Last week was the cruise and it was a great time. I was a little hesitant at first, because the season has taken a lot of energy and I was wondering if it was going to be too much to do in one weekend before the race. But it turned out to be a great time.

We landed in Orlando on Wednesday evening and we boarded the ship early the next morning. Who was the first person I ran into on board? Marty Reid. It was pretty funny. The ship was full of IRL people, Indianapolis Motor Speedway people, sponsors and teams.

We set sail by 5 p.m. and were all having dinner by 6 p.m. Our table was right next to Gene Simmons. Mel and I have become big fans of his reality show, so of course I had to have my picture taken with him.

That night was the Halloween costume party hosted by Gene. I was blown away by how good the costumes were. I couldn't believe how much stuff people brought on board to dress up. The four of us (Mel, Chad Head, Michelle, and I) were the Flintstones and we were dragging a bit by the end of the evening, but it was a great time.

The next morning we docked in Nassau Bay and spent the day there. We went and walked around the downtown area and we also made a trip to the Atlantis Resort for a tour and lunch. We were back on board by 5 p.m. for a 7 p.m. departure. I am too big of a panic attack guy to have boarded any later than 5 p.m. I wanted to make sure I was back on the boat before it sailed.

We had dinner at the nice Italian restaurant that night before the big IRL celebration. They shot fireworks off the deck and just had a big party. Mel and I snuck out and called it an early night and we sailed all night long.

By Saturday morning we were docked at the Disney-owned island called Castaway Kay. Everyone got off the boat for the day and Mel and I just sat on the beach all day long. It was so windy that all the excursion activities had to be canceled, but we were okay with that.

As usual, I got sunburned pretty badly. I put sunblock on my face, but nowhere else. It wasn't too warm that I thought about it and the wind was blowing so hard. But obviously the rays were still coming through. I think I'm going to finally start listening to my wife and use sunblock no matter what.

Saturday we had dinner back on the boat. The food at every meal was great. This was our first cruise and we both thought the food was outstanding. We had two servers who waited on our table throughout the trip and we all got along well and they made it very enjoyable. The entire staff, actually, was great.

Saturday night we turned back toward Orlando and the weather changed on us and got pretty bad. Since we were getting off the boat so early on Sunday morning, Mel and I packed our stuff that night. It was a rough ride. The hangers were flying all over the place, the closet doors kept opening and shutting and make noise. To be honest, I liked this part of the trip. It was a cool ride. I didn't see too many other people enjoying it like I did, but I thought it was neat.

We were off the boat by 8 a.m. on Sunday and headed straight to the airport. We were back in Indy by 3:30 p.m., just in time to go through the mail. Usually there is one tub of mail waiting for us, but this time it was two tubs. It was junk mail, mostly, but I still couldn't believe how much there was.

We didn't do much that day except go over to the neighbor's house and watch the Colts game after we saw some of the NASCAR race.

Monday was our day to catch up since we had been gone for a couple of weeks. I finally got my neck worked on. It's been hurting since the Vegas race, so it feels a lot better now. I also went to the shop, went through more mail there, and did a few other errands knowing that we had to fly back to Las Vegas on Tuesday.

Chad Head's birthday was on Monday so Mel and I took him out to sushi, which was a good way to cap off the weekend.

On Tuesday we woke up at 4:45 a.m. for our flight to Vegas. As soon as we landed, we got into the motor home and started toward Pomona. We'll see everyone at the track.