Whew... That was a whirlwind of fun, a cornucopia of excitement, and an all-around good time of epic proportions. Not only that, it all came wrapped up in a neat little 48-hour bundle, and I can't even put my finger on the highest of the high spots. Barbara feels the same way, apparently, because when we were on the plane coming home last night, I asked her what her favorite part of the weekend was and she just blinked her eyes and said, "Wow. All of it, I guess, because it was all great from the moment we left until right now."

There's a lot to relate, many stories to tell, and it's clearly up to me to somehow put it all into words that sufficiently tell the tale, despite the fact I'm pretty sure I'll be unable to send the taste of incredible pizza through an e-mail and then onto this blog, no matter how hard I try. I'll just have to give it my best shot...

To set the stage and begin this story, I have to go back far enough to restate how this past week was one of the four annual "earnings call" weeks at work for Barbara, and that means ridiculously long hours, tons of stress, and a backbreaking workload for her. Her company always makes their quarterly earnings announcements after the close of the markets on a Thursday, so basically I only saw my wife for brief minutes in the middle of the night (when she'd come home well after I'd given up and gone to bed) or in the half-light of the early morning, when she'd trudge back to downtown St. Paul to start another day, on a couple of hours of sleep. As the V.P. of Investor Relations at Lawson Software, she quarterbacks the actual earnings call, so I know what to expect each and every time "announcement week" comes up. With all that in mind, I knew two things... 1) She would be physically and mentally exhausted by the time Friday rolled around, so our trip to the Wilk's Warriors reception would have to be both fun and a chance for her to recharge. 2) She really needed to get away and put the week behind her, so a quick but complete "never done that before" trip might be just the right medicine at just the right time. With great food, great friends, and Barbara's first trip to Springfield making up the agenda, I could only hope...

We weren't quite done with the work-induced stress when it was time to leave on Friday, though, because Barb was unable to get away from work at the time she had wanted, so she called me and said, "Drive to the airport and get to the gate. I'll get home, throw some stuff in a suitcase, and then take a cab to the airport, and hopefully I'll make it and I'll see you on the plane. You just need to make sure you get there, and I don't want you to miss the flight because you had to wait for me." That sounded like a good plan so I jumped in the car and took off for the airport, already leaving later than I normally do, which only made a nervous situation a little bit worse because we'd both been hearing some horror stories about the security lines this week. I was kind of sweating it the whole way to MSP, but when I pulled in the parking ramp and found an open spot directly across from the doors to the elevators, my mood lifted. I have NEVER parked that close to the elevators, so I took it as a very good sign. As an omen, it couldn't have been more wonderfully accurate...

Since I only had a carry-on bag, I dashed for the double-secret back entrance hoping the line would be manageable, and when I stepped off the elevator and turned the corner I saw nothing more than a lonely TSA agent manning the area, sitting there just waiting for me. Not a single person in line! I went from dangerously late to absolutely early in an instant. So early, in fact, I actually had time to stop in the Sky Club for a snack, and when our local Woodbury cabbie dropped Barb at the curb, she skated right through security as well, and we managed to meet up in the Club, as opposed to on the plane. Mere minutes later, after I stopped to take a photo of the frozen ramp workers, all bundled up against the subzero cold as they waited for a flight to arrive, we were onboard and on our way to the Gateway City. Smooth as silk, just like we planned it.

After a robust game of Trivial Pursuit on my iPhone, we touched down at STL, jumped on the Hertz bus, and then alit from said bus to find a frosty Ford Explorer waiting for us, at around 6:30 on Friday night. The mission had come together perfectly! We drove down the highway a few miles, to the bustling mini-metropolis suburb of Clayton, checked in at the brand-spanking-new Homewood Suites hotel, and then turned around to head out for dinner. Farotto's baby!!!

For those who are uninitiated, here's my best explanation of St. Louis-style pizza: Ultra-thin crust, sliced into small squares, topped by a micro-thin coating of the standard tomato-based pizza sauce, and then covered with unique inclusion of copious amounts of provel cheese, which is the real key here. That creamy wonderful cheese is pretty much unique to St. Louis-style pizza, and Farotto's has the best version of it in the world.

Writer's note: I just did a Google search for "Provel Cheese" to make sure I was spelling it right, and the top listing was the Wikipedia description of it, which goes something like this: "Provel cheese is a white processed cheese that is popular in St. Louis, Missouri. Provel is produced with cheddar, Swiss, and provolone. It is soft at room temperature, with a gooey and almost buttery texture, and thus has a low melting point. It is the traditional topping for St. Louis-style pizza. Although popular in the St. Louis area, provel is rarely used elsewhere."

So how about that! Learn something new every day... Anyway, when we pulled up in front of Farotto's and saw the tiny parking lot full, I wasn't surprised. When we drove down the side street behind the restaurant and ended up parking four blocks away, I knew what we were in for... We trudged through the slush and the snow flurries and entered the warm embrace of the sensory overload that is a jam-packed Farotto's on a cold winter night. With a 30-minute wait for a table, we were lucky enough to score two chairs at the bar after only a couple of minutes, and once there we ordered up another St. Louis delicacy, some toasted ravioli. We also ordered a couple of Budweiser Select drafts and the bartender said "That'll be six dollars." For both of them? Yup. Man, I can't remember the last time I ordered a full-size draft beer and it was three bucks. At the baseball or hockey games, you get the privilege of buying a luke-warm plastic bottle of domestic lager for the tidy sum of $6.50. Each. When the toasted ravioli showed up, with the mandatory marinara sauce for dipping, one heavenly dinner began...

Knowing we'd be spending the next two nights in a pair of hotel rooms that both would feature a mini-fridge and a microwave, we each ordered our own pizza once we were seated, and although I did take a photo of the two large platters sitting in front of us after they arrived, I shall defer from showing that today. For some reason, pizza and hamburgers never quite look as yummy in photos as they do in real life. I don't know why that is, but somehow a big hot pizza looks more like a mess than a delicious masterpiece when you shoot a phone pic of it. Trust me, though, it was incredible...

For me, a guy who grew up just a couple of miles from Farotto's, this pilgrimage was very special, and everything I'd hoped it would be. For Barb, it was yet another revelation about my hometown. As she savored one small square piece of her pepperoni pizza, she rolled her eyes and said, "It's the cheese. It's this incredible cheese! We get so used to Pizza Hut and Domino's and we forget pizza is supposed to have flavor. This thing has layers of flavor." And that comment came after a bite of a single-topping pizza. My "Deluxe" style had layer on top of layer on top of layer of flavors, ranging from robust to subtle. It was a symphony of pizza magic.

Stuffed and satisfied, we headed back to the hotel and slept the sleep of the gastronomically thrilled. Plus, with two pizza boxes in the fridge, we knew there was more to come...

On Saturday morning, we finally dragged ourselves out of bed at the crack of 10:30 (it was Barb's first full night of sleep in over a week), and after reheating a few more pieces of our individual pizzas (perfect), we then hit the road, heading north toward Springfield, Illinois. On the way, I made a quick exit to spin through my alma mater, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, showing Barb the campus for the first time (including a couple of my old apartments and the baseball complex, of course) and then we got back on I-55 and clicked the miles off, one after another. About an hour later, we pulled into Springfield, checked in at the hotel and met Krista Wilkerson and our young crew guy, Cole Nance, out front for an afternoon of historical education.

We headed off immediately to the Abraham Lincoln Museum in downtown Springfield, not really sure what we were going to see or how it was going to be presented, but Krista was obviously very excited to take us there and both of us had made it clear we really wanted to do something "museum oriented" when we got there. To make it even better, my best buddy Rachel Wilkerson met us there, with one of her best friends, so we all got to tour the museum together.

Now... How do I describe the Lincoln Museum??? Perhaps I can use the word "stunning" or maybe "spectacular"... I think I'll go with the combo description of "fabulous and incredible."

I can say this with no reservations: If you're EVER in Illinois and have a chance to get to Springfield, you simply MUST visit the museum. It's high-tech, interactive, and fascinating. The main exhibits are almost beyond description, but let me just say that Disney has absolutely nothing on this museum, and in a lot of ways I think the museum out-Disney's anything you'd see in Orlando or Anaheim in terms of the "wow factor" and the way it's so easy to suspend your disbelief and soak it all in. It's incredible, and it's enormously educational. Frankly, I didn't realize just how difficult Lincoln's presidency had been, in terms of how splintered and fractured the country was and how viciously unpopular he was with vast swaths of the population. In the end, he stuck to his core beliefs, following his own personal ethics and values, and just as he was finally being recognized for the great leadership and vision he'd always possessed, he was tragically assassinated. It's an almost Shakespearean tragedy, but the historical significance of Lincoln's achievements should continue to motivate us all to look beyond the splintering and partisan bickering we still deal with today. He dealt with a country at war with itself, and managed to somehow put it back together...

After that enlightening and fascinating excursion, we headed over to a little restaurant known for its tenderloin sandwiches and chicken wings, meeting up with Tim and a few more tables full of Wilk friends and colleagues, to enjoy a quick meal before the reception. There was going to be food at the party, but most of us thought it would be better if we had already eaten, so that we wouldn't have to be holding conversations or meeting fans with our hands (or our mouths) full. I wolfed down a few wings and then ducked out early, so that I could get to the reception room and help Dan "Dozer" Hough, the man behind this whole extravaganza, with any last minute details. Plus, I was the guy with the DVD video Neighbor Dave had slaved over, featuring a bunch of the still photos he and I shot all year and splicing them into a 45-minute presentation, interspersed with some key video footage we were able to secure. He put it all to music, and it ended up being one heck of a good show...

As for the reception, I really didn't know what to expect, but Dozer had told me he thought it would be pretty crowded. I guess if you consider "pretty crowded" to mean the room was standing-room-only packed with a lot of people spilled out into the hall, then that's what it was. It was terrific, and the assembled group was made up of exactly the sort of people you'd love to spend an evening with. Great folks, great fans, and loyal Wilk Warriors!

Dozer also arranged for a band to play and they were great as well. We all mingled, the video played on the wall, the band cranked out classic hit after classic hit, and I was able to circulate and meet so many wonderful people, many of whom immediately started the conversation with references to Minnesota, the pond, Da Boyce, and other things blog-related. It was all just terrific. I got to shake hands and have conversations with so many people I'd never had the pleasure of meeting before, and Barb and I got to hang out with the crew, the whole Wilkerson family, and a ton of great friends. New friends, old friends, good friends. It was a GREAT night! I also had the pleasure of introducing Tim to the crowd, letting them know how honored I was to be there, and how privileged I feel to be a part of this unique and tightly-knit team. And when I say "team," I'm not just talking about the one small group that travels the country to race a Funny Car. I mean the whole team, and that extends far outside the large and avid crowd we had in the room. It really is a privilege, and I've never experienced anything quite like this in my career...

As the evening wore on, and we closed in on midnight, the gathering began to break up, the band played one more song, and we all said goodnight. Almost everyone else had to head out into the frigid night, dealing with frosted windshields and sputtering engines, but Barb and I were able to walk down the hall straight to our room, since we stayed at the hotel that hosted the event. The Northfield Inn had made sure we had the best suite in the house, with a large living room and a big jacuzzi, so our night was capped off by a glass of wine as we wound down with the perfect ending to a phenomenal day.

In the morning, we headed down to the shop where we met up with Rich and Annette, who are spending a few extra days in Springfield so that Rich can get all of our blowers ready for the season. Barbara had been talking to both of them about everything Rich was up to and about their business in southern Minnesota, so our trip to the shop doubled as both Barb's first visit there as well as a brief tutorial for her to learn about blowers and Quality Racing Products, the machine company Rich and Annette own and run. As Rich was taking internal measurements of our blower casings, denoting variances in the range of a thousandth of an inch, he had Annette pluck a single hair from her head to show Barb what three-thousandths looks like, so that she could get a visual grip on just how detailed his analysis was. I think Barb got a little better idea of just how much focused and detailed work has to go on prior to the races, in order for us to be able to show up and compete at the highest level, like we do... Neat stuff, and Rich and Annette were perfect tutors.

Tim came in just after that, and he was eager to show Barb around Wilkerson Service Center, his repair shop that takes up pretty much the front half of the building. He gave her the 75-cent version of the Tim Wilkerson story, brilliantly and entertainingly weaving the short-version tale of how he went from gas station employee to owner to being the owner of a string of service stations, and then how he parlayed all of that into the successful business he owns today. All the while, a racing career was blossoming in addition to the business side of things.

Tim is a great businessman, and a classic entrepreneur who has worked hard, worked right, and worked smart his whole life. It's that attitude and approach that has always allowed this team to do more with less, and his focus permeates every bit of our racing operation. To say it's all "impressive" would be an understatement of huge proportions.

A few minutes later, we were back on the old "double nickel" (I-55, southbound and down) headed back to STL for our 4:00 flight home. We covered the 100 miles with no delays and even had time to swing through a Steak 'N Shake right by the airport, to enjoy a steakburger and some chili before returning the rental and getting checked in at the beautiful main terminal at Lambert Airport. I think, to this day, I've probably spent more time in Lambert than any other airport, thanks to all my years living in St. Louis, despite the fact I rarely get there more than once or twice a year now. From picking up my dad there when I was a little kid to my days traveling all over the world from STL, it still feels like home to me, and it's soaring walls of glass remain an architectural masterpiece.

A couple of hours after finally conquering a very slow security line, we were home...

It was fast, it was furious, and it was fun. It was educational, it was motivational, and it was inspirational. It was delicious, it was spectacular, and it was everything we'd hoped for and much, much, more...

What a great weekend.

I'll be back soon, but until then...

Wilber, out!