2011 -- IndyCar Dream Summer.
We are planning on spending the summer following IndyCar racing around the country. On the way we are planning on visiting several state capitals and the state museums. We owe this passion to Phil and his tour around the Michigan State Museum.
We are planning on seeing the following races:
March 27 -- Honda Grand Prix in St
Petersburg, FL ---
Winner Dario Franchitti
April 10 -- Honda Grand Prix of Alabama in
Birmingham, AL ---
Winner Will Power
May 29 -- Indianapolis 500 in
Indianapolis, IN ---
Winner Dan Weldon
June 19 -- The Milwaukee 225 in
West Allis, WI ---
Winner Dario Franchitti
June 25 -- Iowa Corn Indy 250, Newton, IA ---
Winner Marco Andretti
August 7 -- Honda Indy 200 in Lexington, OH ---
Winner Scott Dixon
August 14 -- New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Loundon, NH ---
Winner Ryan
Hunter-Reay
Sept 4 -- Baltimore Grand Prix,
Baltimore, MD ---
Winner Will Power
October 2 -- Kentucky Indy 300, Sparta, KY --
Winner Ed Carpenter
Oct 2011
We spent a couple of days at Holiday Park Campground outside Greensboro, MD, a
lovely family-owned and wooded facility.
We spent a day in Dover, DE where we enjoyed an excellent tour of the Old
State House by Curt, complete in 18th century clothing.
We learned Delaware has only 3 counties, the original 3 that separated
from Pennsylvania.
The Old State
House sits on the Green and is surrounded by historic buildings.
After lunch at The Smithers we took the historic walking tour, led by
Rosemary, also in period clothing, who explained Dover history and gave us
insightful information about the buildings and the important people associated
with them.
Afterwards we walked
across Legislative Mall to Legislative Hall, the current State Capitol.
It is a large building from outside but the legislative chambers are not
really big or ornate as some we’ve visited.
From Dover we drove to Chesapeake City, MD where we saw the
Delaware-Chesapeake Canal, built to connect the Delaware and Chesapeake Rivers
for large vessel travel.
We visited
the Army Corp of Engineers Museum, then went into the office where we met two
engineers who were more than happy to tell us about the canal and their work
there.
They also gave us a dinner
recommendation, The Bayard, right on the canal.
We had a delicious meal on the patio, enjoying the pleasure boats on the
canal.
Next stop, Richmond, VA, where we visited the Virginia State Capitol, designed
by Thomas Jefferson.
It was
completed renovated in 2004-2007 and houses America’s oldest legislative
assembly.
We did a self-guided
tour, armed with excellent information from a couple of delightful volunteers,
one of whom told us about Queen Elizabeth’s 2007 visit.
We enjoyed lunch at the Tobacco Company Restaurant housed in an old
warehouse an easy walk from the capitol.
This four-story, breath-taking restaurant embodies the spirit of Southern
hospitality and charm.
The food and
atmosphere were excellent.
After
lunch we toured the White House of the Confederacy then drove down Monument
Avenue, where we saw monuments to Arthur Ashe, Matthey Fontaine Maury, Stonewall
Jackson, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart.
We drove past St. John’s Church, where Patrick Henry gave his “give me
liberty or give me death” speech.
Insert VA Pix
We spent two weeks in Columbia, TN, visiting son Mike & family.
Bob was able to help Mike with their house and Kathy enjoyed taking each
of the grandchildren shopping.
They
are each so unique and such fun to spend time with.
Grandson Patrick spent an afternoon with us and Bob’s family in
McMinnville, meeting relatives he’d never met.
We thoroughly enjoyed our last Indy Car race of the season at the Kentucky
Speedway near Sparta, KY.
We spent
a day in Frankfort, where we visited the State Capitol, which celebrated its 100th
anniversary last year.
The rotunda
ceiling is lit with LED lights that change colors and is very pretty.
There are four pendentive murals that were installed on the dome interior
for the centennial celebration.
Originally the murals were to have been painted when the capitol was built but
the artist went down with the Titanic!
An interesting bit of Kentucky history!
It was quite cool for the Kentucky 300 weekend but we had a wonderful time.
Thanks again to Panther Racing for the exceptional season we’ve enjoyed.
Also thanks to Foyt Racing for credentials for this particular race.
We enjoyed spending time in the garage and pits as well as an absolutely
fabulous race with so many position changes and a dramatic duel for the last 25
laps.
Our congratulations and best
wishes to Ed Carpenter and Sarah Fisher Racing for winning the race by a nose!
It was the first IndyCar win for both Ed as the driver and Sarah as the
car owner. It couldn't have happened to nicer people.
What a fabulous end to our dream summer!
We have driven 14,262 miles through 20 states (some more than once!),
visited 18 state capitols, 3 presidential libraries and attended 9 Indy Car
races, including the Inaugural Baltimore race and the return to Milwaukee and
New Hampshire.
This truly has been
a dream summer for us.
We are back
in Indiana for the month of October, visiting friends and family before heading
to Texas for the winter.
While here in Indiana, we spent a day in
Indianapolis, our own state capital.
We enjoyed a self-guided tour
of the State Capitol, built of Indiana limestone and completed in 1888.
It is a beautiful building,
the interior including Maine granite, eastern United States marble, and Indiana
white oak, walnut and maple.
The rotunda is topped by a
stained glass dome, original to the building.
Some of the fourth floor
chandeliers are also original.
We met some great staff who
shared some “behind the scenes” information.
From the capitol, we walked a
few blocks to the U.S. Court House, as suggested by our friend Jan.
Unfortunately we had to place
our camera in a locker, so we don’t have pictures to post of the beautiful glass
mosaic tile ceilings, grand staircases, and stained glass dome.
We were able to spend a few
minutes in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, where a
hearing was underway.
It was interesting to listen
to the discussion while enjoying the beautiful courtroom.
The building originally also
housed the post office, and evidence of that era remains.
It was a wonderful way to
complete our state capitol tours.
It was with great sadness we watched the Las Vegas Championship race. What was
to be the climax to a great season quickly became a sad ending.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the Dan Wheldon family as well as the
entire Indy Car community.
September 2011
We rode out Hurricane Irene just south of Utica, NY at Lake Chalet Campground &
Motel.
The campground sustained
tree damage from the winds and rain but we survived unscathed.
We found a farm within walking distance with delicious fresh corn, an
added bonus.
We spent 2 days at
Cedar Lake Campground in Dover, PA about 30 miles from
Harrisburg.
We spent an afternoon
visiting the Pennsylvania State Capitol, a beautiful building opened in 1906
after fire destroyed the original capitol building. While admiring barrister
bookcases in the House Speaker’s office, we met Betsy who showed us around the
office, then introduced us to Kelly & Collette, also employees of the Speaker of
the House.
Kelly gave us a
wonderful book about the United States Capitols and we spent about an hour
visiting with them.
We arrived at
Cherry Hill RV Park just outside Washington, DC on September 1st.
We’d stayed here with granddaughter Shelby four years ago and felt it was
a good choice while attending the inaugural
Baltimore Grand Prix Indy Car race.
We were able to drive to a satellite parking lot and take a shuttle to
the race course where we enjoyed re-connecting with the
Panther Racing team and
meeting so many people who were excited to have an Indy Car race in Baltimore.
We were also able to re-connect with Jerimy Daniel and Max with the
Star
Mazda TRC team and watch Jerimy race on Sunday.
The course was in downtown Baltimore, so we enjoyed seeing the Inner
Harbor and Oriole Stadium as well as the local food and hospitality.
Although the race was not without its glitches, it was a great race and
we hope to be able to attend again.
We spent Labor Day with Bob’s cousin Suzan, her husband Chris, and their
grandson Jonathan who introduced us to delicious tapas dining at Jaleo and
showed us some of the beautiful homes and areas of DC.
We spent a rainy day in Annapolis, MD where we visited the
US Naval
Academy in time to see the Noon Formation at Bancroft Hall.
We toured the State Capitol there, once the US Capitol and the oldest
state house still in continuous legislative use.
We saw the spot where George Washington resigned his commission as
commander-in-chief of the Continental Army December 23, 1783.
Even in the rain we enjoyed walking through town and visiting a few
quaint shops.
We are back to our former reputation of it always raining when we go camping,
thanks to Hurricane Irene and now Tropical Storm Lee!
It has rained non-stop since September 7.
Our summer of visiting state capitals would not be complete without a
visit to the nation’s capital so we spent a day in Washington, the first DRY day
in a week!
Thanks to suggestions
from Bob’s cousin Suzan, we visited the
International Spy Museum which was very
interesting (and a little scary!) and enjoyed lunch at the Spy Café.
We visited the
National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, a very
impressive memorial to fallen officers, where we found the name of Mike’s friend
Will Phillips and a friend of Bob’s dad’s from Vandalia, OH.
We toured the
United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum
which
provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history,
and is dedicated to helping leaders and citizens of the world confront hatred,
prevent
genocide,
promote human dignity, and strengthen
democracy.
We spent time at the World War II Memorial on the National Mall, which is
beautifully done with many fountains and an abundance of water.
From here we had beautiful views of the Lincoln Memorial and the
Washington Monument with the US Capitol in the background.
It was a great day!
August:
August is almost over. We are continuing
our stay on Cape Cod. We enjoyed a beautiful day on Martha’s Vineyard, taking
the ferry from Falmouth across Vineyard Sound.
We took a bus tour of the island, seeing
driveways of the rich & famous, enjoying a stop at Gay Bluffs, the eastern tip
of the island and enjoying the beautiful scenery.
We saw a couple of security details for
President Obama but no First Family sightings.
We strolled the shops in Oak Bluffs before
taking the return ferry to Falmouth.
Our final destination on Cape Cod was
Provincetown, the eastern-most town on the Cape.
It has beautiful scenery along the Cape Cod
National Seashore, and is more of an artistic, touristy area.
The highlight of our day (and probably the
week!) was an afternoon aboard the Dolphin VII, one of the
Dolphin Fleet of Provincetown whale-watching boats.
We saw a few Minke whales and several Humpback;
they were absolutely awesome.
We had a close view of a couple of Humpbacks doing a flipper slap.
Unbelievable!! Each Dolphin Fleet vessel has an
experienced naturalist on board who provides great information during the trip
and is able to identify many of the dolphins seen.
We closed out the cruise with a 5 minute view of a Humpback named Sundog doing a
flipper slap. I cannotg describe how great it was. See the video
here. Afterwards we had dinner at
Pepe’s Wharf Restaurant, right on Cape Cod Bay.
The food was delicious and the view fabulous;
the perfect ending to a perfect week!
Tomorrow we are heading inland about 250 miles with
the hopes of missing the worst of Hurricane Irene.
This is creating a slight change in plans so we
will explore central Vermont rather than the New England coast.
We had a great time at Mid Ohio.
It's a real shame that JR Hildebrand had such poor luck getting hit by Viso when
JR had a really good car. However Scott Dixon had a great car and drove a great
race!
We were able to hook up with friend & former neighbor,
Bill, his buddy Beck & nephew Michael while there and saw some great racing.
It was interesting staying at the speedway
campground and being able to walk or catch a shuttle to everything.
Next stop, Albany, NY, where we spent a day exploring
the state’s capital.
The capitol and state museum sit at opposite
ends of the Empire State Plaza, a lovely area.
We happened to visit the day the local farmer’s
market was on the plaza which was interesting.
The Capitol took 32 years to build at a final
cost of $25 million dollars.
The Great Western Staircase, also known as the
Million Dollar Staircase, took 14 years to construct and cost more than one
million dollars.
The staircase is breath-taking and has a very
different appearance from each level.
From Albany we had a pretty but tiresome drive to Loudon, NH and the New Hampshire Motor Speedway where we helped welcome Indy Car racing back to NH. We again stayed at the speedway campground where we had great neighbors, Chuck, Stephanie & family from northern Maine and Bruce & Cindy from New Hampshire. We enjoyed visiting with all as well as our friends at Panther Racing. The speedway is a great place to view racing as you can see around the entire track, slightly more than 1 mile. The race itself had several mishaps and yellow lights and JR Hildebrand was hit again, ending another good run for Panther. You can see a video of the practice session from the Panther Pit here.
We drove the short distance to Chichester, NH and
Great Meadows Campground where we stayed while visiting the state capital of
Concord and nearby Portsmouth.
The State House is
the only state capitol whose legislature still sits in
its original chambers--no small feat, since the 424-member New Hampshire General
Court is the largest state legislative body, and the third largest legislature
among English-speaking peoples.
While there we met Dennis Fields, a member of
the House who took us onto the floor of both the House & Senate and gave us some
interesting history.
While in Concord, we also visited the Museum of
NH History and the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center.
We spent a day in Portsmouth, NH where we
enjoyed Strawberry Banke, a living history museum in one of New Hampshire’s
oldest waterfront neighborhoods.
Afterwards, we walked to Kittery, Maine for a
delicious lobster dinner, and then walked the quaint streets of Portsmouth.
We are currently at Peters Pond RV Resort on Cape Cod,
MA.
We are within walking distance of the resort beach and
have a lovely shaded site.
We spent an afternoon driving on scenic Highway
6A through quaint little villages, enjoyed lunch at the Blue Dolphin, and
wandered through Orleans.
We spent a day at Plymouth, first at Plimoth
Plantation, a 1627 living history museum, where we spoke with
Wampanoag descents and English role-players.
We visited the Mayflower II, a full-scale
reproduction built in Devon, England and crossed the Atlantic in 1957.
We also saw Plymouth Rock and strolled through
some of the little shops.
We hope to spend a day at Provincetown and a
day on Martha’s Vineyard.
July:
We are currently in Dayton, OH visiting Bob's Aunt Lorraine and visiting some friends. Bob was able to contact former High School Classmate Kay Hall to see if we could get together. Kay contacted several people from our class who still live in the Dayton area. We had a nice get together with about 12 people. We went to the Dayton Air Show Saturday. It was spectacular! We spent the next day at the Air Force Museum in Fairborn, OH. We have been to many Air Shows and Aircraft Museums in our travels, but these are by far the best! We have posted some of our pictures. It was the 2nd time we had seen a B-2 in flight. Looks like a spacecraft!
Next we are headed to Columbus to see the capital and then off to Mid Ohio.
We spent a week in Columbus, where we spent a day at the Ohio State Fair and an afternoon at the Ohio Statehouse. Having grown up in Ohio, Bob had never visited either. The weather was perfect for the fair and we enjoyed the exhibits, including a 200 pound chocolate pig and a lumberjack show. The state capitol was completed in 1861 after 22 years of construction, and was restored to its original grandeur in 1996. It is considered one of America’s finest examples of Greek Revival architecture. Our tour guide was a retired first grade teacher and was excellent!
We are looking forward to “going racing” again, and are headed to the Honda Indy
200 at Mid-Ohio this weekend.
July
After the Iowa Race we headed to West Branch, IA to go to the Presidential Library of Herbert Hoover. It is a lovely area where we visited Hoover’s Birthplace Cottage, the Blacksmith Shop owned by Hoover’s father, the one-room schoolhouse and the Quaker Meetinghouse. The museum was built in 1960 and covers not only Hoover’s life but bits of the lives of other presidents from Roosevelt to George HW Bush. We really found that we knew very little about Hoover other than he was president when the Great Depression first hit. We Learned about his childhood, how he was orphaned and went to live with his uncle in Oregon. He became a very successful mining engineer with a worldwide reputation.
We spent a few days in Springfield, IL at the Double J Campground just south of
town.
We enjoyed the modern Lincoln
Presidential Museum which is very well done, with exhibits depicting various
periods of Lincoln’s life and presidency.
We had lunch at The Feed Store on the Old Capitol Plaza, a quaint little
deli with delicious soups and sandwiches.
We toured the Springfield State Capitol which was designed by the same
architect as the Des Moines State Capitol which we visited the week before.
We drove to the Lincoln Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery, a very solemn,
impressive monument.
After that we went to Champaign, IL and met our granddaughter (Along with her Mom Amanda and Aunt Penny) to pick her up and take her on a trip to South Dakota. Our first stop was in De Smet, SD . This is the clildhood home of Laura Ingalls Wilder, who wrote the Little House on the Prarie books. Abby has read one of the books and enjoyed seeing the way she had lived. We then went to Rapid City where we had to get our driver's license renewed. We then went to Mt Rushmore. This was a great thrill for Abby as we had previously taken her dad and brother to see the famous mountain. You can see more of Abby's Awsome Adventure here.
June -- Iowa Corn 250 Update:
From Milwaukee we went to Des Moines Iowa to see the state capital and attend the Iowa 250 Race in Newton. The weather was not very good. We arrived in Iowa on Monday and it has rained every day except Friday. But we were able to dodge the showers enough to get some reorganizing done on the new camper and to see the Capital of Iowa as well as the Iowa State Museum. Both were impressive. The Capital is one of the most beautiful we have seen.
We spent the weekend at the Iowa Speedway and can't say enough about the hospitality of the Panther Racing Team. Joe and Doug have both gone out of their way to answer our silly questions and to enhance our racing experience. To add to that, JR and the Panther Team ran a very good race to finish 4th. That is JR's best finish so far as an IndyCar rookie. He is a leading contender for Rookie of the Year for the Series. He is an impressive driver and an impressive young man. Here are some pics from this week. We were able to watch the Indy Lites race from the top of the Panther Transporter. What fun!
Milwaukee 225 Update:
This was a very good race, unfortunatly our drivers had problems in the 4th turn. But it was a good win for Dario with a lot of very good racing all over the track. Now it's on to Iowa for next weeks race.
We were most fortunate to have passes from JR Hildebrand of Panther Racing for this race. We also were able to reconnect with Jerimy Daniel and Max of TRC racing in the Star Mazda series. They were kind enough to let us sit out the rain in Birmingham in their garage area and remembered us from that. Nice Folks -- Go Jerimy!
I'm really excited to report that I was able to ride 3 laps in the IndyCar 2 seater! You can see a picture below of me with the driver after the run. I had to remind myself that it was fairly safe, but WOW!!! How exciting. What a Father's Day present from my dear wife!
It's been a bit of a struggle for Panther Racing with some technical problems cutting down on their practice time, but JR has done a great job this year of staying out of trouble and moving up in the standings. I look for a top 10 finish here in Milwaukee. I have a couple of pictures from the track and you can see some of our other racing pictures here.
May Update:
.
We spent the last two weeks of
April at Campers RV Park in Columbia, TN while visiting son Mike & family.
We enjoyed spending time with them, having a
“date night” with each of our four precious grandchildren, and spending some
time in Nashville, Tennessee’s state capital.
Included here are some pictures from last
summer’s visit to the State Capitol as well as pictures of our time with family
this spring.
We arrived “Back Home in Indiana”
April 30, which was an adventure in itself!
We saw quite a bit of
flooding on our way north and managed to get our truck (with 5th
wheel attached) stuck at
S&H Campground in Greenfield.
With the help of several campers we were able
to get unstuck and into our campsite, our home for the next 6 weeks.
We also had a tire
separate before we arrived, causing damage to the door side of the 5th
wheel.
Just another “Adventure of Bob & Kathy”!
We have enjoyed spending time
with family and friends, and returning to the
Indianapolis
Motor Speedway for the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing".
We spent opening day at the track where we
visited our friends at
Panther Racing and enjoyed watching cars on the track for the first time
this May.
It has been cool and rainy much of the month
but we’re hopeful for qualifications this weekend and a great race Memorial Day
weekend.
We are so excited that
4-time
Indy 500 winner
A. J.
Foyt is driving this year’s pace car for the 100th
anniversary of the race!
We spent March 25-27 in
St. Petersburg, enjoying the
Honda Grand Prix, our first street
course Indy car race.
We had paddock passes, so we were able to
wander through the garage areas, and get great pictures of various drivers.
We talked with Bob’s friend Joe with Panther
Racing, whose big sponsor is National Guard, an organization close to our
hearts.
We also met and talked with Christopher, the team
trainer; it was interesting to learn about his role with the team.
He is also involved with the Green Castle, IN
National Guard.
Kathy is definitely now a Panther
Racing/National Guard fan.
Driver
JR Hildebrand did very well, moving from 25th
starting position to finishing 10th.
Our seats for the race were in the first turn,
where we saw a lot of action as well as being able to see the start/finish line.
It was a great race and an excellent start to
our IRL summer!
We will be leaving our winter home at Oak Haven Mobile Home & RV Park and will begin our journey north. We plan to visit state capitals in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, as well as the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama in Birmingham. We will spend a couple of weeks visiting son Mike & family before returning to Indiana early May.
We traveled from Oak Haven to Tallahassee, FL and visited the Florida State Museum and the Florida State Museum. This was most interesting, Florida has grown very fast in the last 50 years and is now the 5th most populous state in the union. We also went to Quincy and Havana, FL. Quincy has many old large southern houses to admire and Havana is full of interesting shops. This little side trip was recommended by our friend Penny.
We had a good time but discovered that we were getting some tire wear on the camper. We were unable to find a dealer who would look at the suspension on the camper so we headed for Atlanta where we stayed at the Stone Mountain Park Campground. We found a Route 66 RV dealer who fixed our camper and we proceeded to spend a couple of interesting days in Atlanta. Among other things we did a VIP tour of CNN, A tour of the World of Coca-Cola, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Center, the Olympic Centennial Park and the Martin Luther King memorial. Did a lot of walking, saw some really neat things and got to ride the MARTA train into the city and back. All in all a good couple of days....but a bit expensive with the camper repairs.
On Friday April 8th we moved from Atlanta to Birmingham and parked at the Carson Village Mobile Home and RV park. After parking our rig we drove to the Birmingham Raceway for the free parking before taking the shuttle to the Barber Motorsports Park. This is a great place to watch a road race. We were able to find good seats for all the action and our Paddock passes allowed us to see up close and personal the teams prepare for the race. Our favorite team (Panther) was there and JR Hildebrand qualified 15th out of 26, much better than the race at St Pete. We were able to visit with the team and get some pictures in their garage. Hildebrand ran a good race after a rough start, he finished 13th. The team seems to be improving with each race. Keep it up guys! We sat upon a hill between the 2nd and 3rd turns so we could see the start of the race and the exit from the pits. We got some good pictures of the action and met some of the nicest, friendliest people of any track we have been to. After a good nite's sleep it was off to Montgomery to see the state capitol.
