September 9, 2006 - Clermont, FL (Concord, NC, FMCA rally)

Plans have a way of changing.  Since I wrote the last page, we decided it would be a good idea to retrieve our belongings in storage in WA while we still have the coach.  Who wants to drive back and forth across the country sleeping in motels and eating restaurant food after the luxury of living in a RV for 8 years and traveling for 6 of them, eh?  So, we called Lovers Key and told them we'd not be there on the first of October, and they were gracious enough to save our space until we call from WA to confirm we'll be there for November anyway.  Now all we need to wait for is our mail, and we'll head across the country, visiting family and friends on the way.

Only there's this one little glitch.  And the glitch is because I messed up.  I'd done some re-wiring on the coach's alternator so we could get more voltage to the engine batteries while running with the dash air-conditioning on.  And I'd not followed the instructions to the letter.  I'd left an old wire attached.  And it fried a bunch of other wires, and now I need to do some re-wiring before we can leave.  If it's not one thing it's another, eh?  Is this a great lifestyle or what?????????  We have two more weeks on our reservation here, so it's no big deal.  We didn't get stranded alongside the road someplace during the 419 mile run from GA to here, we didn't get killed by toxic smoke from the insulation and plastic being burned, we didn't get a fire and loose the coach.  All we got was an early wake up call when the ignition suddenly turned on by itself, making the low air pressure alarm go "ding-ding-ding-ding-ding" until Barb woke me up and I stuffed a tissue in it and then went to the engine compartment and disconnected the wire I'd put on which quieted everything down.  All this at 3 AM.  So, do we feel the Lord loves us and protected us?  You bet we do!!

And while I wait for some help on some things I don't understand on the wiring diagram, I can finish updating the site.  Besides, the A/C is working great in here and the sun is shining real good out there!

Can't say this is a dream come true for me because I'm not all that big a fan of NASCAR, but I do like to watch the races.  It was still a thrill to actually be able to walk on one of the NASCAR tracks, particularly this one, because the Charlotte, NC, area is where many of the teams have their shops.  Standing in the infield and looking up at the banked track and the grandstands sure is different than watching it on TV.  And thrilling is probably as good a word as any to express my personal feelings.

The Dirt Track is where the evening entertainment is held, and that's the view of it out our windshield.  Then the view from the track to the Road Abode, just to the left of the paved walkway.

We can see that people are already getting in place for the entertainment, and here's Lee and Hector who have ridden their bikes over to our place and are kind enough to join us and walk up for the show.  You may remember them from Livingston, TX, when we went over to their lovely home for dinner one night.  They have an excellent website, and I got some great tips from Hector that you'll see implemented here someday soon.  Check out their great site here.   I'll give you a hint.  It's the kind of a site you'd expect from a fellow who owns a software company, and a wife who (like Barb) does a superb job of proofreading.

While a terrible picture, that's JD Gibbs.  The son of Joe Gibbs.  Joe is a successful football coach and NASCAR team owner.  Joe went back to football, and turned over the responsibilities of running the race team to his son JD.  Besides talking about all that at the seminar, JD also talked about MRO, Motor Racing Outreach.  If you watch a NASCAR race, the invocation is often given by somebody from MRO.  As committed Christians, Joe and his son JD actively support MRO, and it was fun to sit in an environment like this and here a man with JD's background and business talk openly about Jesus Christ.

The vendor tents are one of the big attractions of any rally for us.  We've been RV'ing long enough now that there's really nothing we truly "need" to buy.  But I had a broken plug on our shore power cable, and it was good to get a new one with a handle to make it easier to unplug, and Barb found some little goodies she needed as well, but mostly we just gawked at the "stuff."  Like this motorcycle.  And what's a highly customized motorcycle doing at a RV rally you ask?

Well, there's your answer.  Caterpillar builds diesel engines for RV's that's why.  This engine wasn't diesel powered, however.  Still a cool bike.  Looked to me like a derivation of a Harley Davidson Sportster with the Evo engine, but I could be wrong of course.

One of the groups we see a lot of at rallies are the Frustrated Maestros.  A loosely organized group of musicians who play for the fun of it.  This was the jazz band, and just one of the daytime entertainment choices we had.

There were four nights of entertainment at the dirt track, and the third night was Ronnie Milsap.  Now that's a pretty well known name in the country western music world.  The previous two nights we'd tried to get there early enough to get some decent seats, but we were always way up in "peanut heaven" or the "cheap seats" if you will.  Well, tonight I'd decided Barb and I were going over early enough for the 7 PM show to get good seats.  So at 5 PM we showed up.  That's Ronnie's tour bus and equipment trailer there.  Notice that there are junk cars and that yellow bus in the infield.  After we leave, there's a monster truck show, and they'll be jumping those cars and probably that bus as well.

Yup.  Yours truly holding down the best seat in the house.  Except this time all the good seats were reserved for the dignitaries and volunteers.  And while we don't object to special treatment for the people that make all this happen, it did make it tough to get a great seat even at 5 PM for a 7 PM show.

A shot of Barb holding down the fort, a shot of our Road Abode in the middle there as I walked to the other side of the grandstand.  We'd had some additional coaches parked on the grass since my earlier pictures as you can see.

Sure looks lonesome, doesn't she.  Room for plenty of people in here.  We were so early we got to watch the band get set up.  That's Ronnie in the pink/black shirt, making sure he knows where everything is.  For those who don't know about him, he was born blind, and a stage performance gives him special challenges.

One of the things that we truly liked was the way he and his crew interacted.  No prima donna here, at least as far as we could tell.  Lots of light banter and laughing, and only a few readjustments needed.  That young man seemed to be Ronnie's "eyes" the whole time he was going through the checks.  And see that blonde woman looking directly into the camera?  She always was in the background as well, but we never did understand what role she was playing.

And see?  Barb has company at last!  Yup, Hector got in without his badge.  Bad boy!  I'd had to go back and get ours the night before.  Some people have all the luck, eh?

Over 3,000 rigs at the rally, and well over 6,000 people.  Probably not everybody came to hear Ronnie Milsap, but a bunch did, and look at how small the "crowd" is, eh?

Ronnie played the keyboard where he is, and he played the one that's empty to his left, and he used a microphone and stood between the two of them sometimes.  All without any hesitation at all.  Then the band did some unaccompanied doo-wap music that was great fun, and I had to sneak down for a closer picture.

The autograph action was special.  That young man standing there is the same fellow we saw earlier during the setup.  He'd ask the fan a question that would let Ronnie know someone was there, and Ronnie would ask questions or say something directly to the fan.  One 10 yr old boy came up, and the young man asked him how old he was, and Ronnie spent some extra time talking with him.  Very comfortable relaxed setting.  The fellow seated with Ronnie had the pen, Ronnie would put his hands on both hands of the fellow with the pen, and the young man would hold the CD or whatever was being signed.  Shirts, hats, or whatever.  Very smooth operation.

Lee had said something that had made Ronnie laugh, and Ronnie shook hands with both Hector and Lee as I recall.  And there's that blonde woman again, that we'd seen looking directly at the camera after the setup was done.

Next day we took some time to visit the Hendricks garage, museum, and shops.  Three different buildings on their campus.  I was particularly interested in this Corvette.  It was a Corvette in name only.  It's a ground effects car, which means that the faster it goes, the tighter to the pavement it is.  Theoretically it can run upside down if there was pavement up there.

I think Barb liked it because it was built close to the ground.  Like her.  And you thought a V6 was a wimp engine!  Can't say as the fuel mileage was all that great, but at well over 200 mph, who cares, eh?

Nice Indian that Jeff Gordon won in 1998.

That woman behind the barrier is putting air in the tires.  Very friendly and willing to chat.  We learned that she's responsible for making sure the cars destined for display in the museum don't get any dirt, confetti, or bugs cleaned off.    She wants them just the way they came from the victory circle.  The car on the right (driven by Jeff Gordon - one of my favorites to watch) has the signatures of a whole bunch of people on the back end, and you can see some of the confetti on the rear deck and window.

This car that is all wrinkled up had a series of pictures of its wreck above the car.  Amazing how damaged the car is, and yet how secure the drivers compartment is.  In the final picture of the sequence, the driver (not Jeff Gordon) was seen running from the car as he was afraid it was going to burn.  Since this mailbox wasn't in the ground being used someplace, I'll include it here rather than in "Barb's Mailboxes".

This is the last of the museum shots, now we'll go over to the shops.

And that's all for this building.  Museum in front and shop in the rear.  No glass between us and the workers, and we got some of our questions answered by the technicians there.  They were having way too much fun it seemed to me.  How nice to have a job you enjoy, eh?  Almost as much fun as watching somebody else working!

This building was also a combination museum and shop.  Different teams have different areas apparently, although there wasn't an obvious separation.  Pretty clean looking floors, eh?  My kind of shop.  Oh, and I could understand the custom motorcycle, but the Segway was lost on me.  No idea in the world why it was displayed.

Now, on to the last of the three buildings.

Another Indian motorcycle with Jeff Gordon's name on it, and the sprint car has his name, but several Jimmy Johnson cars as well.  And here's a question for you.  On the front suspension of the #4 sprint car, there's a torsion bar obvious right up front.  But the bars going toward the rear of the car, those short ones right on the ends of the torsion bar, are different.  One is rounded off nicely (on the car's right side, our left) while the one on the car's left (our right) that bar is squared off.  Why is that?  I can understand the extra triangulation on the right side, because the car is constantly turning left, but what's with the difference between those two short bars?  They don't even attach to anything else, near as I can tell.  Have to ask son Doug I guess.  He raced in the Outlaw circuit for a little while.

The last night's entertainment was this group of four older fellows known as "Riders in the Sky."  You talk about fun!  They were a hoot.  Have been together ever since Moses led a bunch of people around in the desert--well, maybe not that long.  But they've been together a long time, and they had a great time giving us a really great time.  Obviously country western music for the most part.  Except for some shenanigans like when the fellow with the bushy mustache started slapping his cheeks, playing a tune by shaping his mouth.  Barb was fascinated by not only their fancy detailed shirts, she particularly liked the boots!  I, on the other hand, had loftier lusts.  I liked their hats!

That's the end of the rally, and it's off to Georgia for a few days.

On the way to Georgia (from North Carolina), we had to go through South Carolina, of course.  And we like to take breaks and walk around ever 100 miles or so, and this is one of the rest stops where we paused.

Speaking of paws....... First time we'd ever seen a "Rest Stop Cat Resting."  Actually, there were two of them.  By the time I'd fetched the camera, one had left for parts unknown.  Not really approachable, but not particularly fearful either.

We like to see things being built.  The book "Watch It Made In The USA" is a good source for those places.  Barb found there was a Coca-Cola place as well as the CNN facility in Atlanta, so off we went.  The plaza in front of the Coke facility had these large "baseballs" on display as well.  About thigh high.

Once in a while we get snookered.  No bottling going on here at all.  Just displays of historical ads and this mock-up of a bottling line.  Then this young woman came out and announced she was going to be putting on a display of how the soda fountains used to work, so off we went into the old time soda fountain.  She asked some trivia questions, and I answered them because everybody else in the crowd was a whole lot younger than me, and knew nothing about soda fountains.  My reward for my loudmouth, was to be invited behind the counter with a young lady from the group.

The deal was, that the woman in charge (with the white hat and red apron) would tell everybody how the beverage was originally served, and then this young girl and I were asked to do it.  The young girl went first, and got a rousing round of applause as she measured out the exact amount of syrup, and then added the soda water, finishing with the spray to mix the drink just right.  My job was to mix a flavored drink, and I cleverly chose to mix a cherry coke, as that was the only other syrup at the counter.  But it was a bit trickier as I got to put in two syrups for my drink.

I'm checking the amount of the two syrups before adding the soda, and then the final product.  A few grunts of approval for the old bald guy.  Great fun.  I got a Coca-Cola hat pin for participating.

Well, we tried, but it was a "swing and a miss" for the old sign, and the bear growled appropriately when Barb sat on it's leg.

My lucky day.  Another custom bike.  The detail on this one was particularly fun.

Since Barb's from Lowell, MA, which isn't far from Boston, it was only appropriate that she sit in the seat commemorating the partnership between the Red Sox and Coke since 1915.  And 85 years with White Castle.  For those of you who don't know, White Castle is a burger joint.  Long before Mickey D ever came into being.

The room was full of Coke product for sampling, and Barb is getting instructions from one of the several assistants around the place.

Success!  And the soda jerk (ever wonder why they're called that?) with the bar tender, getting ready to enter the Atlanta Underground on our way to CNN.

No problem with claustrophobia at all in here.  Whew!  Then back on the streets of Atlanta.  Sure different than Nashville, the last "city" we visited.

The tour of CNN was interesting, even if we did have to give Ted Turner $20 for the privilege.  Not my favorite person, but that's another story.  That hummer was used in Desert Storm by CNN.  The escalator leading from the ground floor to that big globe is the longest unsupported escalator in the world, according to the guide.  And yes, I did get my knife back from the security people before we left.

Try as I might, I had no better luck in enticing that pigeon to eat from my hand than the fellow on the bench with me.  He was a lot more patient than me, as he was trying as we passed him on our way to CNN, and was still trying when we were returning.  And the pigeon hadn't moved either.

That's it for now!

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