Spring Break, 2011

Time for a break from school!


How about a little swim with grandpa?

And the Monday ice cream social for $1 a dish!

Logan wanted to bake cookies. I wonder how long they will last!

That was kind of hard work!

Is SpongeBob on again?

Thursday we drove to the Fountain Hills Park to watch the St. Patrick's Day festivities!

The ducks are always looking for food!

Dil called this one "a camo" one!

Perfect weather.

Before.....

After!

Ice cream again!

A tinker toy treasure!

Dil's early birthday present!

The week ended with me really ready for HAPPY HOUR!

NASCAR- Vegas style

We'll start off with this picture!

It actually looked better in the Cunard blog but this pic is of the Queen Elizabeth with all kinds of lights on in Sydney, Australia. Today Brenty is in Hong Kong, looking to buy a tailored suit!

OK here we go.....Saturday we drove to Las Vegas and met up with several friends. We all stayed at the SouthPoint hotel, south of the airport. The sign welcomed NASCAR fans and the NASCAR teams. SouthPoint was one of the race sponsors and we learned that all of the pit crew and media guys were staying here.

We watched the last of the Nationwide race during a hotel happy hour. Mark Martin won but the great news was that Danica came in 4th! She broke a record that had been held since 1949. (I wonder who was born in that year!) Anyway the record was for a female finishing higher than fourteenth or something like that. Way to go, Danica!

Sunday, March 6th was race day. The weather in the morning was a little nippy. This is some of our crew...Tony, Audrey (birthday girl), Ty, Julie and Michelle. On the left...Greg and JB raiding the cooler!

Dan and Barb Duncan. They rode up to Vegas with us. Rapid City is their home and they winter in Mesa. Jim and Dan worked at Sears in Rapid City almost 40 years ago!

One of the surrounding snow packed mountains!

Time to go in and hit the crowds!

There were tons of people...150,000 to be exact. The vendors were set up differently than Phoenix but there also was entertainment. I was lucky to capture these extreme motocross guys jumping from area to another..doing stunts in the air.

Didn't see anyone crash!

This was at the Speed stage. Earlier in the morning Tony was interviewed...but of course, we weren't there to see it live. This is a replay of Tony talking about his experience driving a cab earlier in the week.

Some of the infield of this 1.5 mile track. We were near the end of pit road, straight across from Menards pit. Matt Kenseth was the pole sitter.

The FOX guys on air.

Close up of motorhome hill.

Jackets were off and the day warming nicely!

Elvie was there to announce the drivers!

I think Tony was in this truck!

One of the pre-race activities...a Red Bull helicopter doing aerial acrobatics! It was crazy!!!

And here come the Thunderbirds for the flyover. (I just held the camera up, couldn't see a thing and managed to catch them!)

I always hear the announcers talking about Hollywood Hotel
but I never knew what or where it was. Well, it's here!

A synopsis of the race: Tony led the majority of the race. Tony had the fastest car. Tony came in SECOND! (to Carl Edwards). Darn!

Waiting for some of the traffic to clear out!

Smile!

Great day, great track, great race, great friends, great time!

P.S. A rumor- Danica is going to drive for Tony next year in the Sprint Cup! Now wouldn't that be something?

NASCAR fun in February

First of all I can now say that I've been blogging for a year. February 26th last year was my inaugural blog and now I'm writing the 74th one!

While we were getting ready to be rednecks at the Phoenix NASCAR race, Brenty was enjoying himself in Sydney, Australia! I love this picture of him with the opera house in the background!




OK, now let's get back to NASCAR. The spring Phoenix race is usually in April but this year they moved it up to February, the second race after the Daytona opener. Don't really know why but they are going to repave the track, change the banking and make the front stretch wider so maybe they needed extra time to do that.


We went out on Thursday instead of our normal Wednesday, not knowing what our chances were to get our favorite camping spot. It ended up being nothing to worry about because the place was far from full. Never have we seen so few campers. Very strange. Maybe with the ridiculous price of gas, the poor weather forecast and moving the race from April to February all combined to equal poor attendance. Who knows? But we had plenty of room and no waiting to get on the trams.


Now for a little change in marketing strategy. With the wind and rain in the forecast, I decided to display my wares on the dash instead of on a table near the thorough fare of people. (Sales were a little slow!)

In preparation for Tony's anticipated win, I made sugar free brownies!

Dev bungee jumping...from the pickup bumper!

One of those cool Arizona sunsets!

Our Rapid City friends, Dan and Barb, joined us!

And our ex-neighbor, Bill, joined us in camp!

Thursday, Friday and Saturday were pretty nice days but Saturday night came with a winter storm blowing through. About 10:30 the winds picked up and the rain came. I thought we would be blown away. Sunday's high temp is to be only 54 degrees!

Before Toni, Beth and Dev left on Sunday, Toni was splattered with some blue bubble stuff. A little more and she would have been a smurf. Guess which 3 year old did this!

And now here is the other Tony with a Y. He is really the one I came to see. I wish he would find time to shave!

We bought season tickets this year which included tickets for the spring and fall races. Our seats changed somewhat BUT we were straight across from Tony's pit. How nice!

The FOX announcers were set up near pit road prior to the race starting. I think that was a first.

See that snow on that far mountain...

Snow came down to 2500 feet, which is quite unusual.

There goes Tony!

And there he is again.

And Jeff...the ultimate winner of the race....after a 66 race drought. He and Tony battled back and forth but in the end.....the best car won! (Unfortunately I have to admit it!)

And Denny (Brent's driver). Brent doesn't get the races on board the ship so I have to include this pic just for the heck of it.

The race was a very good race with lots of different leaders. The weather was mighty cold in the shade where we were. If Tony hadn't been up or near the front, I would have gone back to the RV. The race was announced as a sellout, a very big surprise! But that's good for the economy, with beer being $7.25 a can!

After dinner the boys wanted some jiffy pop. I thought this was rather an ingenious method...take hot coals out of the fire, put the container on a shovel and shake.

It's working!

Perfect!

Next post will be a report of our NASCAR experience in Vegas!