Ain’t that just the Berries?

Thursday, February 28, 2014

Today is the opening day for the famous Strawberry Festival in Plant City, Florida.  Plant City is known for its wonderful strawberries, and celebrates with a festival each year, complete with a queen, entertainment, rides, food, etc. 

Our trip to the Festival was accompanied by a little rain…ain’t that just the berries?  But, we had practice sitting in the rain in Daytona, and were dressed appropriately, so the rain didn’t dampen our visit.

On the way to the Festival, we stopped at Parksdale Farm, known for its strawberry shortcake.  They had a menu with 9 different selections for strawberry shortcake!  We chose #2, which included shortcake, strawberries, ice cream and lots of topping!  And, we ate in the “Garden of Eatin”! Delicious!!!

 

Florida is the second largest strawberry producing state in the nation, growing over 9,000 acres of strawberries.  At the Strawberry Festival, we learned a lot about how the strawberries are planted and grown.  You could buy anything strawberry…milkshakes, cookies, jelly, jam, chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry pie, fudge, etc.  Also, there were strawberry hats, tshirts, earrings, bracelets, handbags, etc.  (All we bought were strawberries)  We also saw Mr. Strawberry Man walking around the grounds!

We had tickets for the Styx concert, which turned out to be a great concert, in spite of the sprinkles that came up during the performance.  The audience was made up of both young and old (old is our age which is the age of the band), and it was a lively crowd, since everyone knew the words to the songs.  They have a lot of great songs… “Come Sail Away”, “Lady”, and lots of others.  It was fun to see the bald heads and gray hairs rockin’!  The hits were from the 70’s and 80’s, and have lasted all these years.  The band sounded good, especially considering the number of years they’ve been around!

It was great spending time at the Strawberry Fest!

Lazy Days at Lazydays

Monday-Wednesday, February 24-26, 2014

It’s been a few welcome lazy days at Lazydays campground in Tampa, Florida. 

We left Daytona mid-morning on Monday, waiting for the mad rush of campers and rv’s to leave.  We heard the first one leave at 3:45 am, but waited until about 11, and we followed a long parade of rv’s out of the track. 

The drive to Tampa wasn’t too bad, except that it was hot and muggy.  The humidity was 72%. 

We arrived at one of our favorite campgrounds—Lazydays-- in Tampa.  It is an enormous facility that includes a campground with 300 sites, a pool, a restaurant and bar, and also has a huge inventory of new and used rv’s on display, as well as 172 service bays!  They provide a free breakfast and lunch at “The Front Porch” cafe, which is a highlight for many of the campers.  The trick is that you walk through the display of rv’s on your way to the meals, and the café is attached to the sales office!  (What a great marketing strategy!)

It is a park-like setting, and a great way to get some walking in to work off the meals they serve.   Spot loved the birds, and had a great time chasing them.

We had fun taking a look at new motorhomes, seeing different makes and models and floor plans.  We always get good ideas from looking at the various motorhomes.  We are struck by the size of the inventory, and as retired accountants, we can only imagine the nightmare of keeping track of and valuing the millions of dollars of inventory!  (I guess old accountants never stop playing with numbers!)

The restaurant/bar is very cleverly fixed up like an rv.  The name of the place is “Exit 10”, because it is at Exit 10 on Interstate 4.  We tried to go over last night, but every seat in the place was taken, so we went tonight after taking in a movie (Monuments Men) 

There was a rain shower this afternoon and rain is predicted tomorrow, so we’ll decide if we want to continue our lazy days (that’s after we have our breakfast at “The Front Porch” café).

Wet and Wild!

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Race Day greeted us with sunny skies and warm temperatures!  We visited the garage and chatted with Tom and gave good luck wishes to the team.  There were lots of people around for the big race today, and the crowd included yet another Super Fan! 

The Pace cars were ready to go.

And, the tires were laid out and ready. 

The #24 team was sporting a new (or renovated) pit box—check out all the monitors for the engineers!

 

 

 

The pre-race ceremonies were quite a production.  There were thousands of people on the track waiting for the concert and driver introductions.  Luke Bryan was the entertainer and put on quite a show. 

 

 

 

 

The Thunderbirds also put on quite a show with the flyover. After the initial flyover, they came back, and peeled off one by one and flew upside down over the stands!  It was very cool.

The race started, and was a good clean race for 38 laps until the rain came. 

It was supposed to be just a “pop up” shower, so we sat in the stands in our raincoats, and waited awhile, but the sprinkles became showers and ended up being a downpour.  The crowds had all gathered underneath the stands, so it was almost impossible to move around.  We decided to go back to the motorhome and wait out the rain.  As we were headed out, there was an announcement over the loudspeakers  that severe weather was coming, and the grandstands should be evacuated.  We hurried “home”, put our wet clothes in the dryer, watched the tv reports on tornadoes and lightning all around us, then laid down and took a nap!

Six hours later, the race resumed with a lot of help from the Air Titans drying the track.  The track looked a lot different at 8:30 pm.

  At the start of the race, there were plenty of strategy discussions, as rain was supposed to return to the area in the next two hours. But, this time, the rain stayed away, and the race went on.  Danica took another hard hit and ended up right in front of us.  

  Carl Edwards was in the wreck at the end of the race, and also ended up right in front of us. 

 

In spite of the wrecks, the race was a good one…lots of good racing, 42 lead changes, and another exciting finish (at 11:30 pm)!  Dale Earnhardt Jr. won, and Junior nation went wild!  Jeff Gordon ended up 4th, a very good finish after a long, long day.  The Hendrick shop ended up with 3 cars in the top 5, so had a great day overall.

Lake Lloyd was much quieter tonight, as the 56th annual Daytona 500 was written into the history books.

Trackside Track Sights

Saturday, February 22, 2014

It was another action-packed day, with plenty of sights to see, both on and off the track.  Here are a few interesting things that caught our eye:

There was a Super-Fan wandering the garage area trying to get autographs (how embarrassing!)  But, he got plenty of attention!

Then we saw this exercise equipment in the garage area…I guess the drivers and crew have to keep in shape, and what a great way to use their time efficiently!

And, speaking of keeping in shape, check out Dion, the front tire changer for Gordon’s team, who was working on Chase Elliott’s crew today for the Nationwide race.  (Chase Elliott is the son of famous driver Bill Elliott and is driving the #9 car, the same number his dad drove)  Dion is a former football player (Wake Forest and the Vikings), and has kept his football-like appearance!

 

Danica was giving advice to her boyfriend in the garage area before they went out for practice. You can always count on a crowd surrounding her.

 

As we crossed the track today to get to our seats, we saw the tire marks from last night’s burn out by Kyle Busch, the race winner.

 

And, today’s Nationwide race had another very exciting finish, with another photo-finish ending, with the winner Reagan Smith winning by 13 thousandths of a second!!  (His burn out wasn’t as impressive as the one last night)

The stage is set for tomorrow’s 56th running of The Great American Race…The Daytona 500!  We’ll be there!

The “R” word

Friday, February 21, 2014
There’s a word that begins with “R” that we don’t like to say at the racetrack….and it’s not RACE…. But, somebody must have said it aloud, because late this morning the "R" word appeared, and visited off and on all day.
But, that didn’t stop activity….
We visited Tom and Squirrel (the driver of the hauler) who keeps us laughing every time we see him.




We also went to Victory Lane and saw the winners trophy…the Harley J Earl trophy awarded to the winner of the Daytona 500.  It is named after Mr. Earl, who was a NASCAR commissioner, but also was an influential car designer, and is called the “father of the Corvette”.

There was a “Hot Rods and Reels” fishing tourney that started early this morning on Lake Lloyd—a charity event.  For a donation, you get in a boat and fish with a driver for an hour.  There were a lot of people to watch them launch the boats, and a cool little remote controlled camera that was flying overhead taking pictures.

In spite of the "R" word there was plenty of activity inside the track --turkey legs anyone??

    Or, check out this ride…

The “Air Titan” (NASCAR’s new drying system) came out and dried the track, and the truck race went on, only an hour later than scheduled.  Many were surprised they even got the race in.  It was pretty boring for most of the race.  There was one big crash that took out several trucks, but it got really exciting with about 5 laps to go, especially when Kyle Busch made a last second move to win the race in a photo-finish! (.0017 of a second between the first and second place!)




It was another good day that didn't get washed out by the "R" word!

Tracking Action at the Track!

Thursday, February 20, 2014

We woke up to a foggy morning, probably a result of the increased humidity from yesterday, but it looked so pretty on the water.  And, it ended up being a nice, warm and sunny day. 

 

 

We took some pictures of our “neighborhood”—lots and lots of motorhomes!

 

We walked around the entire track today; watched the Nationwide cars practice from inside turn 4; visited the vendor displays in the Midway (and said hi to the Clydesdales); visited the driver trailers and the Daytona Superstore; and also visited Tom in the garage area.  Today he treated us to a trip on top of the hauler!  We were surprised at how much you could see up there.  Often crew members will watch action from the top of the hauler, and now I can see why!  What a cool treat it was to be on top of the world with Tom!  While we were in the garage area, we got to talk with the crew chief’s parents who live close by, and Jeff Gordon made a quick appearance and some quick conversation (complimenting the great job his crew is doing)!

  

Tonight they ran the Budweiser Duels—the qualifying race for the big race.  There was a lot of pre-race celebration, including an appearance by the Clydesdales.  I was surprised at their speed as they pulled the wagon down the front stretch of the track. 

Another fun thing to see were lighted pit signs for the drivers—they are always looking for something to help the driver spot the correct stall, and these signs will certainly help! 

 

We have some great seats in the Sprint Tower, right at the start/finish line.  We were very surprised when some friends from Iowa we met here a few years ago ended up sitting right beside us—they moved their seats this year.  What are the chances in a crowd of this size that you know the people with the seats next to yours??  It truly is a small world!  

Just before the second race began, there was a huge blaze in the sky, and it was a Delta 4 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral to carry a navigation sattelite for the GPS system.  I had read about it in the paper yesterday, and forgot to watch for it, but it was impossible to miss it…very cool!

And, we got to watch a good race with a great finish!  Jeff Gordon finished second, in a thrilling finish, with 7 cars wrecking on the final lap when Jimmie Johnson ran out of fuel with less than 1/2 lap to go.  One car flipped, and several cars were damaged badly, but thankfully, nobody was hurt.  And, Gordon will start the race in 6th position.

There’s so much excitement, it’s going to be hard to get to sleep tonight!