Day 7 - Feb 3 (Wednesday)
 Person of the Day: George Pattullo, of Caro Michigan
George is our trail boss, our leader. George and Betty started the Pattullo safari in 1984, after may years of racing snowmobiles professionally, he is also a past president of the Michigan Snowmobile Association. George is the Owner of Pattullo & Sons Sports. He plans all the routes and checks all the trail conditions ahead of time. He rarely gets us on the wrong path, except for today.... Shortly after leaving for Manitouwadge, Ont. he realized he was on the wrong trail... Instead of back tracking to the right trail, he convinced us that we should try to go on to Longlac, Ont. which is north instead of south..... so he lead us over 100 miles, until the trail stopped due to construction, and then we drove all the way back to Hearst. In the end we were all glad we took that route.... so much for making a mistake and looking like a hero...

Journey in a Nutshell
We rode from Hearst, Ont. south down through Hornepayne, Ont. were we had lunch and filled up with gas. Other then George's incident with the moose, he also went across a small lake, that was not quite frozen. he through up a rooster tail of water behind him. The rest of us went another way. Both Eugene and Pete both got stuck today. We got to Manitouwadge about 4:30. On another note, Tim "Chase Ono" tried to take a shortcut to the motel tonight, ended up on a logging road, that turned out to be 80 miles long.... He wasn't sure he was going to make it. He also brought the parts needed to fix Georges sled, Thanks again Tim... even though you were a little freaked when you arrived. Also thanks again to B&B Sports in Hearst, Ont. who took the parts off a new sled in the showroom.... Also additional thanks to the Manitouwadge Motel / Hotel, for letting us use their garage and tools.
 

Urgent Trip UPDATE: When George has bad luck, he really has bad luck!!! While we were riding from Hearst, Ont to Hornepayne, Ont. a moose jumped out of the woods and body slamed George into a tree. Causing him to come to abrupt stop, causing George to be thrown into the middle of the trail. Betty who was just behind him, barely missed George, veering off into the woods herself. Fortunately he was not hurt, but the tree bent the trailing arm, shock and radius arms.. Unbelievably the snowmobile was still rideable and completed the 100 miles left to Manitouwadge, Ont., 25 miles later the brakes gave out, due to a fitting comming loose during the crash. George competed the day without brakes, if you want to see his previous crash click here

Image Trek

Another view of George's brush with the moose, several of us looked for moose tracks, we didn't find any??? Eugene thought he heard something in the woods, we decided that we shouldn't try to find the moose, since it could be injured and dangerous.
Here you see Betty's snowmobile, off the trail stuck in the deep snow. Betty was following George, when the moose incident occurred, she swerved to miss george, who was laying in the middle of the trail. She thought she hit him..... 
Here we are on the trail, taking a short break on the way to Mantouwadge, Ont. we ran down this power line for over 50 miles.....
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