Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Atlanta and Savannah

ATLANTA

The whole family made it down to Atlanta to my aunt and uncle's house to celebrate my cousin's high school graduation.  Luckily, my aunt and uncle have a pool in their backyard, so we were able to beat the heat in the pool every day.  Their yard also backs up to a horse farm, we fed the horses some after dinner snacks.  Jocee, my youngest niece, had never seen a horse outside of Toy Story (Run like the wind Bullseye!) or her animal books, so she was quite intimidated by the big giants.  My dad was holding her, but she really wanted nothing to do with them!  My older niece, Audrey ruined my peaceful relaxing days in the pool because she ATTACKED me with the squirt gun every time I climbed on a raft to nap.  Audrey loved the pool so much that her fingers and toes were all wrinkled like raisins for the entire week because she was living in the pool.  Jocee on the other hand, was less than thrilled with being in the water.  Though, she did love throwing the beach balls back into the pool.  






   





And at the end of the week, we went to SCOOPS, my favorite ice cream place.  Audrey and I only got into a little bit of trouble :)  She had superman ice cream, which looks pretty cool but tastes disgusting!









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Savannah - Robeling Road Race Track

After my parents, sisters and nieces left to drive back to Illinois and Wisconsin, my aunt and uncle and cousins drove down to Savannah.  It was a little tiring being on the road again, seeing as I just spent a 1,000 miles in the car driving around Oregon and California... not to mention that I drove with my mom and dad down to Georgia, which was another 800 miles.  So, I was less than thrilled to pack into a car again to drive the 5 hours from Atlanta to Savannah, but I was really excited to get to see my cousin, Jason, race.  At the same time Wisconsin was experiencing 100+ degree heat, so was Georgia.  In fact, the temperature was over 100 all weekend, which broke a 40 year record in Atlanta!  Yowsers.  So, obviously, it was quite hot and sweaty at the race track!! 

Jason races modified street cars on road tracks.  That means that the track is sort of windy instead of an oval shape like most Nascar tracks.  If you flew over the track in an airplane, the course would look sort of like a giant F...though if you were in a plane, you wouldn't be able to watch the excitement of the race.  Take a look at some of the photos below.  Remember how I said that it was really hot?  Well imagine being in 100 degree heat wearing a full body fire proof suit, a face mask and a helmet. Yikes! So, to make sure that the driver's don't overheat, they need to stay hydrated and to stay cool.  The white shirt with the blue piping is a cooling shirt.  Cold water circulates through the blue pipe to cool down the driver's body temperature.  Pretty cool invention huh?!   And of course, once Jason is strapped in with multiple seat belts, he puts a neck brace and helmet on.  Safety first!














That's my uncle (he was on radio contact duty to be able to talk to Jason while he was driving) and my cousin Julia.  

Jason placed 3rd in an endurance race, which is a hour and a half road race.  It's a tough job, and I was pretty proud of him!

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