Dodge City and Vail Colorado

From Branson, MO we finally landed in Dodge City, Kansas. We stayed there two days. Went to Boot Hill Cemetary and Museum. Probably the best thing was the Longbranch Saloon which was the basis of the TV show Gunsmoke. There was lots of Gunsmoke memorabilia too that had been donated from Hollywood. We drove on to Colorado where we are camped. We have driven by some of the most gorgeous, expensive homes I've seen (and to imagine that these are people's second and third homes) in the Vail Colorado area. Tomorrow we will head towards Salt Lake City and home probably on Wed evening.

Here are two pictures from Manassas Virginia. The house in the picture on the right is the reconstructed house of the women killed during the first Battle of Bull Run. Her family reconstructed the house after the civil war. The picture shows the field where both Battles of Bull Run (summer 1861 and summer 1862) ended. The stone bridge is over the stream called Bull Run. This bridge was how the northern troups reached the area. It was destroyed by the south later but rebuilt after the war. We just arrived today in Branson, Missouri. Haven't ever been here, but this city was recommended to us since we enjoyed Nashville so much. We plan to be here a couple of days and then head on to Denver and home.

We had a great time at the Dover races! The Friday truck race was rained out so they held it Saturday. Keselowski #88 (J.R. Motorsports) won the National race and Brian Scott #16 of Boise Idaho won the truck race. Both races had the most laps lead by Kyle Busch but he had tire problems in both races (Boo Hoo . . .). Sunday's race was beautiful and warm. Even though Jimmy Johnson won, it was exciting down to the last lap with Tony Stewart coming close to his first win as an owner/driver. Kyle Busch (oh boo hoo again) had problems during the race. You might say we don't like Kyle and you would be correct. When we got his signature in Charlotte he was rude and unfriendly. He is disrespectful of the sport (in our opinion) and is childish. When he's winning, he speaks to the media, but when he's losing or has problems, he runs to his trailor and hides. We find this spoiled. Of course, he's recently made some rude comments about our driver to the media, even though JR hasn't returned those comments (at least publicly). Enough said.
We are now in Manassas, Virginia, the site of two Battle of Bull Runs. Hope to get some pictures up. There was a battle summer of 1861 and one summer of 1862, both lost by the union. The area is beautiful and not too far from Washington DC. In fact, ladies and gentlemen came from D.C. to picnic and watch the battle - thinking the first battle would be the only one of the civil war (can you imagine????). Both turned out to be very bloody battles with 1000s of men killed. We are heading (slowly) home tomorrow and should be in Idaho somewhere about June 10-12.

Here are some pictures from last week. The one is where I'm getting a signature on a cookbook from Jeff Gordon's mom and Martha Earnhardt (Dale Earnhardt, Jr's grandmother) out at the Hendrick Motor Sports shop. Another is of Tony Stewart's shop (Stewart-Haas Racing) and Penske race shop that builds cars for Kurt Busch. Wow, what clean places where they build cars. You felt like you could eat your lunch off the floor. The last picture is of us outside Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte. We've now moved onto to Dover Delaware where the sun is shining again (although we still have thunderstorms in the evening). There are three races this weekend, truck on Fri, National race on Sat and Sprint Cup race on Sunday. As many say, lots of "turn left, turn left . . . "

Coca Cola 600 race

It has been quite a week of rain, rain and more rain. Seems like every race we went to this week was threated with rain. Yesterday's Coca Cola 600 was rained out (after we sat in the stands for hours under rain gear). Today the race ended just past half way, again due to rain. For those of you non-NASCAR fans,the race can be called if it has gone half-way. Earnhardt Jr did absolutely terrible. Seems his car was too loose all day and a couple of times he almost lost it in the wall. Things were pretty quiet on his radio (which is odd because he gets pretty upset usually). We will leave the track tomorrow and head to Dover DE for our last race of this spring.
Otherwise, things are going well and we are having fun.

This last week in Charlotte NC has been busy. Wednesday we went out to Victory Junction Gang Camp. For those of you that don't know anything about it, this camp was started in memory of Adam Petty (Richard Petty's grandson) after he was killed at a practice session on a NASCAR track in New Hampshire. This camp provides a free experience for kids with serious diseases and disorders. Our club worked for a half-day weeding, then took a tour of the camp and ate lunch there. Most of the drivers have donated a lot of money to this camp either directly or through there own foundations. There is a complete gym, a covered baseball field, a bowling alley, a video game building, and a complete hospital. Every activity center is made so disabled children can also participate. The picture is of one of the dorms, which inside has a NASCAR theme.
Thursday we went to the NASCAR Research and Development center. This is where the car is designed, safety issues are addressed and car testing is done. They are in the process of developing driver seat standards at the moment. Even though the HANS device protests the driver's heads, there are no regulations on seats yet. In the afternoon, we went to driver shops. Thursday night we went to the Pit Crew Competition, where all the pit crews in the All Star race compete. Jeff Burton's team won. Friday was the "sit-down" convention. Mr. Pemberton spoke (he is head of NASCAR competition) and a historian from the new NASCAR Hall of Fame (which will open next May) spoke to us. Both were quite interesting. Friday evening was the truck race. Saturday we went on a garage tour before the All Star race. The picture is in front of #88 AMP energy, Dale Earnhardt's car. They are working on something in the rear end. Tony Stewart came away a million dollars richer by winning his first race as a owner/driver. The other picture was taken by Combos snack people outside the track at the venders. We have moved over to the track RV camping right outside turn 3-4. Out our front window we can see the track and hear them running on the track. We will be here until next Monday and then head to Dover DE.

SC and onto NC

We were under computer silence, as Verizon Wireless didn't work in the KOA we were staying. The races were good at the track too tough to tame. Mark Martin (50+ years old!) won the race. There's hope for us oldies after all. This is his second win this year. South Carolina started out nice and warm but started raining when a big storm moved in. Roy and I were fighting a stomach virus so we stayed in quite a bit anyway. Now we've moved on to North Carolina and are parked near the track in Concord. Tomorrow we start 3 days of our Nascar Members Club meetings. In the morning we are headed to Victory Gang Junction camp for a work day. It looks like today will be a wonderful sunny day.

Yorktown

We spent yesterday and today in Yorktown, VA. This is the area where the Revolutionary War basically ended (even though it was 2 more years before the peace treaty was signed). Here Cornwallis surrendered to Washington and Layfayette (from France). After this surrender, there were only a few more battles. The British were appalled that a rag tag army had defeated them here. The town is small, but there are houses with cannon balls still stuck in them. Cornwallis had taken the town and built trenches all around. The patriots surrounded them and the French ships took the harbor up the York river. There was a driving tour that took about 4 hours to go around and visit all the stops. Tomorrow we head to Darlington S.C. for more races.
Today was Roy's birthday!

Here's a promised picture from Talladega Race ending. Four drivers were madly racing to the end of the race. Keselowski tried to pass Carl Edwards, who was doing blocking moves (all while going close to 190 m.p.h!). Keselowski pulled up and Carl tried to pull over and they got together. Carl's car headed up the track in the air and Newman's car punted him up and the car rolled along the fence. As you can see it did a real job on the fence.
After Talledega we headed to Byron GA to have our RV water heater fixed. Just as we pulled
in the shifter panel went blank and we couldn't move the RV. Turns out the shifter panel went bad right in front of the repair shop with only 50 miles left on the warranty. Thank you Lord!
We spend 3 days there and visited Andersonville (the notorous confederate POW camp). Over 30,000 men lived on 26 acres with nothing but tents, and a creek for water and toilet. The picture shows a mock up of part of the walls. After 3 days (2 nights in hotels, we 3 dogs!) we headed to Richmond for the races. We met Jeff Burton at Walmart. What a gracious individual. He spent lots of time with the kids waiting in line for his signature.
We are now headed to Yorktown VA and then on the S.C. (Darlington track - the track too tough to tame or also called the lady in Black).

Talladega was - - well Talladega

What a wild and crazy set of races at Talladega but I guess that's why we love it. The National race was a close race to the finish and the Sprint Cup race had over 50 lead changes with 20 + drivers having the lead. Then, of course, a wild crazy finish with Carl Edwards flipping along the fence and then getting out of his car and running over the finish line. We are currently in Byron, Georgia (south of Atlanta, near Macon GA) getting our RV fixed. We should be here at least one more day and possible two getting the hot water fixed and one of the LCD panels. We are currently in a Super 8 hotel (not many hotels take 3 dogs). We hope to be headed to VA (Richmond) by Wed morning. I will post some race pictures soon. Roy took pictures of the fence after Carl's wreck. Unfortunately 9 fans were hurt by debris, only one hurt bad enough to be hospitalized with a broken jaw. Earnhardt Jr. finished 2nd to his development driver Keselowski. It was a fabulous race to watch.

Talladega and Oklahoma Bombing Memorial

We arrived in Talladega on Tuesday afternoon. We are parked outside Turn 1 of the NASCAR Superspeedway and it's like parking in Julia Davis Park (grass, mature trees, etc.). We spent Wed and today just sitting around in the sun, playing with the dogs, reading, and sewing (well I guess Roy didn't sew). I'm uploading 4 pictures from the Oklahoma Bombing Memorial that we visited on the way here. One is of the chairs (168 chairs, one for each victim), one of a child's chair, one of the reflection pool and the memorabilia fence. The memorial also included a three story museum but you couldn't take any pictures inside.

BBQ in Tennesee

We've landed in Memphis TN, the home of Elvis Presley's Graceland (been there, done that) and the world's best BBQ. We are just spending one night and then headed to Talledega. Yesterday we were in Oklahoma City where we went to Trinity Nazarene Church and then headed down to the Oklahoma Bombing Memorial. We didn't know it, but yesterday was the 14th anniversay of the bombing, so there were 100s of people at the memorial. We spend 2 hours going through the memorial. Amazing that two guys could take down that building. It was pretty sad at the chair memorial (pictures to follow). Lots of chairs had flowers and Teddy bears on them. I'd forgotten that so many children will killed.

Still in Abuquerque

We spent about 1/2 day finding out our water heater needs to be replaced (Costly!!!) and that it will take 2 weeks to get a water heater. We are working with a Camping World in South Carolina to replace it when we are there in a little over two weeks. We are really camping now. Thank goodness for KOAs and Good Sam places to stay with warm showers. We are heading to Oklahoma City area tomorrow and will go to church there and visit the Oklahoma Bombing Memorial.

So much for spring

We have driven to Provo, Utah. It started snowing before Twin Falls, ID and has snowed off and on all day. We're parked in an RV park outside of Provo and found out we have a water leak. Seems like something broke leaving the water heater. We're heading to Albuquerque NM and will probably stay a day or two and get the line fixed. It is freezing cold outside and our dogs don't want to leave the RV (neither do I). Hopefully NM will be warmer!!

On the Road again!

Tomorrow (Wed. 4/15) we will be leaving again for another NASCAR trip. We are headed to Talladega AL for the first set of races in a week and one-half. From there we're going to Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Delaware, back to Virginia to see Mannassas (Bull Run) Battlefield and then home. So Big Bertha (our RV) is out of the shed and on the road again!