So, here I sit in the pits of Dallas, just having finished dinner in the motorhome. Jenna and Jason are playing with his building blocks on the floor, and we currently are qualified number seven with two runs down on Friday. Digressing back two races, let’s try to keep this blog as chronological as possible. When last I wrote, we had just finished the race in Indy, so let’s pick up there:

We packed up the RV, headed back over to our second favorite campsite (Wal-mart of course is number one. Oh, news flash: the new name is Walmart [forget the hyphen or you can’t sleep in their parking lot]) and plugged into the back of Schumacher Racing. I left Jenna and Jason in the RV and headed over to the MTS terminal in the trusty PT Cruiser. Upon exiting the 465 Freeway a couple of things became readily apparent: First, I had a flat tire. Second, I was all alone, and AAA wasn’t going to get me back on the road before I was due for my visit. So, I cried, screamed, kicked, and pouted, then pulled over, changed the tire, and got on my way again. The visit went well, and the next day I had two new tires installed. I’m pretty sure that they recognized me at the tire store, as they gave me the “two for the price of two” special… nice!

Wednesday we left Jason with EJ and Kelly Veenstra and hit the theatre for “date night.” Jenna had a date, but I still don’t do too well with the ladies (kidding, come on!). We wanted to hit the road and see some sights on our way to Charlotte, so Thursday seemed like the day to depart. Jason and I did our best to wash the PT and the motorhome. He really liked to use the soapy sponge on the spots that I just rinsed off, but he’s just too cute to worry about things like that. After that we headed back over to IRP (okay, technically it’s “ORP at Indy”) for more testing. No, we weren’t running the Funny Car, but crewman Joe Chrisman was there with his dad (who also happens to be Joe Chrisman) while he tested his “Pro Mod” car. I still love the sportsman racing, so it was cool hanging out for his two runs. Heck, I even got to back him up from the burnouts and pull him to the starting line. However, there was no way that I was wearing that “Blue Max” halter top and cutoff shorts (you’d have to have been around in the “old days”). Jenna and Jason hung out in the stands, and of course the little guy made a new friend, Kaeden.

On the road east, we tried to pack as much family fun as we could into our trip to North Carolina. We needed to be there by Monday night for a Tuesday appearance, but that gave us a couple of day’s leisure time. Stop one was the Louisville Slugger museum in Kentucky. This place actually also is the manufacturing plant for all of their bats, so we were able to observe all phases of the build (okay, we didn’t get to see them chop trees down, but you get my drift). Next we hit (okay, I went solo while Jenna took Jason to the local Discovery Museum for kids) the History museum to look at some cool old armor and weapons. I tried to borrow some of that medieval big-ass-blunderbuss-stuff to use on the rest of the Funny Car guys, but it was all locked up.

That night was the anniversary of 9/11, and there were many shows on TV relating to the tragic events. Warning: if you are a conspiracy-theorist, please skip to the next paragraph. Go on, you aren’t going to like what I say right now, so kindly avert your eyes from the upcoming text. Okay, now I can talk frankly: What happened on 9/11 is that some fanatical terrorists, using a flawed interpretation of Islam and the Koran, killed several thousand of our citizens in a well-planned and cowardly attack. Bush didn’t do it. The CIA didn’t do it. Ditto for the FBI, NSA, ATF, AAA, NAACP, and the BPOE. In fact, BVD, GM, the NRA, NHRA, TNT, ABC, and even the KKK had nothing to do with what happened. I suppose some folks use the conspiracy angle to cope with the enormity of the tragedy, but it’s a huge disservice to those who lost loved ones on that day. How would you feel if someone you knew was killed by a drunk driver, and some nut jobs out there wanted to blame it on a cruise missile attack ordered by the president? Anyway, before our “conspiracy” friends tune back in to this blog, may I suggest something to you: If you know any of these folks, understand that logic, reason, and common sense have no affect on them. They’ll believe what they chose to believe, irrespective of the overwhelming evidence and facts available to them. Don’t argue with them, but do encourage them to take their medication regularly. Now back to regularly scheduled blog:

After seeing where all the “bat-people” work, it was time to head deeper into Kentucky to see what else it had to offer. We found a charming RV park (yes, even better than the Wal-no hyphen-mart parking lot) just miles from all of the bourbon distilleries around Bardstown. We met some nice Kentucky folk (I believe that’s how you refer to Kentuckian’s nowadays), and Jason got to go on the see-saw with some new friends. The next day we went over to Evan Williams (he’s not a friend, it’s a Bourbon maker) and took the tour. Very enlightening. In fact, my wallet was en-“lightened” to the tune of $50 for some 18-year-old whiskey. I’ve never spent $50 on an 18-year-old in my life! At the end of the day, I’ll stick to my Jack Daniels and Coke… it lasts much longer and costs far less per headache. We then drove around old town Bardstown and admired all of the houses and buildings that dated back as far as the late 18th century (which, confusingly enough, means the 1700s). After that it was off to the local train museum for the little man, and then it was time for the annual New Haven parade/car show. Call it fortuitous timing on our part, but we found ourselves at the tail end of one of the slowest “parades” in history. Seeing as that we had no choice (unless we could train the PT to fly like “Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang”), we got out and met the alderman/chancellor/councilman/mayor-pro-tem/head cheese dude and his horse. When the line finally started moving again, we had a great view of three horses’ asses for about a quarter of a mile, then we were free once more.

Now it was time to find out more about our 16th President, the guy on the penny (and the dollar bill, like the ones taped to the front of our awning in the pits. Fans ask all the time, and the answer is that we like to let Abe ride during qualifying against Wilky, Tasca, and a couple others). We set off to admire the boyhood home of Abraham (the President, not the guy in the bible), but were left a bit “flat” after learning that it, too (like the farm his father Thomas lived on), isn’t the original log cabin, but a semi-reasonable facsimile. Our Lincoln fascination next took us just down the road to the birthplace of the legend. This place really DID feature the original log cabin… sort of. Just after the turn of the 20th century (still confusing, but that means the 1900s) a memorial was placed near the original Lincoln homestead, and the cabin (which had long ago been disassembled and shipped around the country for fairs and displays) was reassembled inside. Except the dimensions were off, so the cabin had to be trimmed down, which was an enormous travesty. Until they found out recently that the wood was 40 years too new to be the actual Lincoln birthplace, so there you go with the enigmatic life of the young Abe Lincoln.

By the way, Lincoln’s assassination predates the CIA, FBI, KGB, the “Mafia,” and George Bush, so you conspiracy types need not assign undo blame onto these entities. Besides, we all know that he was killed by aliens.

Once we had our fill of bourbon, see-saws, old houses, and Abe’s un-authenticated abodes, we packed up again and hit the road for North Carolina. We were making such good time that we decided to add Raleigh to our list of Capitol visits before getting to Charlotte. Adding to our luck was the fact that this Capitol was open on Sundays… what a sublime occurrence for us! So there we are, motoring down the highway, singing old camp songs and strumming on the ukulele, wondering what other good fortunes were in store for us when we suddenly heard a noise. This was very much like a cross between the sound of your wallet opening, and the subconscious moan that escapes one’s lips when the cell phone bill comes in after a month on the road. Turns out it was neither; just a flat inner dual tire! After searching our GPS, road exit books, the internet, and four psychic hotlines, we started making phone calls. And more phone calls. Not that getting a 22 ½ inch tire on Sunday would be considered easy in and of itself, but we had that added little bonus of using an “80 series” (Latin for “more expensive”) tire, like most big RVs. Turns out those aren’t available on Sunday unless your last name is Trump… or Lincoln. Besides, why ruin our plans to see Raleigh on such a nice day? So… we limped (French for “drove at 35 mph”) into Greensboro, left the RV at a (stop me if you’ve heard this) “store previously known as Wal-Mart,” loaded the ukulele (we really don’t have one of those, but we did buy Jason a kazoo at Cracker Barrel), and headed off in the PT. Upon returning to the motorhome that afternoon I did some serious risk-calculation/road damage avoidance forecasting (I flipped a coin) and decided we didn’t have any options in Greensboro on Sunday, so we proceeded (at the aforementioned break-neck speed of 35 mph) all the way to Concord, home of zMax Dragway. You can do the math, but 85 miles at 35 mph equals one long-ass, boring trip. It felt as though I could get out and run alongside the motorhome, but the flat stayed together (my fear is that it would separate the tread and rip out the floor if we went too fast), and we made it.

Monday we pulled into the campground there on site, thanks to our friends at zMax. We then found our local Goodyear dealer and dropped the rig off for new shoes. With 80,000 miles on the rears (I replaced the fronts last year), combined with a fortuitous factory rebate, it didn’t make sense to not replace all four. Until I saw the $2,024 invoice… for tires… not for a race car. The upside is we should be getting our $320 rebate soon; the bad news is the $1,704 is more money than I paid for my El Camino. Hopefully we’re good for another 80,000 miles.

Whilst the RV was getting pampered, we took Jason to the local air museum. You know, the one that is closed on Mondays. So we took him to the airport overlook and watched the commercial planes take off and land. We also watched a hawk eat a mouse. Pretty cool if you’re a bird lover, not so neat if you’re a fan of mice. On the way back to retrieve the RV, Jason spied a playground, so we were obligated to stop and indulge him. That boy is a swinger, a slider, and loves to do that monkey-bar thing. He also loves the girls, loves to hug, and isn’t the least bit embarrassed when he poops himself in public. Was life really ever that easy for the rest of us?

Stay tuned… we’ll continue to catch up and try to get that next Wally.