Martinsville/Talladega

We enjoyed the Martinsville races. The track is the smallest track on the 36 race circuit and built right next to a railroad track. During the sprint race (which Earnhart led 90 of the 500 laps!!!!!), the train went by slowly (you think the engineer wanted to watch a little of the race?).
We have moved on to Talladega, AL after spending the night in Atlanta, GA. Tomorrow Roy and I are flying to San Diego for Joan's funeral (Roy's sister). She fought a long battle against breast and lung cancer. This last month has been hard and God called her home. We will miss her!

Roy is back!

Roy spent 4 days in San Diego with his sister, who is under hospice care. All his sisters and brothers were there. I stayed with the dogs and RV in Virginia. It seemed like a long time but important time for Roy to be with family. Joan is still in hospice care, but heavily medicated. The cancer has spread from breast, to lungs, to bones. They have discontinued chemo and radiation as she is too weak to continue. Just continue to pray. We will head towards Talladega, AL on Monday after this weekends Truck and Sprint Cup race. Lord, please give strength to all the Stringer/Kapicka family during this tough time. Amen.

Martinsville, Virginia

Since I last wrote, we've done a lot of traveling. On the 9th we drove to south of Boston (Middleboro). (The picture is of me with my lobster!)We went out to Cape Cod (where the rich live!) and walked our dogs on the beach. On Sunday we visited a small church of the Nazarene in Lakeview. On Monday we drove to Richmond Virginia (got stuck in traffic near NYC, Baltimore AND Washington DC so it took forever!). When we got up in Richmond, we couldn't get the jacks up in the RV. Waited all day for a repairman, who finally got the jacks up so we could travel (after multiple phone calls to Winnebego). On the 13th we arrived at the Klondike campground, where we have a lot of friends, for camping at the racetrack. Wed night we went to a dirt track race. Friday we attended a track Bible study, then watched the NASCAR Chef cook (picture of chef at left with Chris) in front of one of the RVs in our campground (we'll be in the background when it airs before the Texas race). We went to an autograph session at the racetrack that had about 20 nationwide driver's, incuding Joe Nemechek and Brian Scott (local Boise boy). On Saturday, we went to a church service at the track and in the evening went to the Sprint Cup race. Sunday we drove to Martinsville. Today (Monday the 18th), I drove Roy to Roanoke VG. He's flying to San Diego until Friday to be with his sister Joan, who has agressive cancer. Please pray for her.

Back in the USA

Today we crossed the border. They walked through our RV and made us open our car carrier but that's about all. Took about 15-20 minutes. Said they were looking for hiding people. We are now in Saco, Maine for the night. Going to Boston for Lobster tomorrow night! We will stay Sat and Sun in Boston then start towards Charlotte NC Should arrive in NC on Tuesday. NASCAR races on Friday and Saturday. Good to be home and have signs in English rather than French.

Today we took a bus tour of Quebec City. We went back to the Church of Notre Dame on Upper Quebec and it was open. This is the church built in 1688. The one picture is inside the church with a ship hanging from the ceiling. This was to bring good luck to the sailors coming up the St. Lawrence from Europe and back. We drove around Quebec for a couple of hrs. looking at various buildings, including the Citadel, which is currently a military base in Quebec. We then drove to the falls of Montmorency (picture). Roy and I walked up to the base of the falls until we started getting pretty wet. We went somewhat close than the picture. We then road across to the Island of New Orleans, a small island that mainly has farmers and rich people with summer homes. We stopped at a Chocolatier (there are lots of these in Quebec). Good thing we don't go into these shops often. Yummmm. We then drove to the Gilles family shop - a family that for over 100 years has been making copper art. This family (father) made the door coverings on the church we were going to visit next. On the way to the church we stopped at another temptation place - homemade bread with maple butter. This area has a lot of maple trees and lots of maple syrup available. Never thought of putting maple syrup into butter, but it's as good as honey butter. Our tour ended at Sainte Anne de Beaupie basilica, a church dedicated to St. Anne, the mother of Mary. This church was extremely beautiful but no pictures on the inside. I found a statue on the outside of Mary very interesting Mary is standing on the serpent (which has an apple in it's mouth). Enjoyed the symbolism there.

Quebec City Number 1

Arrived here in Quebec City, Quebec about 1 p.m. and drove downtown to old town. Quebec is an amazingly old city First established in the 1530s. We drove to old town and visited an old ammunitions factory that was held by the French, then the British. The old city is surrounded by a stone wall. The lower old city is right on the St. Lawrence river which connects to the Atlantic Ocean. You will notice in old city the cobblestone streets are very narrow with lots of little shops along the street of stone buildings - very European. The Catholic church was built in 1688 on the site that Champlain originally built his stockard (an early Canadian explorer). Tomorrow we are taking an all day guided tour. This will be our last Canadian stop. Friday morning we will head to Maine and probably spend the night in southern Maine. In the city 94% speak French so we don't hear much English, although the shop keepers speak some English.

Visits to Montreal

Yesterday afternoon we drove into Montreal and visited St. Joseph's Oratory - a large catholic church. St. Joseph is the patron saint of Canada. This basilica also honors Brother Andre, a healing monk. His heart (real) is on display in the church museum. (We have a picture of it!). We also went downtown to the Cathedral of Montreal, a 1/4 scale church replica of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It had a very unusual canopy of the altar. We drove by McGill University (Canada's Harvard).

Today we headed down to "old" Montreal, a part of the city that was built in the 1800s. The streets are narrow as you can see in the picture and cobblestoned. We walked to various small shops and to another Catholic church called Basilica Notre Dame De Montreal. This was a huge church built in the 1820's and finished in the 1870's. It had an absolutely huge beautiful alter up front. We actually took a tour from one of the parishners, which was really fascinating. Afterward we drove by the 1976 Olympic park. The big stadium (where they now play professional baseball and other sports) is called the Big "O". They didn't even finish the stadium until 1990. It has had to have many repairs, so we were told the locals call it the Big "Owe". It was pretty impressive. The large wing is a tower that you can ride up in for $$.

Please pray for Roy's Sister, Joan. Her cancer has spread and she is doing poorly.

10/4 from Montreal

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while. We have been in fairly unpopulated parts of Canada the last few days with little internet service. Our last blog we were in Thunder Bay. On Sept 29th we drove to Sault (said Sue) Ste. Marie. The fall leaves were incredibly beautiful. It is impossible to describe the colors. I've seen pictures but pictures do not do the scenary credit. There is every shade of green, yellow, orange and red. On Wednesday we went down to the locks between lake Superior and Heron. Canada has no commerical locks (USA has 4 commerical locks between the lakes though). We then went to a Bush pilot museum. These planes were unbelievable. They were and are used to fight forest fires and fly people in to remote areas, landing on lakes. They can actually fly over the surface of the water and pick up water to then deliver to fires. After that , we went to an Italian restaurant with some friends we met in Charlotte last year (at a NASCAR race) - Bob and Carol McDowells. We hit it off last year immediate. The are Christians and Bob is into cars and Carol is a Nurse Practioner AND they are Earnhart fans - so we hit it off. On Friday we rode the Agawa Canyon train up the Canyon for 4 hours (mainly for the scenary) and then back. After we got back, we went to Bob and Carol's for dinner. They are true NASCAR Earnhard fans as their house is fully NASCAR decorated. On Saturday we drove to the little town of Mattawa, Ontario about the size of McCall or smaller. There were only 4 churches so we ended up at a Pentacostal church on Sunday. Today we drove to Montreal and will be here a couple of days. More on Montreal tomorrow.