June, 2014 Update:

We were finally able to spend more time with Eric, Kristin and our newest granddaughter Nora!

We attended the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis Indy Car race, both practice and the race itself.  The weather was perfect, the crowd was large and we saw plenty of great racing.  Hopefully it will become an annual event on the Indy Car circuit.

Bob enjoyed working for both the Grand Prix and the Indianapolis 500 and we were able to attend our thirty-third consecutive 500.  We were able to hear Jim Nabors sing “Back Home in Indiana” for his final time, Martina McBride sing “America the Beautiful” and Florence Henderson sing “God Bless America.”  And what an awesome race!  Congratulations to Ryan Hunter-Reay, this year’s winner.

We spent Memorial Day at Kathy’s sister, Ruthie’s, where we enjoyed good food and fun yard games.  We also attended an Indianapolis Indians baseball game with Bob’s sister, Cynthia & Chuck. 

August, 2014 Update:

We’ve had a very nice but busy summer.  After taking granddaughter Grace on vacation the end of June (see Grace’s Getaway), we traveled east to Long Pond, PA for the Pocono Indy Car 500, also known as the “Tricky Triangle”.  We parked in the infield, working very hard to fit into our 20’ X 40’ site (remember we have a 38’ rig plus our truck). We touched all four lines marking our site, then were the only campers in our immediate area!  Anyway it was a fun weekend and a great race won by Juan Pablo Montoya. One of the highlites of the weekend were the vintage race cars. They were on display and also ran around the track a for several laps. Bob also got to meet long time IndyCar driver Bob Harkey. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

We returned to Indiana for about three weeks, spending time with friends and family.  The first weekend in August, we spent in Lexington, OH for the Mid-Ohio Indy 200.  We parked along the course and were able to watch practice from our camper roof.  We met “the cookie lady,” a woman from Ohio who makes cookies for the racing teams.  She has a few favorites, but she’d provided homemade cookies for ALL the Indy Car teams for this weekend.  Very impressive!  She was quite interesting and her “paying job” is a special ed teacher in Ohio.  We watched the race from a viewing mound at turn four where we saw a lot of action.  It was a fun race won by Scott Dixon. We were able to meet up with Greenfield friend Bill, Beck, and Bill's nephew. All in all a very good racing weekend. Please note the first sequence of pictures, Bob took them at the start of the race and happened to be right place, right time, with the right equipment!

We returned to Greenfield for two more weeks before driving to Milwaukee for the Wisconsin 250 Indy Car race, won by Will Power.  We camped at the State Fair RV Park next to the track and had a really nice weekend.  Thanks to Ed Carpenter Racing for race credentials.  Our buddy with ECR had given us a teaser that big news was to be announced on Sunday and our friend at SFH teased us further by telling us “you’ll have the best of both worlds” so we scratched our heads all weekend trying to figure out what the big news would be.  We were totally unprepared for, but excited by the news that Ed Carpenter Racing and Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing were merging next year as they are our favorite teams. Here is a video of the start of the ABC Supply 250!

In between races, it seems we’ve either had our truck or fifth wheel in the shop much of the summer.  It seems now we have most issues taken care of, thankfully.  Kathy spent a beautiful August day at the Indiana State Fair with long-time friend, JoAnn and we’ve been able to spend time with Eric, Kristin and Nora which is always fun.

September 2 we are starting our next trip, a celebration of our forty years of wedded bliss, with a three-week trip to Hawaii.  We will be cruising from Vancouver, BC to and around the Hawaiian Islands, and then spending a week on the island of Kauai.