Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Drag Racing Bears Paint Roller Coasters

Drag racing bears paint roller coasters.

What? You didn't know that the bears who participate in drag racing also paint pictures of roller coasters? Ok, so just for fun I combined all of the events of my weekend into one sentence.

Drag Racing
Saturday Katie and I went to Bandimere Speedway to watch the Quaker State Drag Racing Finals. The event was set to begin at 9:30AM and so I picked Katie up at 8:15. We arrived on time- to an empty parking lot. It was cool and raining.

I guess, being a girl, it did not cross my mind to think that drag racing could not proceed in the rain. It makes complete sense now that I know. High velocity automobiles traveling 0-179MPH in 8 seconds cannot risk ANY moisture on the track. They hydroplane.

So we waited. And waited. The woman at the ticket counter said they were hoping to start by 11:30. So we waited some more. And waited. The rain cleared a bit and so we ventured into the stadium. We dried a seat and got comfortable. And then it started raining again. We decided to go eat lunch and come back. As we sat in my car eating the picnic lunch (the one I thought we would enjoy spread out on the grass) we heard the load speakers come on. It was finally time!


We went back to the stadium and found our bench. The drag racing started at 1:30PM. Four hours late isn't too bad, is it? Were we crazy for waiting? Maybe so, but Katie had never been to a drag race! She looked at me and quipped, "We have waited four hours. It's a good thing we like each other."

We had so much fun, although we stuck out like a sore thumb. The general demographic of the attenders were: Male; 25-50 years old; dressed in leather jackets and ball caps with flaming cars; these men and their "in training" 13 year old sons. The women we saw were their wives, dressed in tight jeans, brightly colored wind breakers and feathered hair styles from the 70's.

The super-long pro drag car traveled down the 1/4 mile track in 8 seconds at 179MPH. Don't blink, you might miss it! Until the super pro raced, the red and white Corvette held the record at 145MPH. Wooooooobuddy! I have pictures of some cars that I will try to upload soon! (Didn't I say that about 10 other things the last 3 months???)

Bears
Ben has been house-sitting for some people in a quaint montain town about 1 hour from our home. Monday night Victoria, Timothy and I went with him to check the plants, feed the animals and watch for bears. We refilled all of the hummingbird feeders with sugar water, gave the black squirrels and birds sunflowers seeds, dumped out peanuts for the elk and bears, and prepared hotdogs and cookies for the fox.

There was not special food for the skunk, but he came for dinner anyway. He hung around for 10 minutes while we took pictures (that did not turn out). We tiptoed out onto the deck, which is elevated about 10 off of the ground. As soon as we came out he skampered up the hill out of sight. A couple of times he did raise his tail in our direction- good thing we were in the basement.

As the sun set over the mountains, we decided to wait and watch for the fox to come get his dinner. We see fox all the time in our own neightborhood, so it was nothing super special. Timothy and Victoria, equipped with flashlights, were watching for the elk and bears. They moved windows and so I took over their post.

As soon as I stepped up to the window I could tell there was an animal down there. It was a large black shadow moving slowly toward the house. I aimed my flashlight at the shadow and clicked it on. Two glowing eyes stared at me from the face of the largest black bear I have ever seen. I whispered, "There's a bear! Come quick! Quietly! There he is!!!" We gathered at the window as Ben scrambled to turn on the camera. A bear. We were looking directly at a bear. And he was looking at us!

It was now pitch black and we, at least three of us, were too scared to go to the car. So we waited a few minutes and then made a run for it!

Painting
Since our basement flooded a couple weeks ago, we had to replace drywall and paint, which we did Monday morning. My mom was the mad scientist and concocted a beautiful baby blue. We are transforming the once school room to the office/ library. The school room desks and current cirriculum has been moved to the adjacent large room in the basement. It is a mess right now and school was supposed to start 2 weeks ago. Who knew that leaving the hose on overnight would cause so much damage?

Roller Coasters
My aunt and her four grandchildren came down from Cheyenne to spend Labor Day Weekend with us. On Sunday we went to Six Flags, thus the "roller coaster" part of my random sentence. I love, absolutely LOVE roller coasters. The higher and the faster- the better!

So there is my random update about the weekend. I hope to post more pictures later when I have time. Ha. Hope all is well for everyone!!!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, is it normal to feed the wildlife? It just seems a bit unusual to me that part of housesitting would involve preparing food for the local squirrels, elk, bear, fox, and skunk...

Can't say I've ever been to a drag race, but it sounds like a neat way to spontaneously (?) spend a day.

I've been meaning to comment on several of your recent posts, but work has been severely cutting into my free time of late. Thankfully starting to slow down some now.

(hmm, I can't post with my Blogger ID since I upgraded to the beta (yay tags (labels)), so I'm an "other" poster for today)

Dawn said...

I had NO idea you loved roller coasters! I do too...but I'm the kind that gets more scared the closer I get to the front of the line...but then LOVE it afterwards and want to go again. :-P

How close was that bear to the house? Yipe!

Jaclyn said...

Trin,
There are many people here in Colorado who feed wild animals, but this is the first people I have heard that REALLY feed bears... near their home. I mean, it would be one thing to hike into the woods and drop some peanuts. The bowl of peanuts for the bears is 30 feet from their house. NOT a wise idea. They have been doing it for years, are very safety conscious, have guns and just enjoy doing it to see the animals when they come eat!

Watching a drag race is sooo much fun, you should really try to get to one sometime! My family got into it several years ago when my dad participated in a "pastor's drag race" at this same speedway. Mr. Bandimere is a Christian and began hosting a "Christian Drag Racing" event on Independence Day. In it, he opened a special drag race up for Colorado pastors. Chevrolet provided new Camaro's and the pastors were trained in how to race the 1/4mile track! They asked my dad to take a break for a couple of years since he kept winning... I'm serious! And proud. :-P

This year, my brother, Ben can race since he is over 18 and is now a paid music leader at a church... how frightening is that?

Dawn,
Well, you learn something new every day, they say! I am a roller coaster FANATIC! Which is odd, since in other aspects of my life I am not a risk taker... I guess I have to have some avenue of outlet for the adventure that bottles up in my body! Hehehe... The best ride I have been on so far is at Great America in the Chicago Area. The ride is called Verical Velocity and takes you backwards, straight up a corkscrew going 0-60 in 3 seconds (I think, right Ben?) Wow, wow, wow... I want to go back just for THAT ride!

Jaclyn said...

Oh... and the bear... it was about 30-50 feet from the house. It was hard to tell since it was dark. Let me say this... it was close enough for us to look in its eyes and for him to stare back!

Anonymous said...

Who needs roller coasters when you can be a few seconds run from a bear? :)

Galant said...

:) Good one Trin. And Jaclyn, I'm envious. Nature is wonderful and I love such experiences.

I think I'm going to throw up a prayer for the Lord to let me go on some long trip, maybe a few days hike or something, where I can be out in the middle of nowhere for a long while. An expedition perhaps.

Sigh.