Our first overnight stay was just outside Little Rock, Arkansas (how come it’s spelled just like Kansas, but pronounced completely different?). If you check your map, you’ll see we didn’t drive very far from Dallas (about 2 ½ inches on an average U.S. map), but we had good reason. Our State Capitol visiting mission is kicking into high gear, and we saw a great chance to cross another off of our list. One major benefit of staying at most campgrounds is that they provide electricity, saving the need to run the generator. Since Jenna loves to blow-dry, and I hate to pay for diesel fuel, it’s a win-win.

The Arkansas Capitol (I didn’t realize it, but “Capitol” refers to the building, whereas “Capital” would be the correct spelling to signify the city itself … good trivia) was a doozy (a colloquialism from the word “Duesenberg” -a top of the line automobile from the early 20^th century, used to signify something with the “wow” factor, or of good quality and/or attractiveness) … more good trivia. Hey, did you know the Duesenberg was built right here in the U.S., in Auburn, Indiana? Now you do! Jason voted it (Little Rock, not Auburn) as his favorite Capitol (spell-check that) of all time, but I think he was bribed. Seems the gift shop ladies slipped him a small flag of the state, and he digs flags. We even drove over to the old State building, the one used during the Civil War, and took a quick walk around the outside.

We hit the road again, this time stopping at what is the nicest campground I’ve ever stayed at (I’ve only stayed at three, but this place was sweet). Another nice plus to many campgrounds is being able to do your laundry, as smelling bad seems to be out of style. We pulled out Wednesday to head into Memphis, as we had to go downtown to their convention center. I was doing an autograph signing for Valvoline at the big AutoZone convention. Before heading out to the floor to meet and greet, I was treated to one of those “big moments” in life. I got to meet “the King.” No, not Bernstein, Jerry Ruth, or Dave Beebe (hope you’re up on your drag race trivia or this sentence won’t make sense). And definitely not George, Henry, David, Solomon, Kamehameha, or Tut (if you’re not up on world history skip this sentence as well). I’m talking about Richard Petty, the winningest driver in NASCAR history. He was very cordial, and, though I am not big on autographs, I was able to get a picture with Morgan, Cory Mac, me, and #43 (if you’re not up on your NASCAR history … never mind).

We had our Valvoline Funny Car on display on the show floor, and it was cool talking to all of the store managers and gear heads in attendance. The couple of hours I was there flew by, and next thing I knew we were off to the track to get parked. Oh, and I got a cool souvenir. Seems while I was chatting with Petty, Jason reached into Richard’s pocket and took his Sharpie, which he often does to me (Jason, not Richard, though that would be pretty cool). I hate to be deceptive, but I swapped pens with “the King” before handing one back, and stashed his in a safe place. Any buyers? I’m kidding, it’s not for sale … probably.

Thursday Bill Walters, our PR assistant, took me into town for the NHRA press conference. Designed to help promote our sport to the area media, the good lunches are starting to take a toll on my waistline. That evening we went down to Beale Street (a very happening place) for an autograph session at Coyote Ugly’s. More free food, more calories that will require extra push-ups. Since we had a few hours to kill between these two events, I let Jenna pick the tourist stop:

Graceland: cool to visit once, no need for me to go back. I am a fan of Elvis (except his interior decorating skills), and enjoyed seeing a slice of his life. Jenna and I wore those cool-looking audio tour headsets, and Jason wore his cool-looking monkey backpack, so we had that going for us. We toured the house, the backyard, the plane and car collections (Force’s Elvis car is there), and the gift shop restrooms. Elvis is actually interred –along with several family members- in an area in back of the house, and his grave still draws thousands of visitors.

Our Memphis race was a mixed bag. We qualified a season high fifth, which if memory serves is the third time this year, and second in a row. That helps us somewhat in the points. We had a monumental first-round race with Tony Pedregon, which fortunately went our way, then we inexplicably smoked the tires very early in the second round against Mike Neff. We haven’t had anything like that happen (at that point in the run) since Johnny West came on board, and it was perplexing. It also was an enormous letdown with the momentum that we had going.

We think we figured out what the problem is, so we’ll head into Richmond with our heads high and ready to attack once more. The good news is that we actually moved up one position, to second, in the points. However, we are a mere 2 points ahead of Robert Hight (each round is worth 20, and now the qualifying points become incredibly important for the championship), 4 ahead of Tony, and 20 ahead of Ashley.

Well, that’s it for now, though it seems as though I am leaving something out. Don’t you hate that feeling, when you know you have something to share yet you can’t remember what it is? If any of you figure out what is missing from my blogs lately, please feel free to let me know! Wait … I remember: lately Jason just loves to drink milk after showering, watch Dancing with the Stars, and brush Jenna’s hair. Taking all that into consideration, I just knew he would love to have this photo up on his dad’s blog!

Stay tuned!