making tracks

At first we thought getting a snowmobile might be prohibitively expensive, what with 5,000-8,000 dollar prices and the 300 dollar shipping fee from Fairbanks. But soon enough a local woman sent out an email advertising her 2003 Ski-Doo Grand Touring. Since the directions to her house sounded something like this "walk down towards the clinic, take that right, take the first left, go past the slew, take the next right, then the next left, and then it's down a rabbitt trail" we happily jumped on the back of her daughter's four wheeler for a ride
Josie's husband Jonathan explained in detail all the problems the machine had, but gave us a chance to hear its solid engine, and we were sold. We caught another ride the following afternoon with a money order in hand(checks are no good here...with the nearest bank 150 miles away). And we rode home on the sno-go--the proper nomenclature in these parts.
So, there are no lights, the speedometer doesn't budge from zero...and we sure do, the shocks are shot, the hand-grip warmers are unplugged, the windshield is broken into jagged shards of plexi-glass (imagine 30mph wind at 30 below zero?) and one steering arm is bent. But our pigeon-toed sno-go does go. In the dark I sit on a red flashlight and wrap my arm around Keith to hold a big white flashlight out the front. We haven't gotten hit, or pulled over by the local police officer yet. Friends tell us just to dive down a rabbit trail if any copper pulls close in his truck.
Besides that the only advice we've gotten about sno-gos is "Hit the throttle." You see a big snow bank in front of you? "Hit the throttle." You start getting into open water on the river? "Hit the throttle." You get a deep drift beneath you and you start to sink? "Hit the throttle."
This advice would have kept us from getting stuck in our own backyard on our maiden voyage. Luckily Keith was able to lift the whole backside of the machine and aim it in a more sturdy direction. I was still digging out of the four foot drift I got dumped into.

So far the machine has started well in negative thirty...although only then for Keith's strong arm. (It's a pull start, it has an electric start, but that, well of course that doesn't work.)
Now I set a hairdryer on the engine for about thirty minutes and it's ready to go even for my weakling arms.
It turns a twenty minute walk to work into a two minute trip...and when we found ourselves without enough flour to finish bread dough with only 15 minutes til store closing, we zipped in, me still in my slippers, and were back to catch the rising loaf in time.

Great deal, great machine. Happy Keith and Eliza