This Area is Beautiful

This being my first trip to Watkins Glen for a race, I was quite surprised at how beautiful the area is. Rolling green hills, lovely clouds and some pretty friendly people as well. This race is a road course, so the set-up is different from most of the races we do. You can't see the whole track from anywhere on the grounds.





When we left the track on wednesday, our EIC (truck engineer) Mike took myself and Jack to a nearby town to show us this waterfall that lands right in someone's backyard. It's kinda cool.


After that, Mike said "I've just got to show you this bar - located in a local lodge". We went in and there were hundreds of arrows shot into the wall above the bar. It turns out that the lodge has sponsored archery contests for many years and the winners of each division get to come in and shoot an arrow into the wall above the bar - kinda 'leaving their mark'. It's fun to see interesting local stuff like this when we travel.

Soaring Museum in Elmira NY

I'm currently in staying in Ithaca New York while doing the Watkins Glen race this weekend. I flew into Elmira NY on tuesday. Elmira is the home of the Soaring Museum of America. When I got off the plane, I made my way to my rental car and headed up Harris Hill to the museum. It was a fun tour - a bit smaller than I would have thought, but still very well done.





They had one hang glider (sort of) on display. It's an original Rogallo style wing without much of the frame. The original hang gliders had lots of 'billow' in the wing while flying and the one on display had the leading edges widened out to make the fabric tight - so it wasn't very representative of any style hang glider.

Indianapolis

This week I'm in Indy. We have 2 crews here working both races. The Sprint Cup series is taking place on Sunday at the Indianapolis motor speedway (the very famous one - where they have the Indy 500 in May). The Nationwide Series is taking place about 5 miles away at a much smaller track. I'm working the Nationwide race which takes place tonight (saturday), so I'll be able to watch the Sprint Cup race (Brickyard 400) from home on Sunday.

We're staying downtown in Indianapolis and it's an impressive city. It's very vibrant at night with lots of restaurants and other nightlife. In the middle of the city they have a great war monument that's been there for 147 years. Being very tall with lots of intricate carvings and scuptures - it's quite impressive.

My morning in St. Louis

The water here has been very high for the last few weeks. This sculpture of Lewis and Clark has exposed itself more than 2 feet in the last few days and it's still well underwater.

Last night I noticed that the hotel I'm staying at had 4 'beach cruiser' bicycles out front. I went to the concierge and asked what it took to take one of them out and was told that I just needed to come and get it. I had noticed a "riverfront trail' that was for hiking and biking while walking around the arch area, so this morning I went down and got one of the bikes and went for a ride.

It was an interesting experience. It was raining for much of the time - although in the summertime, I don't care about rain, so I rode on as if it weren't raining. The most interesting thing about the riverfront trail was that it went through miles of VERY industrial area. It wasn't at all a 'showcase' style trail. The trail itself was great - well maintained and marked, but it was just the scenery that was striking. Old factory after old factory passed by as well as things like scrap metal yards that looked and sounded like something out of Terminator 2.


At one point I took a wrong turn onto another bike path and ended up crossing the river and going into Illinois on a converted train trestle.



Obviously Saint Louis has a working waterfront with lots of loading and unloading of barges. A couple of times I came upon some wild flowers growing with a very industrial backdrop and it was striking - the contrast.





The trail would wind around with industrial entrances going through the 'levy' wall and I found it funny and interesting how they would paint it all pretty at the point where dump trucks would be going through the wall.


The wall was part of a large integrated network of cement levies as well as earthen berm that appeared (based on elevation markings) to protect the city's riverfront up to a 40-45foot level above mean tide.






I saw quite a bit of graffiti along the way. A few of my friends are really into graffiti as a form of art, so I've been trying to see it in a different light than I normally do. I have a hard time getting past the fact that the 'artist' appears to paint their art with complete disregard for someone else's property. I've learned from my many years of working with the art community back in NC that there's all kinds of art, so I have no problem with the style of art that graffiti consists of, I just find the willingness of the artist to use 'canvas' that he/she has no right to use - very offensive. I certainly wouldn't want to wake up one morning and find that some moron decided the side of my car was where he wanted to paint his next masterpiece.

Oh well, I'll keep trying to broaden my way of thinking and accept 'criminal art' more readily.