Talladega Tidbits....and more

A few more Talladega tidbits:

I have to add a couple of major things about the cup race. First of all, there were 88 lead changes..a NASCAR record. No wonder I was having trouble keeping track of who was leading. Secondly, it was the 8th closest finish in history. Harvick won by .011 of a second. Good thing they had cameras at the finish line.

(Picture copied from NASCAR.com.) I didn't take it.

I forgot to include in my previous Talladega story that I backed the coach out of the parking place on Talladega Blvd. I didn't even hit anything but I had lots of eyes watching me to make sure I didn't screw up.

This naked tire character was one of the "cute" ones running up and down the Blvd. Note: Jimmy looking on!

Getting ready for the race.

The partners in crime!

I have to say that the guys got lots of close ups of Tony's pit.

Here they are with the pace car.

Looks like Kyle Busch's tires.

Tony's car on the track.

Harvick going into victory lane...close up and personal!

On top of Buzz..I think they are reminiscing!

So, that is it for the pictures, as of now. Many other dozens but you would be bored!

We are at Tybee Island, GA.-east of Savannah. Nice warm, sunny weather.

My allergies have stopped bugging me but Jim's are still with him.

Next stop....no one knows! Imagine that. Toodles for now.

Stop, drop and roll in Dega

First, I will share what I put on Facebook last night:

"Will have blog material tomorrow. For a starter, I have one of Tony's nuts. Oh, I mean LUG NUTS!"

So let's back up to Saturday. We survived the bad weather. It actually was just lots of rain and a little bit of wind. Jim was in bed all day with what he thinks were kidney stone pains. All is well now but there was a time he thought he was having a baby.

By Sunday the rain had stopped and the sun was out in full force, with a high of 80. We went to the grass between turns 2 and 3 to watch the race. The Cup race was pretty exciting with Tony jumping all over the track but he was up close to the front several times. In the end, Kevin Harvick won by .011 seconds. That is pretty darn close! The group put a pool together. JHB got third place with the #42 car. Not bad.

Prior to the race starting, the boys (GOB and BWB) were sent to redeem some coins from the Hellman's 88 tent. The tram was full so they decided to walk, and thus, the safari began! With the free Hellmans 88 yellow chairs in hand, they started heading back but somehow got derailed and took a detour. That meant a stop, drop and roll under a security fence! Not knowing where to go next, they got 2 beers to help fuel their next decision. While wondering around, they found themselves getting closer and closer to the pits. After thinking they could go no further, they miraculously circumvented several more layers of security. They ended up in the #14 pit! Now their bladders were full so they managed to get under another fence and got into the Miller Lite Zone. Of course, there were bathrooms AND a "few" free Miller Lites. It's funny it was Miller, as they both won't usually touch that brand but the price must have been right. You can imagine that was trouble for those two!!!! Can't you just hear all of the laughing and high-fiving going on!

Meanwhile, the race had started and we didn't know where they were. We finally connected and heard they were in places they shouldn't be without the proper credentials or passes. I didn't think they even had their regular infield tickets with them. They snuck under several fences, security guards and NASCAR personnel and got into many of the pits, and shot the shit with lots of people. Now here is where Tony's nuts come in. One of Tony's pit crew was asking these two yahoos for advice. Ya, I bet that was a little added fluff to their adventure! Anyway, the pit guy gave them a handful of "hot" lug nuts fresh from the 5th pit stop. Woo-hoo!! Now I have one of Tony's yellow nuts! After the race somehow they noticed yet another opportunity to walk through a security fence and got into the garage area, just in time to see the Nationwide cars getting lined up for the next race. I guess they got kicked out of that garage for improper attire and drinking beer. Imagine that! They couldn't take no for an answer so they went into the next garage by following Harvick's car to the post race inspection.

They seem to be having a hard time recalling much more. They think they got bored because they pretty much had been everywhere they shouldn't been. Pretty soon the two of them stumbled back to camp, giggling and trying to explain about all of the shenanigans they pulled. I wonder if Homeland Security is tighter than Talladega's.

Their little adventure added a few laughs at camp. How they pulled all of that off is beyond me. It's a good thing we didn't have to bail them out of jail. Maybe we would have left them there.

It's now Monday and we are sitting at a nearby campground with a lake view! The kids fly home tomorrow. We will stay here one more day to do laundry and get ready for our next leg of the trip.

We all had a great time and have many memories of an eventful Talladega. (I even sold some of my personally designed NASCAR crafts!) Thanks to our friends for inviting us back. It's been quite an experience.......(some not noted above!)

Pictures will follow at a later date.

Talladega 4/24/10..2PM

There may or may not be another update today but thought I would report that it's 2 PM on Saturday and soon we will be in the middle of a huge storm cell passing through with tornado activity, very high winds, hail and large amounts of rain. It looks like on the weather channel that it should come right over us but we will see soon. There is no place to go so will have to just watch out the cracked windshield.


As I said, it is 2 o clock in the afternoon and everyone is sleeping except me. JHB is sick and in bed. The others were up half the night and need to "rest their eyes". We have had a couple hours of Daytony's and I'm the only one still drinking...and crafting. Can't just do one thing at a time.


The Nationwide race was cancelled this morning and will follow the cup race tomorrow. This track does not have lights so we are prepared to stay through Monday, should the race be moved again.


JHB saw Joey Logano ride by on his golf cart this morning, otherwise no other "real" notables. I got my picture taken with Aaron's Lucky Dog. (That was not my idea!)

He wanted me to kiss him! Yuck! (oh, maybe it was a girl.)




Got to stand next to Tony's truck before it moved inside the track on Thursday. Stay tuned. The weather channel just said- "copious amounts of rain coming"!

PS. Had my FIRST jello shot last night!

We R at Talladega Superspeedway

We got to the staging area for the Talladega infield this morning shortly about 6:30 AM!! Stan is an early riser and he likes to be right up front in the line. Well, he got his wish. We were the first ones in the third row. It was pretty hot all day but the morning started off at 46 degrees. I bought the infield tickets for Brent, Jos and Greg and we found out where Brent should park the rental car and which entrance they can use to get into the infield. We recognized some of the same people who we saw last year. As promised, we started going inside the track at 5 PM and were eating dinner at 6:00. Now that is an efficient group, I'd say! Since we were some of the first people to enter the infield, it was really neat to see the infield and the track wide open, with out all of the clutter of hundreds of motor homes. We would have a great view of turn 2 from our site, if there were no motor home obstacles in the way!

That's it for today's report. Stay tuned for more fun reports. The noise is starting ALREADY!

"It's always something!"

The saying- "It's always something" is very true!

But first we scored two bottles of wine from our neighbors last night. They were from Cedar Falls/ Waterloo, Iowa area. One couple has been down here for many years (she was Greek) and the other lady just moved recently. She worked for a liquor distributor. The Greek lady, Effie, knows a Mayo Dermatologist. She and Jim got to talk about the Toupolous's and grape leaves, etc. IT'S A SMALL WORLD!

Onto today. We traveled over 300 miles to Vicksburg, MS to the planned stop at a casino RV Park. As I was reviewing the Trailer Life book I noticed it said the pull thru's were only 45 feet long, which is not long enough. SO I surfed for an hour and really didn't come up with anything (with good reviews) so I decided to call the casino. Well, do you believe I was told that the sites are 60 feet long. The book was wrong. Good thing I checked. We got settled into our spot and Jim discovered that the battery in the pick up was dead. That is a brand new battery so don't know what that deal is.

We drove through two days of rain, which explains why the Cup race is delayed today. Hope they get it in so I can watch Tony zoom off from the poll!

Tomorrow we will meet up with the Petersons at a campground east of Birmingham, AL.

BUZZ is cracked!

Toodling down I-20 in the rain today by Fort Worth, TX and the windshield cracks from top to bottom. There were no apparent road hazard hits so don't know what is up with that. Then 100 miles further- in Dallas- there was a new loud noise that sounded like it was on the roof. So we stopped to see what the deal was. Turns out it was the satellite again. This time the zip tie that the installer used to hold the front of the base to the roof mounting bracket had broken. That's right- zip tie. The bolt had sheared off at an earlier time and the repair was a giant zip tie. Jim managed to get a nut under the bracket and ran a stove bolt down and got it threaded and tight enough to hold it down. That only took an hour soooo we are happy to have a few more days for this trip to redneck heaven. The only good point was that it was not raining during this repair. It had been raining the previous six hours. We drove by the turn off for the Texas Speedway, where the race is this weekend. It is straight north of Fort Worth. The Nationwide race is delayed for today and may even be postponed. We will have to see.

We got the last spot at the planned RV stop for today. And two homemade cookies! This park will get a good review...but there is a big tree that will have to get moved before we can get out easily!!

That's the fun for today.

Finally at a stop for the night-4/16/10

It's been a little stressful today, since the place I had picked out for our stop in Odessa, TX tonight did not have any open pull thrus. The first clue should have been the big rig we met at the highway intersection, coming OUT of the park at 3 PM. So... we continue east on I-20 with me holding the computer, the Trailer Life book, the Woodalls book, the KOA book and the Camping Club book-looking for a new place. I hate this unorganization! I called one place down the road and got a stupid voice mail but left a message. Then called another place and they had no pull thrus. So I am being asked by the DRIVER- "so what are we going to do?" How the heck do I know. Oh, I need to add that the Verizon card quit working on the computer (no signal).

This stretch of Texas does not have an over abundance of RV parks. I did mention a Walmart but got told that he had to watch the truck race tonight. So somehow that was suppose to translate into NO WALMART! Finally I get a call back from the first lady and she confirmed she had a spot. Oh, yeah but the timing was excellent. We were at exit 171 and we needed to get off at exit 177- straight ahead! It's not an easy off, easy on, as we had to go through town for 5 miles. Anyway, we are all checked in and settled in time for the race.

The REALLY big news is that my NASCAR man, Tony, is on the poll this weekend in Texas. It's been 4.5 years since he has been on the poll and I think this is his 400th Cup start so isn't that cool?

PS. There is no truck race tonight. It is an ARCA race- wannabees. A caution every 3 laps.

Boycott Chevron- ya right!

When we came back to AZ last fall, we got fuel at a Chevron station in Holbrook. They ripped us off and I said we were not going to go to a Chevron station again. I even wrote it in my gas mileage book so I would remember.

As we were leaving town today, I reminded JHB that we were going to boycott Chevron. OK! We bypassed getting fuel in the valley so JHB planned on stopping at the Apache Gold Casino near Globe because it is an easy in and out! I suppose you can guess that it was a Chevron station! Yes, and they are still way over-priced. Diesel was $3.26 a gallon. Thank goodness he only bought $75.00 worth. Down the road several miles diesel was $3.09. So I AM going to continue TRYING to boycott Chevron!

We got to Las Cruces, NM our first day. Great weather and no troubles.

Time to hit the road

Getting ready to hit the road this week but need to get you up to speed on the latest activities.

We left the RV park on Wednesday, April 7th and headed out to the Phoenix NASCAR races. I rode with GOB. We followed the #24 (Jeff Gordon) hauler into the track.

The races were rather boring but both had VERY unexpected winners. JHB was sick the majority of the week so LOB got a free ticket to use on Friday night for the Nationwide race. LOB was tracking three drivers, Paul Menard, Joey Logano and Kyle Busch on the Fanview (our portable "know-what's-going-on-machine"). The last several laps were intense enough to keep LOB glued to the action. Within the last 30 laps Kyle came all the way from the back to win the race but he was really racing Joey right at the end. LOB summed up the race as "awesome". It was a great race for grandpa to stay at camp and allow LOB to go.



Saturday nights race was only exciting at the finish. Many boring laps, enough for JHB to catch some winks!




I splurged and bought some Tony earrings.




The lollipop kids at NASCAR.

DVB visited the #33 car prior to the race.



We probably had the warmest weather ever for a race- mid 80's and breezy. Our Rapid City friends, BMB and the boys and another friend, Tom, camped with us. Lots of good food, drink and fun was had by all (except it was a long camping trip for JHB)!

JHB took the coach on Sunday to the Freightliner shop for some recall work and an oil change, that were all scheduled for Monday. The place was not very far from the track so he camped at the shop overnight. I went home with BMB, as I was commissioned to babysit Monday. GOB went out of town for a seminar and BMB had to work 7-5:30. The boys got to school in fine shape and DVB and I did laundry all day. Actually, Monday was day 2 of laundry. Man, those boys can generate the dirty duds! DVB was just talking up a storm, mostly in sentences. I can't tell you how many times I heard him calling "BoBo"! One time it was to tell me he had to go "poo-poo" but he had already GONE "poo-poo". To give him a bit of credit, he did do his job the day before in the potty in the living room! Monday night DVB got introduced to the "Timeout" chair- 4 times within an hour! It will be interesting to track his "good and bad" choices! During the week, he made several successful trips to the bathroom so he is on his way of having no diapers or fancy pants (pull ups).


JHB ended up spending 3 nights and 4 days at Freightliner. Four recalls were completed, an oil change and a new steel oil pan, as the plastic one had a crack. No wonder there was leaking oil!! Who would ever put a plastic oil pan on a big rig!


Anyway, we left today, Thursday, April 15th. There are a zillion yellow flowers in AZ and NM. This picture does not do the beauty justice.




Need to get out of this desert to relieve my itchy, runny, swollen eyes and scratchy throat. On the road we go- heading east to Talladega, Alabama. Stay tuned for more news.