Indy Car Adventures part 4

OK, I think I left off with heading to "dream land" on Friday night.

Saturday morning dawned clear and HOT. I was hoping the temps would stay down a bit, as there's hardly any shade at the track. Oh well, I applied lots and lots and lots of sunscreen and we headed out for the day. I decided we had spent enough money on food at the track, so I packed a lunch for tailgating later.

We arrived about 10:00 and headed directly to the garage area. There was alot more activity than on Friday. The Indy Lights were racing Saturday night and the Indy cars were getting ready for Sunday's race. We wondered a little further and found the area where all the driver's RV's were parked. At one point we thought we had a "Danica sighting"


but it turned out to be a false alarm. That is her RV on the right, just not her. Oh well, we'd keep looking. It wasn't long before we could hear and actually feel the sound of cars on the track. It's really something you need to experience to believe. Anyway, we headed back to an area where we could see what was going on and discovered that the Indy Light cars were doing practice laps. We found a spot to sit and watch for awhile. If these smaller cars were this loud, I couldn't imagine what the "big boys" were going to sound like. Ear plugs were definately going on my shopping list.

After their practice laps were watched them take the cars back to the garage and saw a couple of the drivers.

Then is was the Indy Car's turn for practice. They did it in 2 groups and Danica was in the second group, so we took a quick break and got a beverage. It was really hot, but a breeze did keep us from melting. After practice laps were over, there was a break for Indy Cars and the Light's got ready for qualifying for their race that night. We decided to head out to the truck for our lunch. When we got there we decided it was just too darned hot to tailgate in the parking lot so we headed into town for look for a park. We found a great spot in the shade and enjoyed about an hour of eating, relaxing, talking and just plain recharging before heading back.

We got in just in time to see the cars heading to the inspection area before doing qualifying for the race on Sunday.

I couldn't believe that at that critical point we were able to get so close to the cars. There was a delay and several cars ended up parked right in front of where we were standing. We were close enough to touch them, but decided that we would probably we safer if we didn't try.

We waited for about an hour and only 3 cars had been out on the track to qualify. It had been raining so much in the area, that even though the track appeared to be dry, water kept seeping up and causing some really slick spots. Crews kept going out on the track with towels to dry and soak it up and get things dried out.

They ended up canceling qualifying completely and we got ready to head back to camp. On the way out I got my first Indy Car Driver sighting. Dan Weldon, who drives the National Guard car had taken a couple of minutes to sign a few autographs.

We didn't make it over in time to get an autograph, but I did get a quick picture. We decided to skip the actual autograph session that evening, as we were getting tired, the crowd was getting bigger and it was looking like rain. We headed back to camp to get a good night's sleep. I couldn't wait for Sunday!!!!

Stay tuned for the conclusion of Indy Car Adventures...........................

Weekend Update 2 movies and 2 much 2 eat

It was a pretty quiet weekend for me. It started by heading to Cindy's (youngest daughter) after work. She and Grandson Brandon wanted me to go out for the evening with them. Doug and Lauren were at church camp, so it would just be the 3 of us. We dined at "Cheeseburger in Paradise" and saw the new Transformers movie. Excellent flick.

Michael was working, so I had alot of time to myself. With the 4th of July weekend quickly approaching and the possibility of house guests, I did think a little house cleaning was in order. Some is done but there's alot left to do. Maybe it just won't get done.

Went to church this morning and the youth group was serving pancakes and sausage as a fund raiser for their mission trip next month.



After that I picked up Mom and headed for the city. We hadn't spent any time together for quite awhile and I was feeling a little guilty. We had a nice time. Went to Angels and Demons and then hit Applebee's for a bite to eat. Actually I had several bites, at least one too many, and then almost didn't have the energy to head home. Decided to stop and see Jen (oldest daughter) on the way back and stayed for an hour or so to visit with her. Mom hadn't been to their house to see the work they have been doing in their kitchen or the new deck. When I got Mom home I helped her with a couple of things. I wanted to get out her digital photo frame that she has had for over a year and never had out of the box. I'm going to set up some pictures on a memory card, so she can start enjoying it.


I don't even want to think about going back to work tomorrow. The weekends are just too short and are getting shorter all the time. I must be getting old. Oh well, I guess it's time to head off to bed. 6:00 AM seems to come awfully early.

Have a great week........................

Indy Car Adventures, part 3

It's been an extremely lazy day at my house, but thought I would take a few minutes from my "hectic" schedule (yeah right) and add a little more info about our weekend adventures.

Let's see, Friday morning we slept in a little later than normal (but when you usually get up at 5:30 AM that's not saying much). Michael got up first, as usual, and started breakfast while I showered and dressed for the day. I took a stroll around the campground while Michael got ready to go.

We headed for the race track about 10:00 AM and the ticket office was our first stop. We had decided to go for the garage passes and ended up getting them for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

I wasn't sure what we would find to do all 3 days, I mean how much could there be to do in the garage area for 3 days? I guess I was going to find out. Next step, find out where to park and how to get in. We drove around and after asking 3 or 4 people, 1 of which wanted us to give him our truck, we found out where to park and enter. Unfortunately, after we got to the gate, we found out we couldn't get in until 12:30. We killed the hour we had to wait visiting with another fan. He was a season ticket holder and we had a great time visiting with him. We only had to argue with the lady at the gate for a couple of minutes, before we were allowed in to exchange our vouchers for the actual garage passes and we were set to go.

We took the tram down to the garage area. What else would you use to pull the trams in Iowa? John Deere tractors, of course.

This is just a little taste of what it's like. It didn't take long for me to be totally taken in by the whole scene. We have been Danica Patrick fans for quite awhile and one of the first things we saw was her car!!!!!! Ok, I'll admit it, I was totally star struck and I hadn't even seen any stars yet. It was shaping up to be a really great experience.

We spent the rest of the afternoon checking out all the sights. I think I'll just let my pictures tell the rest of the story.

Just a few of the things that were going on on Friday afternoon. Heavy rain and storm warnings forced us to head back to the campsite about 5:00, but of course we had to stop at the Newton Family Restaurant for a bite to eat before heading to camp. Michael decided to take a nap when we got back, so I spent an hour or so downloading pictures off our cameras and getting them ready to go for the next day. After a couple hours of relaxing and listening to the snores from the bedroom, I decided I was bored and needed to be entertained. We headed back to Newton to see what was happening and had to stop and make a rescue on the way. A couple in a pick-up had gone into the ditch trying to turn around in a driveway. We stopped and pulled them out of the ditch before heading on into town. I apologize for not having pictures, but again, I'd left my camera in the camper. There wasn't alot happening in Newton, so we heading back to camp and a good night's sleep.

Stay tuned for the next installment of Indy Car Adventures!!!!! Good night!!!!

Indy Car Adventures, part 2

OK, as you may or may not remember, I left off with a campsite secured at Rock Creek State Park and tickets to the Iowa Corn Indy 250 at the Iowa Speedway in Newton IA. You can read about that here.

I'm going to skip a couple of days, 'cause all I did was work, but on Thursday June 18th at 11:00 AM, look out. I'm outta here!!!!!


Michael picked me up at work (he came home from Newton on Wednesday night and took me to work on Thursday so we would only have one car at the campsite. Rock Creek is a nice park, but things are fairly crowded together and not alot of extra parking space is available.) Anyway, he picked me up and we headed for Newton. We stopped at a Dairy Queen along the way for lunch, but for the life of me I can't remember where. Anyway, had a tasty sandwich and continued on. We arrived at the Newton exit at about 2:30 and went directly to the Speedway.



This is a view of the speedway from the exit.

We went directly to the ticket office to ask about "fan walk" tickets. The nice lady there suggested "garage passes" instead. We decided to head for the campsite and think about which we wanted to get, so headed on to Rock Creek State Park. It's about 14 miles from the speedway to the park and not terribly exciting, but worth the drive. Nice park with a very pretty lake.







A view of our campsite from across the lake.


We hung out at the camp for awhile, unpacked, opened windows, put out our chairs, etc and then headed back to Newton for food and a tour of the town. I'm very sorry to say, I forgot to take my camera with me (that almost never happens) so I don't have any photos, but I can tell you this.................If you're ever in Newton IA, stop and eat at the Newton Family Restaurant. Excellent food, friendly service and great prices. You can't beat that combination!!!!

After eating so much I could hardly move we headed out to see the town. Newton's not too big so the tour doesn't take long, but it's a nice place. We decided to stop at the library and check on Internet access. I'd brought my laptop along, but alas, no wireless at the park. We walked in the door about 10 minutes before closing and the mean library lady wasn't very happy with us. We decided it might be a good idea to try again on Friday. We headed back to the campsite and headed to bed. It had been a long day for both of us and I was pretty sure Friday would be a full day too.

Stay tuned for part 3 of INDY CAR ADVENTURES.

Hello World

Hello World

I'm sitting here in Nej's living room getting lessons on blogging. Yes, I know. How far behind the times can one person possibly be? I do actually have electricity in my house and running water, but in the world of social media I'm way behind. So, please bear with me in my quest to join the 21st century.

I actually wanted to start this as a sort of journal. I've never been good at writing in diaries or keeping journals. To tell the truth, I've never tried. But after reading Nej's blog for a couple of months I've decided this might work. I"m on my computer every day, so why not take a few minutes to jot down some of my ramblings. I'll probably bore everyone to death, but reading this may have value to anyone suffering from insomnia.

So, let's get started shall we? I'm going to start with our adventures of last weekend. I say "our" adventures, as I shared the weekend with the same person I've been sharing weekends with for, oh, 34 years. My husband Michael aka "The Filthy Beast". Don't worry that I'm insulting him, he actually came up with the title himself. Our daughter is a huge Cary Grant fan and it's a line from our favorite of his many movies, "Father Goose". Anyway, on to the weekend.

Michael is something of an Indy Car race fan and has wanted to go to Newton IA to the Iowa Speedway ever since it opened. They have been racing Indy cars there for 3 years now and we decided that this was the year. I wasn't terribly excited about it at first, but that changed about 5 minutes after we arrived, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Michael left on Tuesday to take our camper over, try to get a site and try to score tickets to the race. He called me late in the day to tell me he had been successful in both quests. Camp site secured and tickets in his hand. OK, now I guess I had to go.


Campsite at Rock Creek State Park

Stay tuned for part two of our weekend adventure.