Summer Vacation

Over the last two weeks we drove 5400 km, covered nine States and one Province!   Our destination was Indianapolis, Indiana for 3 days of car racing!    It took us five days of driving to get there with Winnipeg being our first night. We reached Sioux Falls, SD our second night and drove around town to find the falls, not disappointing at all!

We headed to Omaha, Nebraska the next day and I found a fantastic quilt shop called The Country Sampler, a must stop for any quilter!  After the quilt shop we stopped at Lauritzen Gardens to see the trains on display and pick up a geocache.  My GPS died just as we got to the site so we had to use our geo-senses and memory of the description to find that micro cache and we found it!  We stopped in Des Moines, Iowa for our third night.

The next day I found a great quilt shop called The Woolen Needle in Williamsburg, Iowa.   I don’t usually buy wool appliqué kits but I was so inspired by this shop I bought a few!  They also had an outlet mall so we stopped there for an hour too!  We made it to Macomb, Illinois that night and got my picture taken by the corn.  We saw lots of corn!  :)

The next day we made it to Indianapolis and found our hotel which our was home for the next five days.   There were activities and races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the next four days.  My boys and husband really enjoy racing and I don’t mind going to the races, I know more about NASCAR than I care to admit!  

On the Friday my son meet up with one of his online friends at the track and they chose to watch the Tudor Series and Continental Tire Series from the infield viewing mounds.  Since it was hot and sunny the rest of us chose to sit up in the stands in the shade.  During the second race I get a text from my son saying “ I just had my picture taken with Jeff Gordon”.    OMG!    Jeff is my sons favourite driver and as we were planning this trip I keep thinking in the back of my mind wouldn’t it be amazing if he actually got the opportunity to meet his idol.    Here’s the picture.

Andrew said they were just watching the race when Jeff walked over with a friend and they stayed and watched the race for an hour on the same viewing mound that Andrew and his friend were standing on.   When a few kids approached Jeff for autographs he signed them and that is when Andrew and his friend asked if they could have their photos taken with him.  He was a very friendly and happy to talk to them, a real class act!   Everyone in this viewing area basically left Jeff alone to enjoy the race.  If this was a NASCAR race day I’m sure he would have not been able to do that.   This was a dream come true for my son!
The next two days were the NASCAR Nationwide Series and Sprint Cup Series.  My favourite part of both days was viewing the area between the garages and track and watching all the drivers walk though the only place you can get up close and personal with the drivers…not that they always want that!  We got to see most of the drivers this way and it was fun to see who would stop to sign autographs and who wouldn’t.  Can you find Danica Patrick in the picture below?  :)

Some drivers were lucky like Carl Edwards who crossed the walkway when it was almost empty.

Here are some happy guys after watching Jeff Gordon win the Brickyard 400!

That was the icing on the cake for this trip, watching my sons favourite driver win after meeting him!

It is great to be back home and my sister is visiting for the week so I only have plans to swim, kayak and relax as it is going to be warm and sunny!  I need to enjoy this warm weather as it won’t last long.  I hope to start a few quilting projects soon to share with you!   Hope your all having a wonderful summer.

Almost forgot this picture!

For those that follow NASCAR we didn’t ‘Kiss the Bricks” but we did stand on them!  :)