I hope you all had a good 4th of July. It’s been a rather busy few days for us. We left off talking about us going to Monaco to get tires on the motor home. We left the shop at 7:30 a.m. last Thursday morning and headed to Wakarusa, Ind. Mel followed me in the car. After we dropped off the motor home, we went into Chicago and shopped all day long. I know more about dresses than I ever care to know. We grabbed some dinner at a little Mexican joint downtown and then it was time to go back to Indiana. We picked the motor home up at 11 p.m. and by the time we got to the shop, it was 2 a.m. That was an awfully long day. These longs nights have been a theme for us lately as you’ll see when you read on.

I missed my 6:10 a.m. chiropractor appointment Friday morning. Unfortunately, the electrician woke me up at 7:30. He was there to install an outlet on the patio. There’s been so much going on, I don’t remember what I did for much of the day on Friday. That evening, we went to Kevin and Gretchen’s house for a cookout. A bunch of the neighbors gathered for dinner and drinks. It was PR Ted’s introduction to most of the neighborhood. Kevin is the social butterfly of the area, so we call him “the Mayor.” Apparently, he and PR Ted went pool hopping early Saturday morning. I guess they hit our Jacuzzi about 1:30 a.m. or so. Thankfully, we didn’t hear them. We left the party around midnight and were sound asleep.

Saturday, we went to IMS to watch qualifying for the F-1 race. Snake’s a big time F-1 fan, so I bought him a U.S. Grand Prix hat and me a t-shirt. We were like normal race fans being out of our drag racing element. We did get recognized a few times. We got home around 4 p.m. that afternoon and then headed over to IRP to watch the USAC race on the oval. For those of you who haven’t been to IRP, it has both a dragstrip and oval. Allen Bolante, who runs the Comfort Suites Hotel in Brownsburg, was sponsoring the race, so he had to give a speech. He gave Mel a plug and told everyone to vote for her in the ESPYs. If you ever need a nice place to stay in Indy, make sure you give Allen a call. Again, we got home around 11:30 p.m. after the race.

We got to sleep in on Sunday morning. That was nice. Then, we headed back to IMS for the F-1 race; typical racers, going to the race track on our off weekend. The F-1 cars are pretty neat. The high pitch scream they produce is loud. It was a boring race though. Other than this big crash on the first turn, not much happened. We left after the first pit stop when Michael Schumacher took the lead. There’s not much passing during an F-1 race and we wanted to beat traffic. We went home for a bit and then headed downtown to Conseco Fieldhouse to see Nickelback. They’re my favorite band and the show was great. Again, we got home around midnight.

Monday morning, we took the motor home to get serviced before the Western Swing. It’s a long way from home and we’d rather not have any problems. Then, it was off to the Northside of Indy to pick up my suit. We found a pretty cool clothing store, so we messed around in there for a good while. I got my suit at Sak’s and then we did some more shopping at The Fashion Mall at Keystone at the Crossing. I sure hope Mel wins this ESPY thing ‘cause it’s costing us a lot of money. Anyway, we want to make sure we look really good and represent drag racing in a positive light. Later that night, we pitched in and contributed to the neighborhood fireworks fund, which was organized by Kevin. He had another cookout and then we shot off fireworks on Monday evening. By 11:30, I was over it. I went home to bed. Mel stayed and watched them finish and then helped clean up.

I slept in until 9:30 Tuesday morning and watched the space shuttle launch in HD. It was almost like being there. HD is so cool! Last night, we went with Chad and Michelle to the private fireworks display at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that Tony George puts on for all the employees. It was very nice, and again we got home around midnight.

This morning, I dropped my slacks off to our local seamstress because they still don’t fit right. Then, we headed downtown to do a photo shoot for Indianapolis Monthly magazine. They’re doing a piece on us in the August ’06 issue. That only took about 30 minutes, so it was nice and quick. After we got home, I went to the shop and loaded up a bunch of clothes for the Western Swing. I’ve been doing a lot of packing. We’re going on vacation for three days starting tomorrow. Chad and Michelle, us and a few other couples are staying on a houseboat at Lake Cumberland in Kentucky. I’ve been packing for our three-day trip, for the ESPY trip and the Western Swing. Let me tell you, it’s not easy to do. This is supposed to be our off time and it’s been non-stop. We’ve been going like crazy. Lake Cumberland is about four hours from here.

I’ll spend the rest of today decaling a new body. We leave for Kentucky tomorrow, so I want to have all my decals done tonight. We’ll get back to Indy on Sunday afternoon and leave for Los Angeles and the ESPYs on Monday. That should be fun. They have a lot of neat activities planned. Make sure you read the blog next week. Then, we’re off to Denver on Thursday. Wow, that was a lot. I told you it’s been busy. Hopefully, I’m in bed before midnight tonight.