Richmond Virginia

Thursday, April 29th

Today we went shopping to get Roy a swim suit (a new one every 10 years isn't too bad!). Afterward we headed downtown Richmond to the Edgar Allen Poe Museum. They have the largest collection of his memorabilia here (clothes, dishes, furnitures, and much of his writing). He was an editor of a literary journal published in the 1700s while he lived in Richmond. Afterward we came back to the RV and sat outside in the sunshine. We then headed to Bass Pro Shop where Jamie McMurray (winner of the 2010 Daytona 500) was signing autographs. As you can see, we both got his autograph. Races tomorrow night and Saturday night. We'll head to South Carolina on Monday or Tuesday.

Wild races and weekend

Today we left Talladega and a wild weekend. All evening Friday and all day Saturday we were on tornado watch. The winds blew and it rained and rained. We lucked out with a high spot while many others got out of their RVs to many inches of rain water. We watched a tent go flying in the air, hit a car and break the windshield. The Nationwide race was cancelled on Saturday due to "dangerous" weather. No kidding! Sunday was a beautiful day. We went to church at the Cornerstone campground church. After that, headed to both the Sprint Cup and National races at the 2.66 mile Talledega Superspeedway. It was a fabulous race. Our driver led off and on all day but got shiffled back to 13th at the end. (He's still 8th place in the points though!!). The weather couldn't have been more perfect. This morning we packed up and headed towards Richmond, Virginia. We drove about half way and will be north of Richmond tomorrow. Hope this finds you all well.

Talledega --We are here

We left Idaho on the 15th. Took 2 days to get to Phoenix where we visited some dear friends, LaVerne and Harold Roberts. We left on the 17th and arrived in Talledega Alabama on the 20th after 3 long days of hard driving. We are camped right outside Turn 1 and can see the track from our RV. The dogs were happy to be able to run around a little. Snoops barks at everything so we have some training to do! We will bel here until Monday. It was nice to sit in the sun and soak it up today after we spent a couple of hrs. "decorating" the RV outside with all of our Earnhardt Jr. stuff (gotta get in the racin' mood!)

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 . . . "