again. I saw him as I was taking the trailer survey which was 2 trailers at the Days Inn, 3 trailers and the Nelson Speed Shop semi trailer at the Ramada. I saw sleds all around grayling last night including when I was setting at Wendys and saw Doug and Sam and their crew returning from their trip of 200 plus miles to Lake City for the second day in a row. So far its been quiet in frederic except for that couple I talked to and the ambulance already went out from the fire dept., thank goodness I didnt see the snowmobile rescue rig go out with it. Was out for the fourth time looking for coyotes this morning but still nothing on the coyote front, gonna look up ACME online and try to get some tips. Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday March 12, 2011 9:50 a.m. Not a flake of new snow overnight but they claim its still coming today. I cant believe how many people that I have talked to since yesterday about the big rides they have been getting in. A guy just left that said he did 330 miles yesterday, all the way to alpena and back and Doug and Sam were just in and they did 250 yesterday down to lake city, fife lake and back and they are heading there again today. Yesterdays reports came from a guy that came from east jordan and another that had rode here from Atlanta and down to lewiston to here reporting better snow north and east as the alpena guy said this morning too...The end is not to far off but for those out there they are having a good time. One ohio guy that was just in said he couldnt get any of his friends to come and that he is awful glad he did and he said that as he left here with his new Sledheads hoodie on.....My friend Denny came up from kzoo last night and we were out hunting for coyotes both last night and this morning but only saw big black crows. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday March 11, 2011 11:00 p.m. It 34 degrees in frederic and windy right now. There was no new snow overnight but on the bright side I looked at all the trail crossings and trails around town and they are all still white, thats along m 93, the first m 72 parking lot, both crossings up by the high school. There have been a few sleds thru frederic so far this morning but still pretty quiet out there. While there is still great off trail riding on the two tracks what we do have left on the trails will most likely get worn out quickly. There is supposed to be a clipper coming thru late tonight and if it does will give us some white tommorow morning but of course who knows if it will really happen. Doug and Sam stopped in on their way back from the u.p. yesterday and Doug showed me his new helmet cam he bought, I see that they are still at their cabin and I am sure they will be out riding today. If anybody is looking for a house at lake margrethe, I just listed one that gives you a great view of the west side of the lake but its not on the lake, its a unique setting as you get the lake view but not the taxes...its priced at $92,500....if you know anybody looking send them my way..Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------- Thursday Afternoon 2:00 p.,m. Its been snowing all day but it hasnt added up to much and I have only seen a few sleds out and about. I would say we have about 3 inches total of new snow. Gary Aldridge just rode in a bit ago and first thing he said was where is everybody. He said the riding is great and he couldnt believe he hasnt seen any more sleds. I do think that this little bit of new snow will bring people out more than they have been. On my way home from the u.p. last night it was a constant stream of trailers heading north and I hear Seney got 6 more inches since I left last night...So now on to our ride from yesterday. I pulled into the Fox River Motel about 9 tuesday night and had a nice visit with Don and Diane there as they were getting things put together for the Vets Ride which is this weekend. They have over 200 sleds signed up to participate and that event is getting bigger every year. What a great way to pay tribute to the ones who have served and have a great day of sledding, hot dog roast and then finish the day off with the pig roast at the barn. We left the motel about 8 yesterday morning and headed on up to Grand Marais for breakfast. Trails were flat as a table and some fresh snow on them..fromt there we headed off and made a few loops thru the trail system and after about 1 ended up at the Bear Trap near Munising for lunch...We had run into Doug and Sams neighbors at the Motel, John and Randy Thomson in Grand Marais and also came across them on the trail where John had blown a belt on his yamaha. From there on they rode with us the rest of the day. After lunch at the Bear Trap we were off again and rode towards Seney and then headed on to Newberry. As we got closer to Newberry you could see the snow was thinner but we still made it into town for a stop at Timber Charlies and more gas, also forgot to throw in the gas stop at the Melstrand store which I havent been to in years. John and Randy are brothers and it was Johns 69th birthday, Randy is 69 too but will be 70 next week. We headed on back to Seney and got back there about 8, so we were out about 12 hours and it was an incredible day of riding with 245 miles logged. Sam had set me up on his new skidoo which is one smooth peice of machinery. I cant believe he gave me his new sled to ride complete with heated seat, air ride suspension, tilt handlebars, and great handwarmers. I mounted my gps on the dash and that was great as it has all the sled trails in michigan on it and I could see exactly where we were at any one time. I was surprised at how many lakes we go by that you dont see as you are riding by and then at night the gps went to nighttime mode which was a good view too. I also loved the headlight on that sled cause on bright it really lit up the woods. I rode like I usually do , like a little old lady and those guys would be there waiting at the corner when I came lolly gagging along. Sam said I was a fashion statement with my sledheads jacket and my sasquatch boots on, but hey I was warm and comfy. So that in a condensed nutshell was our great day of riding. I did shoot alot of video and will get that put together in the near future. It was 165 miles from Frederic to the Fox River Motel so if you want a nice place to stay call Don or Diane and book yourself a room or you can sign up for Dianes trail report for the Seney area and she will email it to you. Everyplace in Seney is booked for this weekend because of the vets ride but if you want her email it is foxmotel@jamadots.com or you can call them at 906-499-3332. Thanks for checking in. Pete Thursday March 10,011 8:10 a.m. Its about 28 degrees with a light snow in the air in grayling. I would say that since tuesday night we have had a total of about 2 new inches here and what is here is a wet 2 inches. I was kind of hoping for more but thats it for now. Got home after midnite last night after an incrdeible 245 mile ride thru the u.p. I will update again later on today with the whole story. A big thanks to Doug Shepard and Sam Jackson for getting me up there and especially Sam for putting me on his "Cadillac" of sleds, the gsx 1200 4 stroke..... Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------- Tuesday afternoon 3:45 Its sunny and 41 out right now and we are losing more snow than I would like to see. There will probably not be an update on here tommorow unless I can do it from the Fox River Motel in Seney cause thats where I am heading shortly. Going riding with Digger Doug and MJs distant brother Sam Jackson....cant wait to see if the u.p. gets hit with the storm they are claiming and hopefully we get it here too..... Tuesday March 8, 2011 8:45 a.m. Its 22 and sunny out in frederic and we had just a little skiff of new snow overnight. There were a few sleds out and about yesterday and I dont belive we lost very much snow. The next big question is what we are going to get out of this next predicted storm, snow or sleet or rain? So till tommorow, thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------- Monday afternoon Happy Birthday a day late to Darrel Thayer who should have stayed and kept riding as Justin & Ken were just in and said things are great....and to the couple that was just in heading back to mt pleasant on their way home from grand marais, I got the vulcan 3 minutes after you left... Monday March 7, 2011 9:40 a.m. It was minus 1 degree when I left home and its now up to 19 here in frederic this morning. I looked at all the trail crossings this morning and they are all still white. M 72, M 93 and both north and south of the high school. A storm is predicted for wednesday but the kicker is we are on the edge of the rain part of it so lets hope for the best which could give us next weekend of riding. I rode 52 miles yesterday and it was still great. I got up to otsego lake for the phatman shootout and I was the only one there.....guess I missed it by a day. It was still a nice ride, trail for the most part was really nice but some bad spots right in waters. In the woods 6 to 8 inches of new snow on top of the old made it really nice. I went south of frederic a few miles where they are destroying the forest once again by cutting off another huge area. It really bothers me seeing such nice areas reduced to nothing. From the logging area I rode east over to I 75 and stopped in at the new rest area they built. They left an open area in the fence so you can ride thru it. Very nice facility and good vending machines too. On saturday I went with some people to walk around a ten acre parcel where we walked the perimiter of it and most of the time it was about a foot deep of snow but we hit some areas that were a little more than knee deep.....sled traffic was much better in frederic yesterday than it was on saturday as riders realized how nice it was out there. If anyone wants to come up and ride and not sure of where to go you can always hire a guide to take you to the great spots...just let me know. Doug Shepard left me a message last night that he was heading up to Grand Marais today to ride for a couple days and invited me to go along....I only wish I could.....Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------ Sunday 10:15 a.m. STill sunny, crunchy and 16 degrees out there and its gonna be a great day to ride up to otsego lake. Fresh panning tracks on the trail by the high school and have seen 2 sleds out this morning. Went thru the Ramada parking lot and no sleds or trailers but a bunch of 4 wheel drive trucks that had been out and about. I am looking forward to getting my ride in today. I dont know who it was in the chevy truck that thought they were doing me a favor last night by plowing my drive about 5:30 but I sure wish they wouldnt have. I didnt plow it on purpose because I like to get it packed down to build a base in case we get to keep the snow. Now the sun will turn it all to dirt again so whoever you are if you are reading this please dont do it again....Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday March 6, 2011 7:50 a.m. Just put some bacon on this morning here at Lake Margrethe. The sun is out, its ten degrees and we didnt lose any snow yesterday or last night. It actually looks like winter out there. All the riders that rode in yesterday reported great riding conditions and were really glad to be out there riding. There werent that many riders as this snow caught everyone by surprise, so for a saturday in frederic with good snow town was pretty empty. If I could have found someone to watch the shop I would have gone myself. The grayling groomers went out but not to groom but to pan, as Keith said the snow would last longer if it was flattened out and hard rather than left fluffy so we will have to wait to see if this will last us thru next weekend. Today is the Phatman Shootout up on Otsego Lake and it looks like its going to be a great day for Drag Racing. I hope to ride up there myself. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday morning 8:45 a.m. Well it looks like we only had 4 inches here in frederic but its still a relatively good packing snow. Roads are slick and slushy and its 28 degrees out.I am certain we will have some sled traffic today. We went off to the high school musical last night in Grayling for their production of Cinderella...they did a real nice job on that....it was both very funny and entertaining. Today marks what would be the 109th Birthday of Fred Bear so Happy Birthday to all the old timers up their in the Happy Hunting Ground...... Saturday March 5, 2011 7:35 a.m. Just rolled out of bed and WOW, 4 nice inches of new snow outside here and its still falling. Checked the camera in frederic and looks like we have it there too but I cant tell how much. This will be nice for those that are here and can get out in it today.....will update again after I get to Sledheads. Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------- Friday afternoon 4:30 p.m. The snow only kept up for a while giving us about a half inch of new white then the light drizzle kicked on. The temp made it up to 36 and is now down to 34. The only tracks in the drive all day were beagle tracks up until 3:30 when a couple came in that are staying up at blue lake. I was trying hard for 5 days of no sales and they broke my streak by getting a gallon of polaris oil and a new Sledheads hat....I guess I better be ready for the rush tommorow... Friday 10:00 a.m. Well its hard to believe but ITS SNOWING!!, the ground is almost all white already and so is the road to frederic from grayling. Well it would have to be a miracle to make it good riding, it sure makes it look better out there. When I left home this morning it was almost little ice pebbles hitting the window and it was 24 degrees. Thats about the best I can tell you for now. On other news I see that the last week of February was a bad week for fatalites as they jumped from 9 to 12 that week, still alot less than the 26 from last year but still way to many. I will get back on here about 4 just to report on what has hit the ground since now. Friday March 4, 2011 7:30 a.m. I am not sure what the deal is this morning as there is no new anything on the ground here in Grayling or in Frederic this morning but the tv is reporting alot of school closings gaylord and north. I just checked out the camera and the ground looks the same as it did yesterday so I dont know if those places are closed cause of snow or ice....I am leaning more towards ice. I will update again this morning after I learn what the deal is. I did make it thru my 4th day of new sales yesterday but I have a guy come in that I dont quite understood my explanation of the riding situation here. He wanted to ride to starvation lake and said that I was wrong about the trails in the woods being o.k. I dont mean the snowmobile trails, I mean the other 2 tracks,,the snowmobile trails for the most part are toast....sometimes you just have to spell it out. I have talked to a couple people that are heading north to try their luck. I will be back on in the next few hours.Thanks for checking in. Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday March 3 2011 8:20 a.m. It wsa 2 degrees this morning and its dry and sunny out. I watched the weather this morning and it is claiming a couple inches by morning and more on saturday and then rain mix coming....I will take the first part....the most exciting thing from yesterday is that we went down to the lake last night about 8 to watch the space station and shuttle fly by..it was pretty easy to spot as it zoomed along....With a little bit of luck I can make today the 4th day with no sales...... There is nothing like owning a weather related business....Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday March 2, 2011 8:30 a.m. Its windy and 17 degrees this morning in Frederic. As I looked at the trail crossing this morning north of the high school I was surprised to see that it was all white...thats certainly not from any new snow but it still looked good in that spot anyways. I never saw a rider or person in here all day yesterday and the weatherman this morning was saying 2 inches by tommorow morning and some type of snow for saturday,,,once again I will believe it when I see it. So far I have hit 2 days in a row with zero sales and am trying for a new march record,,,will I make it 3 or even 4 days....stay tuned....Thanks for checking in. Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday March 1, 2011 10:00 a.m. Oh where oh where can the snow flakes be? The snow gods took them away from me.......Somehow that came to me on the way to frederic this morning...it has stayed cold but things certainly havent gotten any better. There were 2 sleds that rode into here yesterday and they said it still was good out in the woods....other than that its very quite around town. I just talked to my friend Denny and he is on his way to Daytona for bike week,,,that sounds pretty good right about now....Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------ Monday Februrary 28, 2011 11:00 a.m. Well its the last day of February of what I would say is the worst month of riding in years around the Frederic and Grayling area. I saw 4 sleds yesterday in frederic, 2 across the street and 2 that rode thru the parking lot here and none of them stopped.....I am not ready to stop my daily updates yet but it doesnt seem like there will be to much to say. At least this will give me time to catch up on some other things that I havent done. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday February 27, 2011 10:30 a.m We had our maximum allotment of snow overnight again and that was another fluffy inch of new white stuff. It seems thats all we can get at one time anymore. So its 27 degrees out and nice and white too. I did see 2 sleds ride thru here already this morning. Things were pretty slow around town her e yesterday with sleds scattered around a little during the day but there were 8 at once over at the swamp when I left about 5. I went up to watch the vintage ride take off from the north end of otsego lake, their were about 40 old sleds there and they were suppsed to leave at noon to ride down to the main show at the keg but at 12:50 they still hadnt left so I had to get back here. Stopped by the Keg and they had another 30 nice old sleds there. I really wanted to get video of the ride heading down but just couldnt wait any longer...So thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday February 26, 2011 9:15 a.m. Its 17 degrees and there is snow falling in frederic this morning with about 1 new inch on the ground since last night. I did drove thru the Ramada parking lot and there was one trailer there and zero at the Days Inn in Grayling. I posted my new video last night on our ride to Lovells yesterday. I have to say I almost feel bad about how bad I have said the conditions are because we were out almost 8 hours yesterday and had a great ride. It was mostly 2 tracks and of course we did hit some bad areas but for the most part if you work at it a bit you can get a decent ride in. Its all we have so the best you can do is make the best of what there is. We had 70 miles in round trip and once again for the second time this week I am darn glad I went. I also put another video together last night of our trip to Cadillac earlier this week so I will post that below here. I really messed up when I was doing the video last night as I highlighted all the video I took from the train car wreck and erased all of it, as soon as I hit the delete key I knew I shouldnt have done that. I had the whole passenger extrication and it would have been a good one. I have 2 trailers at my cottage this weekend but those guys brought 4 wheel drive trucks to go out roaming in the woods with. Cadillac Snowmobile Ride Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday night 8:15 p.m. We had a great ride to Lovells and back today, I have to say things were way better than I expected with still 15 inches in one area we were in and the snow was great there. Of course we ran into our share of bad spots but overall it was a great ride with us hitting mostly 2 tracks on the way there but we were on the regular trail for a while too. We went to the air to ground range overlook but we werent lucky enough to be there when some live bombings were going on. I put this video together from today, certainly not the best I have ever done but a short glimpse. One funny thing on the trail near lovells is there was a guy riding a bicycle down the trail all decked out in his bicycle racing gear....here is the video Snowmobiling Frederic to Lovells Friday February 25, 2011 8:30 a.m. 21 degrees here in frederic this morning and of course no new snow but the weather man is teasing us with a prediction again....I did see 3 sleds riding into frederic yesterday but they didnt stop in here. I am off for a ride this morning as a guide for a couple guys...this should be interesting. I have a plan in my head on where to go so we will see how this pans out, it definitely has to be all off the main trails...I am hoping to make it to Lovells for lunch....also saturday is the vintage sled show at the keg bar in waters, their are about 30 to 40 sleds that are leaving at noon from the north end of otsego lake to ride to the keg,,,, Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday February 24, 2011 11:50 a.m. Its 31 degrees in frederic and we did have a skiff of new snow overnight, by skiff I mean about a quarter inch...not to much help for the trails. I did see 2 sleds ride into town here yesterday but that was it. I am still planning on taking the 2 guys out tommorow and that will be interesting to see how that comes out. I think we can still get a decent ride in. I was here at 8 this morning and dropped the beagle off and just got back after going to a continuing education real estate class in gaylord. It was actually pretty interesting to learn a bit more about programs that are out there to help people that are laid off and that might be having problems making their mortgage payments....in the mean time I am having my own troubles here just trying to figure out how to generate some income at the shop let along being able to sell some real estate. Denny and Garna JOnes from Angola, Indiana stopped by here yesterday on their way up to Brimley. They said there were suppsosed to be 29 going north this weekend but they were the only ones that didnt cancel and said they were going anyways and just get away if they couldnt ride. They were also nice enough to bring me in a couple new fresh cans of spam and now quite convieniently its almost lunch time......so thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday February 23, 2011 10:20 a.m. Its sunny and 20 degrees here in frederic and of course there has been no new snow, but the new inch we got still a couple days ago is still standing on top of what we did have...I just got off the phone with 2 guys from ohio that want to come up and ride on friday and I am going to take them out as I told them I know we could get a halfway decent ride but to expect some bad stuff....that should be interesting. I did see 2 sets of fresh sled tracks across the trail up north of the high school this morning...I havent seen or heard anything about forcasts for the upcoming days as I was gone all day yesterday. I am so glad that Bill and Tracy asked me to go along on their ride as we had a great run. We left grayling at 8 and drove to cadillac and unloaded at the golf course just west on 55 outside of cadillac. We headed off to Thirstys for gas and then on to Boon. From there we rode over to Caberfe which will be the last time I do that as they arent sled friendly. Trails were like real winter and awsome but when you get to Caberfe they had signs that wanted you to park your sled way out from the lodge and none of us were going to walk that far. I remember now that I have heard other sledders say that about going there... so from there we headed off towards Wellston and stopped at my hunting cabin....then on towards Irons and down to Club 37 for lunch...after a great lunch off to the east to Carriville for gas and then on east to the south loop around Cadillac and back to our starting point. All in all 128 miles of great riding. The sun had melted off the snow in some spots but if I rated the whole day of riding it was a 9 out of a 10...we passed one groomer and he didnt even need to be grooming and saw 8 deer. If the cold holds out and you ride those loops in the tree covered trails I think you might still be able to pull it off this weekend there. We had several trails we rode down that had 8 to 10 inches of untouched snow on them and that was great and something we havent seen around Frederic in a long time. I wish I could tell you to ride around here but right now that area seems like a much better choice. Thanks for checking in. Pete -------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday February 22, 2011 7:20 a.m. Its a chilly and crunch 8 degrees here at lake margrethe and along with that is not a flake of new snow overnight. The only action I saw in Frederic yesterday was the ten sleds that went to the frederic inn for lunch along with 2 other sleds later in the day and a few people that stopped into the shop in their cars. Indiana border Bill and Ohio Tracy came in and we put some idlers on one of their sleds and they told me they were going riding in Cadillac today....a while later they called and asked me if I wanted to go....so I figured I might as well as there isnt anything going on in Fredericanville. So Sledheads is closed today and I am going riding. Bill and I went back up to the shop last night and got my sled loaded up and we are heading out of here in about a half hour. I havent been riding down there in quite a while and hopefully we can ride by my hunting cabin in Wellston. I called Thirstys just outside of Cadillac last night and they said that they had 8 inches on sunday night and that people were still riding, so thats good enough for me and besides I have lots of slides and carbides....I even have new batteries for my camera so I can make a new video which I sure havent made many of this year. Thanks for chcecking in..Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MOnday 11:45 a.m 10 sleds just rode into town and are having lunch at the frederic inn...thats the first sleds I have seen out and about in quite a while... Monday February 21, 2011 9:45 a.m. Well once again northern michigan got the short end of the snow with only about one new inch since last night. I see alot of activity on the webcam this morning and while its nice and white out there its still not much to get excited about. I just heard from Craig who said there was 10 inches down in the detroit area, talked to my friend in cedar springs and they had 7 and in kzoo 2 inches with ice. It sure looked good last night when it first started snowing as it felt like a nice system snow and was coming hard but it quit just as soon as it started. On the bright side I do have lunch as Brian and Diedre (dont know if I spelled her name right) from Ohio brought me in a can of Prem....Brian said thats the stuff you buy when you cant afford spam.....I also found a note that I had jotted down from a couple weeks ago when there was good snow. I was supposed to send out a message to Steve Waltz and tell him that he missed out. Chicago Mike and his crew were in this weekend out driving around and Fred from Brighton never showed like he said he was going to. So in the meantime I will be here trying to keep myself busy. Thanks for checking in. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday night 8:30 Its been snowing since about 5, kind of a wet snow and about an inch and a half so far....lets keep it coming.....MO MO NAH CHEE CHEE NAH Sunday February 20,2011 11:00a.m. Its a beautiful non snowy morning with 26 degrees out here in Frederic. Not a flake of new snow and the big question is will we or wont we get the blast they are predicting by tommorow...I will let you know if it gets here. Its gonna take a blast to get us riding again. The parking lot is about 90 percent dirt with scattered spots of ice,,just like the trails. There were actually 3 sleds that rode into here, they were some of the guys that have a cabin only a block or so from here and they said they had been out in the apple orchard and they were finding enough off the trail to play in and have a good time. Along with that we actually sold 6 trail permits yesterday and when I got here this morning there were 2 guys that were heading for Wetmore in the u.p. and they bought permits too. I figure if anybody is going to stop in today its people heading back home from the u.p. I went down to houghton lake yesterday with my girls to go to Joes Coney Island,,(formally Rons Coney Island) and located right across from Hackers yamaha. Haley and Cathy didnt want coneys so we stopped at KFC,,,,Haley wanted a large order of chicken nuggets so she could save some for later. The only problem with that was we also had one stupid beagle with us and we needed to hide them because that beagle will eat all she can get her mangy little paws on. Well they dropped me off at Joes and went over to Arnies and Haley hid her nuggets down in the compartment by her seat with a latch on it. That means the nuggets should be safe right? Well when she got back to the car there sat her empty carton and the compartment was still closed and locked.....we still dont know how the beagle pulled that one off....Well I came back to the car with 4 coneys to go and it seemed that I needed a more fool proof way of protecting todays lunch....for the rest of the stops I opened the hood to the van and hid my coneys under the hood. I figured if she could figure that one out she could have them...Luckily they were still there after each stop....So enough rambling for today. Thanks for chekcing in and if the snow starts hitting I will update when it starts to pile up...Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday February 19, 2011 9:30 a.m. Its 21 degrees out and still blowing out there with only traces of snow in the air. It was so windy yesterday it was unreal and I am missing a bunch of shingles on the north side of my building. There is supposed to be snow coming but I wont get excited till its on the ground. I did the trailer survey this morning and believe it or not there were 2 at the Days Inn, and 4 at the Ramada,,,I dont know what they were going to do but at least they have their sleds with them. Thats about it for today. Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------- Friday 4:00 p.m. Currently the Doppler 9&10 Weather Team is watching a major winter storm develop beginning on Sunday. This storm is expected to bring heavy snow across the Lower Peninsula. I just got the above 2 lines off the 9 and 10 news website....I will believe it when I see it... been pretty slow in here all day,,,doing a little catch up work and even had a short nap with the beagle. Friday Noon Thirty, I heard from Fred from Brighton a while ago and he said its his birthday too so Happy Birthday to Fred who said he is coming up anyways this weekend. The only people that have been in to here so far today was a group of guys that bought 4 trail permits....I couldnt believe they were buying them and either could they themselves.... Friday February 18, 2011 9:50 a.m. I want to start out today with Happy 70th Birthday wishes to Bruce Young......I know he was looking forward to a sled ride and a campfire and roast today but it doesnt look like they are going to get to do that. I think that still yesterday in my yard at home I had a foot of snow and thought there was no way that would all go away,,,well its down to about 2 inches today and even thru the woods on the way to frederic today I can see the drastic drop in the level. The parking lot here at Sledheads is almost all back to dirt too and even though its pretty windy out there today its still 35 degrees. So the big queston is will we or wont we be able to think about riding again this season? I will be here patiently waiting to see. Thanks for checking in and stop by even if you are up here just driving around. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday February 17, 2011 11:00 a.m. Conditions continue their downhill slide. I looked at most every trail around grayling this morning and they are all brown dirt paths. The snow in the woods is still deep but very soft. Its 44 right now and today will take a big toll again like yesterday did, BUT then its supposed to turn cold with a chance of snow...it will take more than a chance to get us going again. Forcasts looked good for the weekend but have changed again so your guess is as good as mine or the weather mans...all sled rentals have cancelled and hard to believe but even my cottage is empty this weekend...last weekend we had 2 couples and their kids stay at the cottage with 3 of the cutest little girls you have ever seen. I went over to check on them and the one little one who couuldnt been much taller than 18 inches looks up at me at the door and in her cute little girls voice said "you come in this house", so I did and then asked her what I should do. I brought the beagle in so they could pet her and the girls showed me their antics of trying to stand on their heads.....boy I miss those days of cute little kids...I have talked to several people who had planned on this coming weekend being a big and fun weekend for them and they are still coming so I expect that most traffic thru Frederic this weekend will be in cars but I bet there will be a few die hards out there. I posted a picture on the sledheads facebook page of the sled / groomer accident from last weekend that was sent to me from a rider that was there from Indiana.... I am also going to post a video link on there to a youtube video called urban snowmobiling where these guys rode thru downtown Detroit during the last snow storm. I would like to do that same thing in New York City......Thanks for checking in. Pete ------------------------------------------------------------ Wednesday 11:00 a.m. I just recieved this note from Don up in Seney and I thought I would see if anyone can help out here. Help needed!! We are looking for someone coming north this week-end that can stop by Nelson's in Greenville and pick up our door prizes for the groomer ball Saturday and save us the expense of overnight shipping. The package goes to UPS at 4:00 today so if you think you can help please give me a call. Don or Diane at Fox River Motel in Seney 906-499-3332 Wednesday February 16, 2011 9:10 a.m. Its 34 degrees in frederic and the parking lot is icy. You know after 14 seasons in here I am finally starting to figure out that owning a business that is directly affected by the weather isnt really so great. There were 2 sleds that rode into here yesterday and they were the same two from the day before but I did see several more over at the swamp over the day and some on the way home too. A guy stopped in and said that he had rode to grayling, gaylord and lovells and said as long as he got into the soft stuff on the sides he had a nice ride. You just have to work at it more than normal. I am going to post 2 other trail reports below this, the first one from Diane up at the Fox River Motel in Seney and the second one will be from John on the kalkaska groomer. Both these reports are new since last night. The temp only got to 32 today and no sun, yeah. I don't think we lost any snow today. We rode again today up trail 43 this time. I'll start with the good news. Trail 43 north of the Fox River Rd