Mystery State Part Deux

On our second day in Kentukhio , we had a lot planned. We were meeting up with Jason’s sister and her husband to go, well, pretty much everywhere. Turns out Cincinnati has all kinds of places we want to go. I was not helpful. I got us lost. We were supposed to get on to 75, at the split, but instead we stayed on 71. After we got off on “our” exit and there was nothing there, we stopped at a rest area and got a map. I planned us a secondary route through a small town called Lebanon. Boy am I glad we got lost. We saw the neatest little town! The thing that made us stop was this.

The Texaco had great vintage cars out front. When we found a parking space, we saw the rest of these, the Golden Lamb, the oldest hotel in Ohio, and a great public library.

It was the cutest place!! We think we might go back sometime to stay at that hotel.

Eventually, we made it to our first destination, IKEA! I love IKEA, but there isn’t one in Indy. We went up to the café and grabbed some lunch. It was good, but nothing life altering. Then, it begins. There’s a path to follow through the store and I thought it was pretty intuitive. They have all kinds of cool stuff, most of which was furniture. Jason and I really liked a lot of it, especially the neat cabinet/drawers in one kitchen, but we don’t have space for any more furniture now. We saw a tiny whole house, and we felt like we were drowning in space. There was a lot to see, but Jason had a mission. A stainless steel toilet seat cover. Accomplished! We got that, and a giant drying rack to replace the one the cats broke during the earthquake, a vegetable peeler, an herb chopping board with curvy knife and an octopus. Plus a giant blue bag that I hope comes in as handy as I think it will. When we left, we headed straight to Bass Pro Shops.

Also known as “The Store for Jason”, Bass Pro had lots of stuff that was interesting. I think the giant fish tank is really neat, and the giant stuffed fish that now inhabit our bed are cool too. I like to look at the camping stuff there. There’s so much CRAP you can buy for camping! I will never need a holder for that many eggs, or a camp slow cooker. But I like to look at them. Jason found lots of fishing stuff, and is actually, right now, out there using it. One of the strangest things we saw was a package of disposable “instant towels”. Just add water. What? Then you have a wet towel? But I want a dry towel if I’m at a lake. Hmmmm. We were all hungry.

On our first little honeymoon, we went to a restaurant in Cincinnati that I had been to in Ft. Worth. It’s called Pappadeaux. There are many delicious things there, not least of all the lobster bisque soup. This is where we chose to eat this weekend too. We ate and ate and then we were too full for desert, which was too bad because it looked so good. So, we went grocery shopping.

Okay, not really, we want to go see Jungle Jim’s. We had heard about this place from friends and it was held up to be the Mecca of food. It is huge. We were expecting some kind of hoity toity fancy grocery store, but that’s not what we got. What it may have lacked in snotty finish (something no-one needs) it made up for in sheer volume. There was a regular grocery section, but then a bazillion each of the following:

Cheeses

Wines

Baked goods

Candies

Hot Sauces

Vegetables

Etc.

There were fish so fresh that they were swimming around in tanks. Plus, there was an ethnic foods section so large, I don’t think there was any country left out. Then cookware, flowers, and giant singing cereal mascots. We are definitely going back.

Tired and with a full car, we headed for home. Who knew there was so much to do in Ohtucky?

Kentucky, Or Ohio, Or Whatever.

Okay, I’m back. I’ve got a lot to catch you up on, so I’ll just go.

Last weekend we went to Kentukhio. Or Ohtucky. Point is, we were between the two states so much that there’s no good word. The first purpose for you trip was to attend the Kentucky Indycar race. The second was to do all kinds of fun stuff packed all into one day. We left home Saturday Morning and an uneventful drive led us to a holiday inn. There, the computers were down, but the staff handled check ins ably. We went to our room which was no more and no less the standard fare, rested for exactly 27.3 minutes and we were off to the track. The weather was perfect, but the shirt I was wearing wasn’t. I’d had to repair it, and the stitches were itching me. Probably because I used this fishing line thread. I used that for two reasons, one, it was in the drawer when I went looking, and two, the repair is in the middle of a pattern, so I can’t use any one color and have it match. SO, I wanted to go to target to get a new shirt (I hadn’t packed enough to change and still have clothes for the next day) and socks. Mine were wet. Eeew. I left target with a shirt, jacket, socks, skirt, and umbrella. Oh yeah, and conditioner which I’d expected the hotel to have but they didn’t. So, freshly clothed we headed for the track.

Jason had heard that traffic there was a nightmare, and I could see why. There were miles of roads all inside the track. Wow. We parked and headed off to try to find anything. We were looking for Will Call, and the Downforce tent. We found Will call, and after a brush with fear in realizing that the tickets were under my maiden name, we showed them my old insurance card, and were off to find downforce. No-one knew where it was! We must have asked 4 people before we got to guest services and we just got blank looks. When we got there, the best they could do was to hand us a map and say, I dunno, but you need to go to credentials to redeem those. We knew we did. We had pre-race passes. We got them FROM DOWNFORCE. Time was short, so we boarded a school bus that took us to credentials. It was a long ride. We redeemed for some turquoise passes and took the bus to the infield. We had given up on finding downforce.

We wandered the garages and saw everyone getting ready, and Milka running like a madwoman for the bathroom. Jason got some great pictures as the cars were being pushed out. My guy Vitor had qualified 2^nd, so I was really excited. Also, my girl Sarah was racing, so it was double. More on her awesome performance a little further down. We decided to try to go down for pre-race ceremonies without anyone else. We tried to take on the attitude of people who were supposed to be there. We made it! Now, of course that’s not because we faked our way in, but we did, after all, have the right credentials. There were two guys jumping ATVs in the air, and then driver introductions. There were quite a few women running in the Indy Lights Race, and that was cool. We made our way to our seats, and the race was about to begin!

It was a good, and surprisingly (at least to me) clean race. Very few wrecks. Yay. I like it that way. Vitor held on to the top 3 for most of the race, and at least in the first segment, you could tell that he was just playing with them. He had the speed, and was just waiting to show it. In the end, unfortunately, his pit position, is what I think, lost him a win. BUT, he did great. I cheered a lot. Sarah, however had an amazing day. Her car was superquick and she really handled it well. She passed Ryan Hunter Ray and held him off. She passed Helio more than once. But, the scariest and most exciting part of the day, was when she passed Danica. It was for position (I think, correct me if I’m wrong here) and Sarah pulled up beside her and they ran neck and neck for a second. Then they touched wheels. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. We all know how fond of the drama our dear Danica is. Jason switched to her channel. The following is a rough transcription of what we heard:

Danica: What just happened?!?

Crew Guy: Well, you hit her.

Danica: I hit her?????!?!?!?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha . Sarah got around and everything was fine. If she hadn’t had a wheel bearing break at the end, I think she might have had a top 10 finish.

The Indy lights race was good too, but not as clean. More yellows, and a little crying. You know if I’d wrecked, I’d be crying too. I’m not as familiar with the drivers in that series, so you don’t get as in-depth a review.

The real nightmare began when we tied to leave. We figured we’d waited a lot of people out by staying for the second race. Nope. I think it took us 2 hours to make the half hour trip back to the hotel. Ugh. Next: EVERYTHINGPOSSIBLEINONEDAYANDNOWIMTIRED.

Deep Thoughts

I had to add it. There's a book, and a beautifully done website that you can get to through the widget. Deep Thoughts are, in my opinion, one of the funniest things EVER.

This weekend we went to Cincinnati, more on that soon. I just needed a cheer upper today.