Spring 2008 Blog
Indiana
Tuesday May 27th. We can relax a bit today. Friday was Carb day at the track but it rained so the teams didn't get to work on their race setups.
Saturday we spent the day with Mike, Amanda and the grandkids. Cooking out, Shelby and her friend caught a big fish.
Sunday was the big day. The Indy 500 where we can go to the track and watch the greatest race in the world with 400,000 of our closest friends. The weather was good (80 and sunny). The race was good, but a lot of crashes meant a lot of yellow light time. Scott Dixon won, Vitor Meira finished second (I had told Vitor's right rear tire changer that was what was going to happen several days before the race.) We went with Steve and Jan, friends who have gone to the race with us for several years now.
We will be leaving Greenfield Friday for Milwaukee to see the IndyCar race their next Sunday. We can't wait!
Wednesday May 21st...Home today, one of our few chances to relax a bit. Bob spent the weekend at the track watching the final two days of qualifying. Sunday afternoon was very intense with Buddy Lazier, Mario Dominguez, Marty Roth and Roger Yasukawa all fighting for the last two spots. On the last attempt of the day as the gun went off Mario pushed a bit too much and hit the wall. He's ok and we'll see him in Milwaukee for the next race. I'm rooting for Vitor Meira (#4 Panther Racing) to win, but I'm picking him 2nd behind Scott Dixon (#9).
We are getting close to leaving Indiana again. We will be headed to Milwaukee for the IndyCar race the week after the 500 and then to Corry PA for the rest of the summer. Since I work at the speedway and am not allowed to take pictures while I work I don't have any additional pictures to post. Sorry.
Sunday May 11th....Mothers day. Kathy spent the day with Mike, his family and Eric and his wife. Bob spent the day getting wet at the track. All in all, Kathy had a much better day!
We are back home in Indiana. Thus far we have spent our time visiting family and old friends. Bob started working at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 4th. He works about 4 days a week with the safety patrol in the garage area. It's fun getting to see all the drivers, owners and celebrities during the month. On Tues May 6th, Hillary Clinton visited. Bob was part of the crowd control team. It was most interesting to see the Secret Service and the advance team set up for her visit. As with all such visits it was well scripted. I have a friend out at the speedway who is going to try to get me some of his great pictures of the drivers. I'll post them as soon as I get them.
Bob also went to the Air Force Museum with grandson Patrick on May 2nd. It was a great trip and we have some good pictures.
Louisiana
We arrived at Fairview-Riverside State Park in Madisonville, LA, March 31and began working with Habitat for Humanity through St. Tammany Parish West on April 1. The work week is Tuesday through Saturday from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM. and we have found we are exhausted by the end of the 8-hour work day! The first week we spent finishing porches on 2 homes on a street with 7 Habitat houses in various stages of completion. Bob is the brains of the operation: planning, measuring, and sawing; Kathy does the screw placement and is getting pretty good with that cordless drill/driver! The second week we worked on a 3-bedroom home that has a larger front porch, which we nearly completed before leaving. Each home also has a side porch that requires steps, and rail. We’ve learned about Habitat and met a few of the home owners who are required to provide a certain number of “sweat equity” hours as part of their qualification process. There is an AmeriCorps NCCC crew on our job site and it has been interesting talking to them as well as Mike, our site supervisor. We also enjoyed getting acquainted with a mission group from Des Moines United Methodist Church near Seattle Washington and meeting a group from Owen Valley Alternative School near Spencer, Indiana. We’ve had authentic pulled pork Po-Boys at a local barbeque shop, homemade red bean gumbo with sausage made by one of the other campers and jambalaya provided by Habitat; all have been delicious! After hearing how the locals eat crawfish, it is doubtful we will try any but we’ve been referred to a good steak and seafood restaurant. We’ve met great people both at the jobsite and the campground. We enjoyed a day at the French Quarter Festival with new RV friends and fellow Habitat workers Bob & Barb. It was a beautiful day and we heard wonderful jazz, zydeco, and Latin music. On the drive home, we saw a beautiful sunset over Lake Pontchartrain from the causeway bridge. It was a wonderful ending to our 2 weeks in Louisiana as we now head to Memphis on our way back to family and friends in Indiana.
January 1, 2008
We returned to Tomball, TX on New Year’s Eve. In the New Year we spent a day in Galveston, where we took a boat tour of the bay, observing dolphins and off shore-rigs in for repairs. We had a delicious lunch at Fisherman’s Wharf on the Bay, toured a retired off-shore platform that is now a museum and wandered the city. We spent a Saturday with Bill & Deb at Space Center Houston where we toured NASA, including Mission Control Center and the shuttle training center. We visited the Houston Port Authority and toured the Houston Port, which is the fourth largest US seaport. It was interesting to see so many ships from around the world. We spent a day with Bill at the George Bush Presidential Museum in College Station and spent a day in Brenham, Texas where we had lunch, toured the Blue Bell Creamery and had a delicious sample. Too bad Blue Bell isn’t available in the Midwest, it is really tasty! It was a lovely day for a drive, although the blue bonnets weren’t yet in bloom. We enjoyed a day at the San Jacinto Museum, monument and battlefield, and toured the Battleship Texas. We ate lunch twice at Mel’s Country Café, a must if you ever visit Tomball. You can smell the grease as you walk toward the restaurant but the food is terrific! Bob enjoyed a free weekly poker game at the Main Street Café and actually became pretty good. We especially enjoyed attending Tomball United Methodist Church as the congregation and pastors made us feel very welcome. We enjoyed spending time with Bill, Deb and Adam and it was with mixed feelings that we headed to Madisonville, LA on our slow trip back to Indiana.
