Day at the races.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening...

Less than one week left before the official start of school. I gotta make these next few days count :)

Today I went through the huge pile of papers that I had been accumulating on the kitchen island for at least 3 months. It's probably been even longer than that, but I'll say 3 so it sounds better :) The pile is smaller, but I have other piles to go through.

I may need a longer vacation.

So the last time I left you, I was going to go out to the legendary Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the United States Grand Prix. It was the first Formula 1 race I've ever been to.

How's that for integrating all the links :)

Anyway, we left Saturday afternoon - I had to go to the school for a bit, but I left after an hour. Drove out to Ann Arbor in the tintmobile. Driving the car with the tint makes me feel different. Llke a rockstar. Heh. OK, maybe not. Anyway, it's weird cause I feel much more "private" in my carspace. Kinda crazy, I know, but it's just different. I'm not totally sure if people can see me or not (I'm sure they can), but the tint adds some sort of mystery, if you will.

Well, at least mystery for me :)

Anyway, I got to Ann Arbor, chilled for a bit and we got going. The ride of choice? Drew's roomate's Matrix. Complete with brand spankin' new car smell.

I make it a special point to bring up the new car smell because the only way I get new car smell nowadays is from a bottle or those air fresheners that look like leaves. Even then, it's never as good as the real deal. So I got to smell this new car for a good 10 hours...

So yes, it was about 5 hours or so each way. It wasn't too brutal.

I had my trusty CD media based mp3 player - used it for most of the trip, and I never had to change the batteries. Just as advertised. The only bummer is that my tape player makes a terrible noise whenever the cassette adaptor into it (so I can play my mp3s through the car stereo - but I found this out on the way home).

Anyway, back to the trip. We drove out, stopping once for a driver switch. That's it. I was pretty much the dead weight in the car - I added no value besides occasional comic relief and carbon dioxide production. I didn't help drive - I just stayed awake when I could, and napped on an as needed basis.

Well, I did help pay for stuff :)

By the time we got to our destination, it was pretty late - Probably like 8 ish. Plus, the fine people of Indiana don't celebrate Daylight Savings Time so the time was all wacked.

We checked into our hotel (and I kind of use the term loosely). It was one of those old skool motels where the rooms each have an outside entrance - Like in the horror movies. Or those sketchy movies where you rent the room for an hour or so... Nevermind - you get the idea. We had this in-window a/c unit that had knobs that turned indiscriminately, so you never really knew what setting you were actually on. Just as long as it wasn't on heat, we were good.

There was an interesting smell in the room too (you know I'm a smell guy). It was like uhh, kinda damp basementy where someone obviously used to smoke. Of course, it was a non-smoking room - The sign on the table said so! :)

The floor of the bathroom was sticky too - too much humidity. Oh yeah, about the bathroom - The toilet and shower/tub was in one room, and then the sink was in the main room. Which is kind of wacky, because there's no counter space in the room with the toilet and shower/tub. (shrug)

Ok, enough about the hotel room.

So afterwards, we had to forage for food - I hadn't eaten since 10 ish, so I was starving. During the entire drive down, the guys were talking and joking around about a certain sit down restaurant that had signs up every 4 or 5 exits.

Know what it is?

If you guessed Cracker Barrel you're right. Oh yeah, speaking of signs, we saw some very odd roadside billboards for an "Adult Toy Superstore" and signs for various "Spas" that were quite sketchy indeed.

So back to the foraging for food - Nothing on the main drag where we were staying looked especially good. So what did we decide on? We drove back two exits to yes, the Cracker Barrel.

I've never been to one before - I guess you could say I'm a Cracker Barrel virgin. I walk inside, expecting a restaurant, right? Well it's a store... So while waiting for our seats, I breezed around the store. While looking at foodstuffs and the wacky "country store" items, I was accosted by a lady with an apple crisp sample.

That had to be one of the best little medicine cups of apple crisp I've ever had. It was a little cup of heaven. Maybe for desert, I was thinking.

Finally our names get called and we walk inside. It's kind of dimly lit, but not to the point where it was weird.

It may be a little psychological, but I think the 3 of us were the only Asian dudes in the entire city - Not Indianapolis, but the little nearby city where we stayed. We travel in packs. :)

anyway, so back to the Cracker Barrel Experience - I'd never eaten at a CB before, so I got the "sampler." The sampler came with their Chicken and Dumplins, meatloaf, sweet smoked ham, and 3 sides. What sides did I choose? Mac and cheese, steak fries, and corn.

I had to add in the corn because I needed some sort of vegetable ;)

Oh yeah, the biscuits and cornbread were also kickass. I swear I've not eaten like this since college - Even then it wasn't all on one plate. And I know everything that I ate (except the corn) was ridiculously bad for me. But it was sooo good. Seriously. If you've never been to a CB before, you have to try it.

The night was ok. There was a loud group of people that had come back from the bar and I swore it sounded like they were in the room with us talking. As an added courtesy, they had to remind us that they had come back as they banged on our window.

Lovely.

So in the morning, we got up pretty early to get breakfast - At none other than Denny's. I had a craving for it since I'd seen all of those commercials on TV. They've all closed up around my area, so it would have been impossible to go to one around here. As usual, the service was really bad, but the food was excellent. Again, really bad for me, but we had to stock up - the race started at noon, and we probably wouldn't be eating until the race was over.

After breakfast we headed to the speedway. Since we were there so early, we got to find some good parking. Kinda like for the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, the locals sell lawn parking (in front of their houses) for 10 to 15 bucks. So, we got to do legal lawn jobs :)

The wacky stuff was that there were tons of ticket scalpers. And I'm not talking just random dudes getting rid of tickets. I'm talking nice permanent signs made, booths set up, etc. I had thought scalping was illegal, but maybe it's not there - I saw scalpers talking to the law enforcement dudes on the side of the road like they were good buddies (shrug).

There was even a booth set up in front of someone's house where it was a one-stop shop of sports jerseys, DVDs (for 5 bucks), ribs, and who knows what else. I even saw Louis Vuitton bags! For shits and giggles, I was tempted to ask how much they, but didn't. Now if they were Burberry's...

wow this is getting long...

OK, so fast forward to the speedway - We were subject to the "high level" bag check. I didn't have much confidence because the guy made me open the top of my bag, peered inside, and that was it. (shrug)

I guess it's normal to get to the race early - We were there around say, 8 or 9isn, and there were tons of people already there. Lots of people had their team gear on - Of course, I was most envious of the bright red Ferrari gear that I saw. Lots of team spirit... I wanted to get my own Ferrari shirt, but I couldn't justify paying more than 20 bucks for a t-shirt, even if it had the prancing horse on it.

We walked around in the infield - Again, lots of people just camped on the side of the track. I'm talking blankets, tents, lawn furniture, you name it. I don't know how early they must have gotten there - Must have been when the track opened.

We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day weatherwise. The sun was out, the temperature was perfect. Blue skies all around.

Let's see, what else... I won't write much about the race because you can read about it...

Oh yeah, F1 engines are pretty loud. Kind of a neat sound, but loud. I was glad that I had my earplugs. If I want to lose my hearing, it'll be over some good music with a good bass line.

The drive back was pretty uneventful - Drew and Steve joked that we'd have to go back to the CB for dinner. Ummm, No.

I had a good salad for dinner. Besides the corn, that was my first real vegetable since probably Friday.

We were all totally exhausted. I think it was a mix of not sleeping that well, dehydration, and just a mix of tiredness from all of the travelling.

All in all, it was a great trip. I can't really complain. If I had to do it all again, I'm not sure if I would or not - The whole race experience was great. The 10 hour travelling time was kind of a downer though.

-Kirk