Parrottrek Journal 2007

The world's largest bat leans against the Louisville Slugger Factory

In the early days, bats where made by hand

Abbey with her fun souvenir

Batter up! Anyone wanna play?

May 19th - Louisville Slugger Museum and factory - Louisville, Kentucky -

Downtown Louisville is full of history and old brick buildings. Almost every block has a Historical Marker on it describing something that had occurred. I must admit most of the events were not familiar to us, but then again neither of us have ever studied the history of Kentucky at any depth, maybe we should start! Our activity of the morning was touring the Louisville Slugger Factory and learning all about how they build bats for the minor league players the Major League players and your everyday bat consumer. It's amazing to see just how much goes into creating a wooden bat for such people as Cal Rifkin or Barry Bonds. Along with Kentucky history we aren't quite up on our who's who in the big bad game of baseball, but the names were familiar. Back in the days of handcrafting wooden bats it took a man about an hour to create each bat that a Major League player would order. The player would tell the Louisville Slugger craftsman how long he wanted the bat, how much it was to weigh, what wood it was to be made out of and how many he wanted to this exact specification. Apparently since there is such a science to each player swinging his bat in order to hit the ball out of the park there is a noticeable difference to them if their new bats are even an ounce off of their others. I'll let you know if this is true if I ever make to the Major Leagues. Nowadays there are machines that do just this for the bats. Actually there is only one machine in existence for the production of the Major League player's bats and it is housed here. The craftsman now types in all the specifications that the bat is to have except of course how much it will weigh. This still takes a certain knowledge to know what piece of wood you put into the machine will produce the weight of the bat you want to come out. Once the wood is selected and placed into the machine the machine cuts the bat it 3 seconds! Yes it was amazing. We actually saw them make two bats while we were on tour for Cal Rifkin. Don't ask me who he plays for, or what position. The only player's position that I could name on the tour was Johnny Bench, and that was only because of the 'Bill Cosby Himself' comedy tape where Bill makes a comment on how the doctor that was delivering his child sat at the end of the table like Johnny Bench. My dad and I listened to that tape endlessly when I was young, which is very fitting considering that today is my dad's birthday. At the end of the tour we were each given a free miniature bat. They are the perfect size for the birds, and since they love to chew on any kind of wood, they will love these.

The glorious entrance to Churchill Downs

A great shot of the infamous peaks

... ... and they're off and running!

Man-O-War's memorial

May 19th - Churchill Downs - Louisville, Kentucky -

Churchill Downs is home to one of the greatest horse races there is, The Kentucky Derby, which was held here just a few weeks back. Even though today's races weren't nearly as popular, we had a fun day. We each bet 2 bucks on each race to the horse of our choice. We read a little about the horses in the program, but my favorite thing to do is still go down to the paddock and see who looks like they want to run that day. One of my bets was on a long shot who had never run a race before, and looked very antsy! He threw his rider off at one point, and was almost scratched, but somehow the jockey managed to get back on and come in second place. He was almost dead last in the beginning, and all of a sudden his energy rush paid off. All our bets were 'to show' which means you win if your horse comes in first, second or third place, so the odds are a bit more in your favor. One race, in honor of today being my dad's birthday, I wagered on a horse named 'Silver Minister' since my dear dad is a silver haired minister. Sorry Pops, no such luck on that bet, but he was a beautiful horse. He tried his very best and came in fourth. Just a nose short, but enough distance to loose my big bet. By the end of the day we were down about a dollar and a half, but it was worth every cent. It's much more fun to scream and cheer for a horse when you have a couple bucks riding on him (ha ha, no pun intended). The buildings here are like nothing we have ever seen. All the spires and steeples are like something out of a movie set and the seating was enormous. It was interesting to read all about the horses that have won the various Kentucky Derbies over the years and the select few that won the Triple Crown. They also had areas that told about other great horses such as Man-O-War and War Admiral, who by the way was the horse that Seabiscuit beat at the infamous Match Race.

A fallen tree makes a perfect bridge

The wooded trail we rode for over 8 miles

Another arm of the Ohio River

The cliff Suzy nearly flew over

May 20th - Otter Creek Trail - 8.2 miles of biking trails -

There must be about 12 different trails here at the park. Most of them are for hiking or horses, but there are 3-4 that are intended for mountain biking. We started out riding to the Nature Center of the park which was only about a half a mile from home. From there we picked up a trail guide and set out on the Otter Creek trail which wound up and down the mountain a little over 8 miles. The trail was in the shade for over 80% of the time which made it nice and cool. It was like a roller coaster ride, although you didn't have anything holding you from going over a ledge, but that made it even more fun. Frank lead the way with the trusty map that showed the trail along with certain markers to look for. I only crashed twice, once when I misjudged my wheelie ability over a large stump and another when I was attempting to down shift but my bike had other ideas. Neither of them was too bad, and the bruises will heal. At least I got up from the ground laughing. Another near crash occurred as we were coming down a bit of a steep hill to what appeared to be a cliff. I was reaching for my camera to get a picture and trying to break at the same time. Since the roads are all dirt and the hill was steep as I pulled the breaks the wheels stopped, but my bike kept sliding down the hill. Luckily Frank was right in front of me and I was able to use him and his bike to stop my sliding bike right before we both went over the edge of the cliff. We did pass a couple guys that were out on the trail for exercise, in fact I should say they passed us, twice in fact coming the opposite way. Oh well we were out there fun and accomplished just that. The best part of the trail was that it was all pretty much downhill so we didn't have to kill ourselves up any huge hills as we did the other day. The worst part of the trail? The fact that it was downhill pretty much the entire way and the speed you got going down some of the hills made your heart rate go up even more than the exercise did, while you prayed "Please God keep me from doing a header into the woods." The last 3 miles of the trail was nice and flat, and by the end of it we were both ready to go again, but figured we would probably change our minds about halfway through. We also realized that the reason the other mountain bikers were going the opposite way was for the challenge of the hills. No thanks! I'm all for a good workout, but I would rather not kill myself in the process. Oh by the way, the mini baseball bats went over like a charm. In fact it took Cody about an hour to demolish his and as soon as his was torn up he stole his sisters and is making quick work of that as well. Maybe we should order a few more!

Breakfast time for all the forest friends

Abbey's newfound love

A shy woodpecker peeks to see if it is safe to eat

Squirrels snuggle in for a nap after lunch in the tree above us

May 21st - Otter Creek Park - A Beautiful Wake Up Call -

The weather has been so nice here that we have slept with the windows open at night. The other bonus about open windows, other than the fresh mountain air, is in the mornings we are awoken by the soft call of about 10 different types of birds. No not ours, since they are so lazy they sleep in until at least 9:00. If we take their cover off much earlier than that they are a bit grumpy for the first 15 minutes or so until they wake up. They have no idea that just outside their window are hundreds of birds that have to wake up early in order to find enough food for themselves and any other feathered friends that are sharing their nest that day, including momma and little babies. Our birds know that their bowls will be there full of food when they wake up, and if for some reason they are empty Bradley will say "Do you want some more?" until we fill them. Cody and Abbey on the other hand are a bit less sweet about the empty dish and remind you by either banging on it, or throwing the bowl on the ground to show you that it is empty. This morning, like all the past mornings here at Otter Creek Park, we have had brunch outside. Before we eat, we sprinkle a bunch of bird seed and peanuts around in order to lure the local tree dwelling neighbors and have brunch with all sorts of our forest friends. Today there were four squirrels, two beautiful blue jays, a very talkative cardinal, that Abbey showed quite a bit of interest in. Abbey and the cardinal talked back and forth for quite awhile. It's was hilarious. Also part of the brunch bunch was a very curious woodpecker that would peek around the tree every so often to see if the mean blue jay, that kept scaring every off, including the squirrels was still there eating all the seed and peanuts. It was funny since the birds were the ones that like the peanuts and the squirrels ate the bird seed. Once the blue jay had enough peanuts stashed away in his belly and his nest for a few months, he left the party and the squirrels returned to finish off what he had left behind. After they had their fill they climbed into the tree and  after they bathed each other they snuggled down together and fell asleep. ABout two hours later they awoke, came back down the tree and stared at us until we filled the ground with the wild bird seed that they loved. We kept trying to show them the peanuts but would sniff them and move on.

Clay County Savings Association

Teller windows of the Old West

This desk witnessed the event

May 22nd - Liberty, Missouri -

Clay County Savings Association was the first bank ever to be robbed in broad daylight. The date was February 13, 1866 and the robbers were known as the Jesse James Gang, led by the notorious James brothers, Jesse and his brother Frank. The bank still stands today in the small city of Liberty, exactly how it was back then. Of course it is now a museum and no longer an actual bank. The James Gang got away with $60,000 that day. That's more than any bank robber gets these days by just robbing a teller. It's because of people like Jesse James that bank tellers have maximum cash drawer levels. I was a bank teller for almost 3 years and every so often they would do what was called a 'surprise cash count'. Not only were they doing it to make sure that your drawer had the amount of money the computer said it should have, and making sure that no one was dipping into the till, they also did it to make sure that your cash level wasn't over your limits. It meant big trouble if you had more than $2,000 in the top drawer and $8,000 in your bottom large bill drawer. Apparently the Clay County Savings Association hadn't had the "How to keep your cash safe" seminar. Nowadays you have to break into the vaults of a bank to get anywhere near $60,000, not that we recommend doing any such deed. I am happy to say that at no time in the almost 10 years that I worked at the bank did we ever get robbed. In fact in Valley Oaks Bank history they have never been robbed. Okay I'm looking for some wood to knock on. The James Gang went on the rob numerous other banks and business establishments in their impressively long careers as criminals, but were finally stopped, well actually they were finally both killed which is how most of the old west's bad guys went down.  Just up the road from the bank sits the farm that Jesse and Frank were raised on and where they were laid to rest. The James Gang as they were called back then were the most notorious criminals of their time, in fact of almost anytime for that matter. Historical Liberty Square looks like something out of an old western movie. All the streets are cobblestone and all the buildings are as they were back in the 1800's. The little tour guide we had was the cheeriest and friendliest woman I have ever met. We asked her about what book would be the best to get to read up on our criminals of the old west and she went into the longest explanation imaginable of each and every book she had in the book section. We didn't even need to buy any of them since she gave us their entire story. I think reading the books may not have taken as long as it did to hear her explain them to us. We headed back home to Basswood RV Park at the end of our tour and ordered a pizza from the office. They had great pizza, and they made it right there in the lobby and delivered it to your campsite via a golf cart. It's a great little side business for them. The RV Park is a bit off the highway and there are all sorts of houses on the roads around it so even the locals order their pizza from there since the Pizza Hut in town won't deliver that far out. Frank is now trying to figure out how we can make these little pizzas in the bus and sell them at all the RV parks and campgrounds we visit in the future. Always an entrepreneur that one!

Harley-Davidson's employee parking

A shot through glass, cameras weren't allowed on the tour

One of the many motors assembled by hand

We had such a fun day, I'm ready to ride

May 23rd - Harley-Davidson's Assembly Plant - Platte City, Missouri -

The main reason we chose to come here and camp in Platte City was to tour the infamous Harley-Davidson factory and assembly plant. It was well worth it, especially since it was free! The tour took you through every step there is the build a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. They had huge robots that cut the steel for the fuel tanks and even welded the fuel tanks together. They look almost real the way the robots move and rotated and welded. They have robots that bend the frames of the bikes and weld parts of those together. Then the real people do the finishing touches on the steel and send them to the assembly line to be put together. The assembly line where almost all of the bikes are made are just that, they are lines that move the bikes along and one person does one thing on each bike that passes them. There is an off-shoot assembly line that does the specialty bikes, the name has slipped my mind at the moment so I do apologize for not being historically accurate on this, let's just say they are the Screamin' Eagle V-Rods. This off-shoot assembly line holds one bike with all the parts and one person to assemble the entire thing. This line of bikes has more chrome on it and is specially ordered a certain way so no other bike out there is like it. It was very impressive to see that from a pile of straight metal sheets and a few chrome plated items emerges a beautiful motorcycle. Even the paint room is so carefully monitored that if you work in it you cannot wear any type of lotion or hair gels or makeup. You can only use baby shampoo and no conditioner. Nothing that will get into the air or be on your skin other than just your skin. This way they can almost guarantee that the paint will be perfect and there won't be any defects in it. Apparently other items like cars and motorhomes have tiny particles of make up and hairspray in them and if you look really really close you can see tiny tiny microscopic things in the paint. My thought on this is, once you take this thing out on the road at 100 mile an hour and hit a few bugs there goes your perfect paint job anyways, but I guess if one is going to spend over $20,000 on a motorcycle they expect it to be free from makeup spots in the paint. At the very end of the tour, no they don't give you a free mini bike like the bat place gave us a mini bat, but they do let you sit and pose on a new motorcycle. It was very educational to see how much goes into a Harley-Davidson, and one of the last vehicles that are built in their entirety in America.      

Dinner out with the gang at Wabash

A cookout at Chris and Mike's

Frank gets mauled by puppy kisses

May 27th - Excelsior Springs, Missouri -

Not that we aren't completely enjoying our almost month long vacation, but we were getting a little homesick for our 'road family'. So one day I was looking at the map to see just how close a few of them were to us and found out that Rick and Candie's home town was only about 25 miles away from Platte City. What luck! We called them up to see what they were doing, and as it turns out most of the rest of our traveling friends were having the same lonely feelings and four of the other couples were already camped out in Excelsior Springs with them, even better luck. After getting quick directions we headed out here on Friday to join up with the gang. We have had a wonderful weekend. Good friends of Rick and Candie own an auto shop that just happens to have an enormous parking area that he doesn't use. This nice big parking area was just perfect to hold six motorhomes, all the cars and all the souvenir trailers for the weekend, and was conveniently located in the middle of the town. It's a small town, but big enough to keep the 12 of us entertained for a few days. We went to a great rib and bar-b-que restaurant called Wabash where they have live bands on the weekends and yummy ribs. The ladies took a drive out to the river and hit the casino for a day. None of us hit the big jackpot, but we had a lot of fun and came home with almost as much money as we left with. Sunday we went to some other friend's house where we had a huge bar-b-que and watched the Indy 500, as much as we could thanks to the rain delays, intermingled with the NASCAR race. I will say I'm not a huge NASCAR fan but it was fun to pick someone to win and at least cheer them on. I've always heard that people watch NASCAR for the crashes, but I always though how many times do cars actually crash? Oh my gosh! These cars were crashing all over the place. Luckily no one was hurt, but boy was it crazy. I picked the Budweiser driver to win since we ourselves work with Budweiser racing I thought it only proper. Frank picked the Home Depot car because the track that the race was at was hosted by Lowe's. He thought it would be entertaining to see Lowe's competitors win the race, such a funny guy. Unfortunately both of our chosen teams lost, but at least they didn't crash early on like most of the other famous picks did. There are two new puppies in our traveling circus now, no not in our immediate family, the birds would never put up with that. Doug, who lost his sweet Boston Terrier about a year and a half ago has been looking for a new one for quite some time. He finally found a new Baby. Baby also had a brother that the sellers were trying to get rid of so Helen and Richard, not wanting the sweet puppies to be separated after living together for over 5 months, adopted the little boy and have named him Buddy. As you can see above they both love Frank and they are quite vicious little things as well. Everyone loves a sweet little puppy.

Bradley loves his ark

Mutiny on the ark! Bradley overtakes Noah

Bradley's faceless victims that tried to stop the mutiny

Brandon lights the candles as Chris makes a wish

June 3rd - Topeka Kansas -

Duty calls, and so we are back to work. We have had a nice long break and visited many great places, but it's nice to get back in the swing of things. We missed our friends at work and the teams as well. This weekend was full of parties! Sweet Bradley, aka Poof, turned 11 years old and to celebrate he got a new Noah's Ark complete with two of each animal and of course Mr. and Mrs. Noah. Bradley's favorite thing to do with the people and animals is to chew their faces off. They are made of a very soft plastic that he loves to tear apart. If you look closely at the third picture above you can see that the giraffe has no legs, no ears, no nose and no little horns. The little blue birds also are without eyes and wings. Poor Noah who once was whole now has no fanny and no staff that once held the kind dove that held the ever present olive branch letting them know it was safe to head to shore. Good thing Bradley wasn't on the real Ark, they would never have known when to get off the boat. There was also a birthday for one of the team members. The wind was so strong on Saturday evening that as soon as we would light the candles on Chris' cake the wind would blow them out. Brandon, the driver of the Budweiser car, stood by with a lighter almost continually until Chris was ready to make a wish and blow them out for real. We again have had an emotional weekend full of highs and lows. The Monster team did qualify for the race, had very consistent qualifying rounds, but only made it to the first round on race day since almost 1/3 of the way down the track something on the car broke and the Monster mobile dropped a cylinder. The Budweiser team however had a fabulous race day that ended with another trip to the Winner's Circle. Frank and I again went down to the starting line of the final race between the Budweiser car and the Torco racing car. Next time I will have to bring my video camera so you can see just how much power comes out of these cars. They literally go from a dead stop to 325 mph in 1/4 of a mile as 6 foot flames shoot out of both sides. Standing behind these cars when they propel themselves down the track leaves you in awe, and your face and body covered in rubber that is flying off of the track and the tires. It doesn't hurt, in fact you don't even notice it until you look in the mirror at yourself when you get back to the pits! Today was a beautiful day here in Topeka which was wonderful. We had almost no delays and all the races went without much of a hitch. There was one explosion during the Funny Car races, but it didn't harm the track so today was surprisingly on schedule. We had torrential downpours on Friday which ended with only one qualifying round which was okay for us since both teams were in. It seems that everywhere we go the big black rain clouds follow. We have had rain at every single race so far this year. Some not as bad as others and some only in the evenings after the races were ended, but enough to have to dry the track before the races began the following day. Luckily drying the track is not in our job description. Thank God for the Safety Safari. They are the guys and gals that keep the track in good shape, clean it up after an explosion and keep it safe and dry for all the drivers in each class. We are now off to beautiful Chicago. Let's hope the rain doesn't follow us there!

Frank and Suzy's Monster party tent

Frank chats with the guys between rounds

it takes all 7 guys to hold the car down while Kenny seats the clutch

The view of the stands and the car from the starting line

June 10th - Joliet, Illinois - Torco Racing Fuels Route 66 NHRA Nationals -

The Monster car had a pretty darn good weekend! We didn't win the race, but they made great runs down the track even in the heat and the gremlins that seem to have taken hold of the car seem like they may have been found and killed off. The Monster men qualified 3rd out of 16, which is outstanding for anyone. They ran the quarter mile in 4.75 seconds on Friday night and hit 327 mph. That's pretty darn fast no matter who you are. The best part of the weekend was that there was absolutely no rain!! This is the only race this entire year so far that we haven't had rain. We did have a bit of wind on Thursday during set up. If you notice in the picture of Frank and I the top of the tent is pretty mush an enormous sail. In 35 mile an hour winds this sail is not the most fun thing to set up. While we set it up two of us literally had to lay on top of the tent on top of the semi in order to hold in down so Frank could attach it without the awning taking off with him attached to the strap that holds it to the semi. The wind was so strong it almost took the sail out from underneath us. We had a plan to roll to the left if it did lift us up in order to not fall of the 12 foot tall semi roof, but luckily we were fat enough to hold it down. It definitely got the heart pumping a little. Our party tent wasn't quite as full this weekend so I took full advantage of being able to go up to the starting line to watch the races with the team. Since the last few trips to the starting line I left my handy camera behind, today I kept it in my pocket all day in order to get a few shots of a day in our work lives to share with you all. Kenny won the first round with an amazing run, but lost round number two by just a smidgen. Let's hope the fast runs stay with us on what has become known as the 'U.S. Tour' that we re about to embark on. Since the Tennessee race was postponed we will now have 6 races in 6 weekends. After this week off we will head to New Jersey and within six weeks we will be all the way over on the West Coast in Sonoma California. It will be a busy time, but very exciting to see how the competition of the races stacks up since none of the teams will have any time to test in between these next 6 races. We are off to New Hampshire to visit some good friends and squeeze in the last few states of the U.S that we haven't yet been to.

Such a peaceful surrounding

A perfect evening - some great guitar music and a half gallon of ice cream

Yummy!!

We headed home after watching the sunset

June 11th - Defiance, Ohio - Sitting On the Dock of the Lake -

Home of Martin Diesel Generators was our stop for the night. It's the tiniest little shop in the tiniest little town, however 80% of Prevost generators come out of this tiny yet incredibly busy shop. We stop here once a year to get our trusty generator checked out and fixed up if need be. It would not be a fun time to have the generator stop working at any point on our journey. The guys who work here are wonderful, and we have gotten to know them quite well. They come out to a couple races a year so we stay in touch. Our entertainment of the evening was a nice long walk to the nearby lake with Frank's guitar and some chocolate brownie ice cream to nibble on while we watched the sunset over the lake through the trees and listened to Frank's ever growing library of songs. It was a very nice evening and the weather outside was even nicer, a sure sign that Summer is coming. It's nice to have warm nights instead of cold ones.

Cody loves being outside playing in the grass

A curious caterpillar investigates Frank's guitar

So many colors on such a tiny thing

June 12th - New York State -

As we make our way to New Hampshire to visit some very good friends there we have seen a new side of New York. Literally and figuratively. Literally in the fact that we are now on the West side of the state and figuratively because as of yet the only part of New York we have seen is the Big Apple and the city side of New York. Over here in what the call 'Upstate New York' it is gorgeous. The hills and trees are green and there are no skyscrapers to be seen anywhere. The rest stop we stayed at tonight was amazing. We not only had it to ourselves, aside from a poor truck driver getting an inspection by a police officer, but the sun was still up and the birds were outside. At least 2 dozen truckers did drive in to the rest stop to see if there was room for the night, but they all kept right on driving once they saw the policeman performing the inspection. We figure they were all up for driving a little longer for the night instead of risking being the next inspection victim. This was one of those nights that Frank was very glad not to have the enormous red Budweiser trailer behind the motorhome since we may have sent up a flag of our own screaming "Yes we too are a commercial vehicle, so please come over and look at us" to attract the cop. We are happy to report he went on his merry way after he was done with the trucker. We did however have one guest for the evening. He tried to play the guitar, but since he was all feet and no hands not to mention a little short to reach the strings and fret board he moved on.  Cody wasn't quite sure what to make of our little furry caterpillar friend but he did watch him crawl around the guitar and box with a bit of interest.

Our neighborhood for the week

The amazing view from Kathy's kitchen

We stopped for some great lobster rolls

Lake Winnipesaukee

June 13th - Gilmanton, New Hampshire - Camp Brooks - The Best RV Spot in all of New England -

Hooray! We made it up here to the northern region of the grand old U.S.  We only have 7 states left in our countdown of seeing the entire country. Well, actually only 6, since Alaska isn't contiguous and those darn Canadians won't our babies in their country in order to see the rest of our country, life is so unfair! Tomorrow we are planning on visiting Maine and seeing the sites here in New Hampshire, so that will mark off yet another state. When we leave here we will drive through Massachusetts, hopefully touching Rhode Island and Connecticut so all we will have left are Delaware, which we can probably swing through once we are back on this coast for the Reading race and Nebraska which is pretty much in the middle of the country, but alas we have somehow missed it. We are staying here with Kathy and Gary at their home which sits on a very pretty piece of land with some very pretty views. The second picture shows the view they see each morning from their kitchen window and den.

The lake shores of Maine

The marina that leads to the ocean

Beautiful, yet chilly, Hampton Beach

The town of Hampton of bikers pass by

June 14th - A Drive to Hampton Beach via Maine -

It might have been a little out of the way, but yes we headed to the beaches of New Hampshire today through the state of Maine to take our countdown to only 5. We drove past some beautiful lakes, and docks on the ocean. We had lunch at Hampton Beach that included some excellent New England clam chowder. After lunch we walked through the cute touristy town. It was a bit cold today, the warmest it ever got on the seafront was about 60 degrees so we opted not to go bogey boarding today. Even if it were a sunny day the water being a bit nippy might have stopped us swimming to much as well. I will say, I never thought there was a colder ocean than the California Pacific, but today I was proven wrong. The North Atlantic can definitely give the Pacific a run for it's money when it comes to competing for the chilliest ocean. Since Summer vacation doesn't start here for the kiddos for another week we had the town almost to ourselves which was fun. Laconia Bike Week is here and just up the road from Gary and Kathy's this weekend so there are tons of bikes driving by us everywhere we go. I personally love to look at the different motorcycles that go by, as does Frank so it's fun to be here this time of year. They have a humongous Navy shipyard here as well. It would have been very impressive to see. Unfortunately it is not open to the public, no matter how much you try and bribe the guard at the gate. Darn! Maybe we can sneak in from the ocean side. This evening Gary and Kathy took us to Sawyer's, home of the best Maine lobster around. It was delish! After dinner they took us for a tour around town in their fun T top. Frank and I always have a fun time exploring new cities, but nothing beats a vacation when there are locals involved to show you things we would never think to see on our own. Thanks guys for being such great hosts!

Relaxing on the back patio

While Gary cooked dinner

Cody opened soda and beer for everyone

As we watched a beautiful sunset

June 16th - Later this same day ... ...

After Gary, Kathy and the troops all got off of work, Gary brought them all home for a relaxing bar-b-que and much needed down time after a long day of work. Gary, the master bar-b-quer cooked up the burgers while we ladies made a few salads and the boys mixed the drinks. Cody kept everyone quite entertained with his ability to open their soda or beer cans. His reward for his hard work was being able to remove the tab and play with them until they turned to metal flakes. Don't worry he doesn't swallow even a bit of the tab. He tears it into little pieces that he slowly drops into Frank's hand. From the back deck of the Brooks' home we were able to watch a beautiful sunset and spend some very nice relaxing time in the jacuzzi once the temperature got a bit cool.

A somewhat aerial shot of NHIS

A bird's eye view of the track from the suites

Ready... Set... GO!

June 16th - New Hampshire International Speedway - Loudin, New Hampshire -

Bike, bikes everywhere. Along with Laconia Bike Week here in New Hampshire the speedway, where Gary manages concessions, is having their annual road course motorcycle races. When we lived in California one of our most favorite things of summer was to head up to Laguna Seca and watch the motorcycle races there. Since we haven't been there in a while, we were thrilled to find out that we were able to see them here. Gary gave us the V.I.P tour of the facilities here where they hold two NASCAR Nextel Cup races a year. The stands weren't of course as full this weekend as they will be in two weeks when they hold the Lenox 300 but being spectators we were happy not to fight the crowds. The stands here hold about 90,000 people. Yikes, and we thought the Drag Races were busy. That's a lot of darn people to feed for a weekend so Gary and staff are beyond busy this time of year setting up and preparing for the race. On one of the tours of the suites here we were able to watch the race restart from right above the start/finish line. After our tour we were treated to lunch with Gary, Kathy and their fellow workers.

Abbey and the gnome

The birds were in heaven in the huge yard

June 17th - Happy Father's Day -

Today we laid low and enjoyed the amenities here at Camp Brooks. Frank, Bradley and Cody spent a few hours playing the guitar as Abbey and I took a nice long walk around the property. She usually doesn't like to walk around in the grass, but for some reason as we passed the area of the lawn that Kathy has her gnome family, Abbey was antsy to get off my shoulder and go to the ground. Once on the ground she walked up to a little bridge that held a little gnome just about her size. I of course had to take a picture since everything else that is bigger than a fly scares her and she is usually running in the opposite direction for her little life. She sat there for about 5 minutes, walked up to him and nibbled at him. She briefly tried to pick a fight with him, but since all he did was smile back at her she apparently gave up, figuring that he was a lover and not a fighter. New Hampshire is infamous for it's 'Old Man of the Mountain' rock formation. Unfortunately in 2003 there was a large rock slide that removed the Old Man from the Mountain, so sadly it is now just a mountain :-(. However have no fear, there is still a Man in the Mountain to be seen here in New Hampshire and lucky for us it just happens to be in Kathy's front yard. At first glance it looks a bit different to everyone. My first thought was a lion, while Frank's first thought was an Indian. Abbey's first thought was that it was going to eat her and she wanted nothing to do with him. Up the road from the 'Man in the Mountain' Kathy has created the 'Man in the Well'. His legs are no longer kicking,so we think, along with 'The Old Man of the Mountain', he may no longer be with us. After our tour of the grounds, and discovering last night at dinner that none of Kathy's friends and family had ever had chicken enchiladas I knew I had to change that. Since they all had to work again today at the track, and they have been such great hosts, it was only fitting that I introduce them to homemade chicken enchiladas which are pretty darn good if I do say so myself. . After dinner Frank and I played their classic organ for awhile, boy has been a long time since I sat at a piano. I was amazed at how many songs came back, nothing too tricky mind you, but it was fun to play a bit again. We finished off our evening, and visit in New Hampshire, with a nice chat on the porch and watched the sun set once again.

The original 'Old Man of the Mountain'

After the land slide that removed him

Kathy's version of the Old Man

I would advise not drinking from this well

The bus is ready to be on the road again

Hmm? Are those condos or silos? We always see the most interesting things out here

June 18th - And the Countdown Hits 2! -

Yes, that's right two states to go and we will have been through the entire contiguous United States! Very exciting if you ask us. We drove for about 7 hours today and drove through 6 states. Hmmm! Please keep in mind the reason I say this with shock is that there are some days that we drive for 10 hours and are still in the same state that we started out in, so it makes us feel like we are bookin' when we pass through this many states in such a short time. Yes we realize that these states are much shorter and far more narrow than Texas, but for some reason it feels very rewarding to pass through a bunch of states in one day. Both Rhode Island and Connecticut are very scenic to drive through. Especially all of the enormous bridges that take you over the huge lakes leading out to the Atlantic. We thought of pulling off in Connecticut and hitting the beach, but the map shows the towns as being a bit small and the last thing you want to do is pull of the highway with our setup unless you are fairly sure you a) know where you are going, and b) know that there will be parking for the house once you get there. Not wanting to take a potential wrong turn we opted to stay on the highway and perhaps hit a couple views of the ocean once we get to New Jersey and can take the Jeep out for a day trip up to the coast.   

Tuna and Bob, a bit excited to be at the park

A great view of Lake Erie from the sky lift

Tuna gives a thumbs up, the rest of us scream

June 28th - Sandusky Ohio, Cedar Point Amusement Park -

All work and no play makes very worn out teammates. The Monster Men have been working pretty much non stop for many many months now. Unlike Frank and I they actually have to work in between races and most of the time they drive back to the shop in Indianapolis after each race to fine tune the car, or reload parts for the next race. Since they all got to Ohio a day early they decided to hit the amusement park for a fun day off. To makes things even better they decided to take Frank and I along. We had a blast! It was a lot of fun spending time with the guys outside of work and away from the racetrack. When we picked them up at their hotel, we hardly recognized them in their 'civilian clothes' since all we have ever seen them in before is their Monster attire. Cedar Point is the biggest theme park in the country and has the most roller coasters as well so we were in heaven. It is located on the shores of Lake Erie so the view from the top of the coasters hills was very pretty, very brief due to the rapid speeds, but very pretty. The park was not crowded at all so the lines were nice and short and we were able to hit all the roller coasters, and even a few of the smaller rides. They have these amazing swing rides here where these enormous arms swing you back and forth and end of going pretty much parallel with the ground so you feel like you might actually flip over the top. The third picture above is a close up of 5 of us on the ride. A couple of the guys sat this one out so they were able to snap a few shots. Tuna looks quite relaxed and happy giving Brad, the cameraman, the thumbs up. Frank, as usually just has an enormous grin on his face, Bob and I are both screaming, however Bob  also has his eyes closed and is praying that we aren't all killed. Chris pretty much has the same grinning expression as Frank. Where else can you scream bloody murder without alarming those around you. The other swing ride we hit also swung back and forth but added a little twist, no pun intended. As it swung it also slowly spun in circles. Again I screamed the whole time and hung on to Bob's arm for dear life since somehow Frank was seated away from us. My only fear on a roller coaster is falling out, but if I have someone's hand or arm to hold on to I feel quite secure. Don't ask me why, I have no idea. It's just one of my many quirks. Frank is quite used to this and usually takes my hand before the ride begins, however since he was on the other side of the swing, Bob's arm had to do. I tried my very hardest not to grab on, I even tried to talk myself out of it, but alas my arm overpowered my mind and Bob was the closest. The poor guy will probably never sit next to me on a ride again. We stayed at the park until it closed at 10pm, and then hit Outback for dinner.

What goes up, must come down Eeeeeck!

Hmm? Men looking at a map?? Wow!

Bob and Brad on Mantis

Chris, Frank, Bob and Tuna in line for another great ride

Frank unloads a new Funny Car body

Eddie, the clutch man for the day

The starting line before final round

Kenny and Mike Ashley face off

July 1st - Norwalk Ohio - The Finals -

Yes, that's right the Monster men took us to the final round! It was one of the most exciting race days yet. The car ran very well, and Kenny's times off the line were excellent. We watched a couple of the rounds from the starting line again, and we got our 3 1/2 seconds of fame last night on ESPN. A couple friends called to let us know "We saw you on TV!" Even tough they didn't finish with a Wally it was still an incredible weekend. We are making our way back up into the  points race and if the next few races go as well as today then we have a chance of making it into the Countdown to the Championship. For those of you who don't follow the sport, each team in each category has until the U.S. Nationals which takes place in Indianapolis on Labor Day weekend, to get into the top 8 spots in points. After that race only those cars are in the chase to the championship since the points are re-evaluated. We are currently about 65 points out of 8th place and each round a team wins gets you an additional 20 points so 8th place is definitely achievable for the Monster. This weekend quite a few of the teams that are currently in the top 8 didn't win many rounds, so that helps us as well since those teams didn't increase their points lead but we closed the gap a bit. Frank was able to help the team out a bit this weekend with tires and changing the Funny Car body out for a new one between rounds since the guys were so busy and not used to going so many rounds. On the Budweiser side Kim, the assistant crew chief, had a little fire accident while cleaning out part of the clutch. She's okay, but did end up with some bad burns on her forearms. Having to keep those burns clean, which is next to impossible working on a Dragster's clutch, Eddie stepped out of the kitchen and into the role of the assistant crew chief's assistant. Heck there can't be too much difference between kitchen grease and car grease right? Eddie did a great job on Saturday night because the Budweiser car ran great. It seems that all the hospitality guys changed roles for the weekend, such teamwork!

Rebar would make for some rough racing

Pastor Larry works as the guys learn

Frank flies a Cody kite

Happy Fourth of July!!!!

July 4th weekend - Bristol, Tennessee - Thunder Valley Racetrack -

Happy fourth of July!!!!! We had a very fun weekend. This was the race that had to be rescheduled due to some concrete work that went bad. Considering that just a few weeks ago it looked like the first picture above and this weekend we had a great weekend full of lots of good racing, is amazing. To make it up to everyone that had to rearrange their schedules in order to make it out here to Bristol, the track treated us all to a bar-b-que on Wednesday night with hot dogs, hamburgers, watermelon, drinks and desert. A couple hours after the bar-b-que, up at our campground, Frank and I had a little party along with friends of ours Julie and Todd, who is one of the tuners for Larry Dixon and the SkyTell team. Bob, Brad and Tom from the Monster team came, and almost the whole Dixon team came so we had a good time. The boys of course ate again, we played horseshoes and flew a few kites that Julie had brought along.  Our pastor from RFC, Racers for Christ, came over and recharged our dash A/C since it hasn't been blowing very cold air out over the last couple weeks, and we are about to take some very long trips across some very hot states. It's so nice having so many helpful people around. Whenever someone has a problem it always seems that another person out here knows just what to do. Larry and Linda Smiley, yes their last name is very appropriate for being the pastor family, are wonderful people and are always around to help out with a word of encouragement, or a can of coolant. Steve, Kurt and Frank watched Larry in hopes that perhaps next time they can do it to their own coaches in case Larry and his handy pressure gauges aren't around. Friday night the track had an enormous fireworks show as soon as the races ended to extend the celebrations another day, and then on Saturday night they had another big bar-b-que along with a local country band. Sunday our Budweiser team won another Wally which brings the count to 4, so we had a Winner's Circle party to top of the festive holiday weekend.

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