Spring 2012
May 2012
The “Month of May” in Indy has flown by! We enjoyed an afternoon in beautiful downtown Indianapolis starting with lunch at Creation Café on the White River Canal. The café patio has an awesome view of the canal, the atmosphere is eccentric and the food is good. We strolled the canal walk, enjoying the views of Indy on a clear day, the geese in the canal, people-watching and visiting the USS Indianapolis Memorial. The Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center, hoome of the Indiana Historical Society, is located along the canal and we spent a few hours there. It is very well done and well worth a visit.
Of course, our "Month of May" is not complete without spending time at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Indy 500. Bob worked his seventh year as a "yellow shirt" (Safety Patrol) in the garage area, where he was able to re-connect with the Panther/National Guard team. Joe, Christopher, Doug, Anna and the rest of the team have always made us feel welcome and helped make IndyCar racing a great passion for us. We both enjoyed spending several days at the Speedway. Kathy volunteered on Community Day this year, which she enjoyed and will probably do again. The Indy 500 race this year was one of the best ever and we were able to see it with our long time friends Steve and Jan, cousins Brigette, Brandon, Caroline & Cassondra, and 300,000 of our closest racing friends. We have been blessed to have been able to see the last 31 races, including several of the most exciting races in the history of the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing".
We've enjoyed spending time with son, Eric, hanging out and catching up. It's nice to have him back from Iraq. We've also been able to spend time with family and friends. We enjoyed watching nephew Ross play soccer with his travel team and niece Emma play on the high school tennis team. Emma graduated in May and we were able to participate in here graduation party and attend graduation.
Our time in Indiana is drawing to a close and we will soon be heading north to Milwaukee, WI for the Milwaukee IndyFest. This will be our last IndyCar race this year. We hope to spend some time visiting Madison, WI, the state capital before heading to Philadelphia, PA for the 2012 World Open Chess Tournament in early July.
April 2012
We had an enjoyable 2 weeks in
Columbia, TN, spending time with son Mike and family.
We were able to spend an afternoon with each of
the grandchildren as well as enjoying the Middle Tennessee weather and
countryside.
We arrived at S&H Campground in Greenfield, IN
April 16 and will be here until mid-June.We look forward to spending time with family
and friends, attending at least one Indiana Pacers game, and doing some area
sightseeing.
March 2012
We celebrated Valentine’s Day with a visit to the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi where we enjoyed various demonstrations, including Bob participating in the “Bird of Prey” show. Afterwards we had a delicious dinner at the Crab-N in Aransas Pass.
We spent a lovely afternoon in Port Aransas for the Whooping Crane Festival. While we didn’t see Whooping Cranes, we enjoyed touring the many booths and walking through the Port Aransas Nature Preserve where we saw various water fowl. We enjoyed lunch at Kody’s, a local steak & seafood restaurant with a fun and rustic atmosphere.
Our good friends from Houston, Bill & Deb visited for a couple of days. We enjoyed sitting on the beach, then Bob & Bill toured the USS Lexington, while Deb & Kathy visited the South Texas Botanical Gardens. It was nice to be able to spend time with them again.
We enjoyed watching IU advanced
in the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments, with Greenwood friends, Tom & Konita.
It was exciting to see them advance to the
Sweet Sixteen before losing a tough game to Kentucky.
We are preparing to leave our
winter home in Rockport the last week of March, heading east to Birmingham, AL
before arriving in Columbia, TN to spend time with son Mike and family.
We’ve had a great winter and enjoyed making new
friends and look forward to spending the spring and early summer with family.
April, 2012
We enjoyed a great racing weekend in Birmingham, AL at the Barber Motorsports Park. We parked our rig at Carson Village Mobile Home Park, a short distance from the racing facility. We were able to visit our friends at Panther Racing as well as the TRC team with the Star Mazda Road to Indy series. We also spent time at the Barber Vintage Museum, a very interesting and worthwhile place to visit. Outside of a rainy Friday afternoon, the weekend weather was ideal for racing and we found a great shaded viewing mound for the Sunday events. While our favorite team didn’t finish as well as we’d hoped, we saw a lot of action and the race was safe and exciting. Congratulations to Will Power, the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama winner.
We arrived in Columbia, TN on April 2, where we will spend a couple of weeks with son Mike and family. It’s good to see them again; my how the grandkids have grown! We look forward to spending a “special day” with each of the grandkids while here.