Our Road Trips

10/18/2016 10/12-17/2016

We got our ballots from Becky at a BBQ place in Tulsa, a very popular place by the size of the lunch crowd on a Wed. She had been in Florida to do a few things & go on a cruise with our daughter and lives an hour north of Tulsa, so she brought us our ballots, how convenient. She used our truck while in Florida too, so it was a great trade off. Then we went back to the camper via the grocery store and waited out a rain storm. We have been so lucky this summer, not much rain to spoil our fun.

The next morning was moving day, a 4.5 hour drive to Kansas Speedway. En-route, we passed through Bartlesville & Dewey Oklahoma and then Chanute, Kansas. My father's family lived in those towns when I was a young man and I spent a good deal of time there, mostly in Chanute. There are a ton of memories there. We will be in Kansas City until Monday morning, watch a few races, see one of our favorite bands do a pre-race show in the infield, and see if the people running the place are interested in having us back. We arrived about 430, got ourselves parked and went looking for where we needed to be to get some inter-track transportation arranged. The haulers were getting ready to go inside and were all lined up near where we were parked, so that was fun, got pictures of a bunch of them. Then, it became apparent that nobody of any authority was available and the rest of the 'workers' were not allowed to answer any questions, it was crazy...hear no evil, speak no evil. We went back to the camper having accomplished nothing.

The next morning, we tried again, same result, but we did get our tickets. Barb finally got a phone number to call and a name of a gal to talk to. She was extremely rude to Barb but finally gave her some information. So we arranged for a ride to the gate (we were camped about a mile from our seats) and we went to watch the race on Friday night. I would guess there were less than 1,000 people there, including all of the ushers. But we enjoyed the race and even had a car we were pulling for until it crashed...the heavy favorite ended up winning, go figure. But we had a fun time. The ride back to the camper happened with a minor delay, so all in all, it was a pleasant, but very chilly, evening. The wind was blowing in our faces all night, and it was somewhere in the mid 50's, pretty cool for two Florida kids.

Sat, the race wasn't until 130 in the afternoon, so we spent the morning relaxing at the camper. It was really foggy in the morning and then cloudy all day. We put a roast, potatoes & carrots in the crock pot for dinner and went to the race. We got a ride from the camper to the gate, so that helped. The race got pretty boring, unless you were for Kyle Bush. He led a vast majority of the race & won by a lot. But he gets no points, and the Xfinity regulars only got points. We went back and had a good dinner, then sat outside and listened to all of the generators running...lol.

Sunday, we headed to the track early, we had paid to be in the infield for the pre-race stuff. We got there about 1015 after a very long walk. But we had front row for the Blackberry Smoke concert. They came on at 1130 and played for 45 mins....good show, fun to hear the boys play. We have been on about 11 cruises with them, plus several other concerts, but it had been a while, so we enjoyed the show. After the music was over, they moved all of the stage stuff to introduce the drivers, good grief, people are rude. I got run over with people being in a hurry to be close to their hero drivers, it was crazy. So we left, headed to our seats, got there just in time to hear all the prayers, etc. The race had some boring parts, one guy led every lap of the 1st half. Then it got a little more interesting. Kevin Harvick led the last 30 or so laps & won the race, which was OK with us. Then the fun started, trying to get back to our camper. It took over an hour & a half to walk, then finally get a ride to get back. We met the most uninformed, rude, & unhelpful people...we both have been treated very rudely and we have decided we will never be back. We enjoyed the concert & the races & the rest of the whole experience was awful. They have been putting on races since 2001 and have learned nothing about how to take care of people, it is pitiful. When we finally got back, we sat and watched folks leave.

Monday morning, we packed up and moved on too. We ran into 3 closed gates, we couldn't get out...lol. We finally escaped at the 4th try and made our way across KC to Independence, MO. We found a parking place at the Harry S Truman Museum & Library and spent the next 3 hours touring the museum. We both found it very interesting. He was President before both of us were born, so his legacy was sort of forgotten in our schooling. So it was a good lesson for us both to learn what they wanted us to know. We have been to enough of these things to figure out that all there is to know is not necessarily presented, just the parts that help build the lasting legacy. It is not always fair either, a lot is missing from every one. But we both learned some things, and some of those things still affect policy to this day and terms used then are still used today...do nothing Congress anyone? The we loaded up and were headed east again. We decided to take US 24, which took us through lots of little towns, including the town my sister & brother in law lived in for several years in the early 70s and where they started their family. The wind was blowing about 30-40 mph from the south, which meant a cross wind that made driving a challenge. But we made it to Arrow Rock about 500 and got set up, with the only site in the park that would have satellite TV...again, sometimes it is better to be lucky than good. We are here for a few days and will do a little relaxing and a little sightseeing. Then we are on to St Louis and a mini-reunion with a group of the folks we went to Alaska with.

Steve & Barb Larson