Lillian is 100!

On October 6, 2010 Pati's mother, Lillian, celebrated her 100th birthday.  A distinguished group of party-goers gathered at 100 Palms Tucson for cake, ice cream, and entertainment by our favorite pianist, Sandy.  Here we have Gordon, decorating!

                                                                         The big party!

Gordon, Mom, and Pati

                                                                                       Mom and Pati

What The Hell Was That Thing??

We've often said that we'll watch 'em race anything, and this proves that it's true.  On June 26, the annual American Solar Challenge car racers took the checkered flag at one of the high schools here in Naperville.  We walked down to the school with cameras in hand and staked out a shady spot to watch the competitors cross the finish line.  It was refreshing to see a bunch of enthusiastic college students who were having a good time and were very proud of their efforts. 

After the race, the kids exposed the innards of the cars and explained how any way they worked.  They answered plenty of questions, many of which must have seemed ridiculous to them.  For a complete list of results and more information, check out http://www.americansolarchallenge.org/.

It's a Deusy! And It's Eldora!

June 8 - 10, 2010

A couple of years ago, we visited the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum in Auburn, Indiana.  We enjoyed it so much that this year we stopped by again on our way to the Eldora Speedway.  The museum is located in the company showroom of the original administration building of the Auburn Automobile Company.  The cars are fabulous, and the building itself is a museum piece...period correct and original in every detail.  You can see more info at their website:  http://www.automobilemuseum.org/. 

We left home real early to avoid the Chicago rush-hour traffic and stopped in beautiful downtown Valparaiso, Indiana for the first round of biscuits and gravy at Bob Evans.  We'll spare you the details and photographs, because it wasn't a pretty sight!

We spent the night in Ft. Wayne, then headed out the next morning for Rossburg, Ohio to join 22,000 people, in the middle of a corn field, on a Wednesday night.  NASCAR driver Tony Stewart bought the historic Eldora Speedway several years ago and stages the "Prelude to the Dream" charity race each summer.  The race is on the 1/2-mile dirt track, in something called "late models", driven by many favorite NASCAR drivers.  And they look like they're having a blast!  Why is it called "Prelude to the Dream?"  It's actually the lead-in to a mega-dirt track racing weekend called "Dream Week".

At what other sporting event can you buy burgers for a couple of bucks, and beer for the same price (unless you buy them by the six-pack, in which case they're cheaper)?  And at what other sporting event can you get dirtier than a four-year-old in a mud puddle?  We've gone three years in a row, and it's really a great time.  The closest hotel is about 35 miles away, so most people just camp out on the grounds.  It was a relief to get back to the hotel (at about 1:00 a.m.) and make mud pies in the shower!  Then in the morning...back to the gravy trough!  You can see more about Eldora at  http://www.eldoraspeedway.com/.

 

Barcelona and Monaco

May 5 - 18, 2010

Since the Grand Prix of Barcelona and Monaco were back-to-back this year, we decided to go to both races. We met our friend Steve Cole (of ToursF1.com) in Barcelona, stayed in a great hotel, the Acta Atrium Palace, and found a restaurant close by that had great food at good prices (El Mussol). The Circuit de Catalunya track is really a neat one. We walked the entire track and it affords panoramic views of the area and great race viewing no matter where you are.

We stayed an extra couple of days in Barcelona to explore...exploration included local sights, figuring out where our cruise ship may come in next November, and finding a laundromat. While we'd heard of the architectural works of Gaudi, we'd never given them much thought. After seeing some of them, we decided that imagining and, maybe, drawing buildings like these are one thing. Building them is quite another. We look forward to our next visit to Barcelona. Very neat city.

Monaco is still Monaco! Packed with folks of every nationality, race time is an excellent time to people-watch. By the way, in the photo, the second building from the left is the one we used to live in. Did we have fun watching the port from that balcony! And we do miss it.

On our extra day in the Cote d'Azur, we caught the bus back over to Monaco and took one of our "usual" strolls...through the Princess Grace Rose Garden, past the port, up to our favorite bakery for a snack, and back over to hang out at the big dock and watch the boats come and go. Made us miss it even more. Next stop: Auburn, Indiana and Eldora Speedway, Ohio.

It's About Time!

We should have started to keep some type of log when we first began traveling 10 or more years ago. But being working stiffs, we forgot about it until about six years ago when Gordon retired. But being somewhat internet-challenged, we forgot about it until about four years ago when Pati thought about writing a book or log about living in Monaco. But being lazy, we forgot about it until about a year ago when we got a new camera. So guess what? We got another new camera!

OK, so rather than sending out the occasional photo dump, we're going to do our best to chronicle the more interesting moments of the WW's World Wide adventures.