FRIDAY AT KENTUCKY

SPEEDWAY

Well it's been an off and one day here at the track. It rained most of the morning leaving the only sound being heard of the blow driers out on the track. The rain let up this afternoon but a passing thundershower off to the west has made people wonder if the Nationwide and Sprint Cup series will get their qualifying in today. It looks, however, like it will happen as the shower has dropped to the southwest leaving things in good shape here.

It's been a busy afternoon with the Sprint Cup cars getting their final practice in and Kyle Busch is still looking good with a fast speed of 182.803 mph. Juan Pablo Montoya is second at 182.500 and Kurt Busch is third at 182.346. Kasey Kahne (182.291) and Jimmie Johnson (182.285) round out the top five. Twenty-eight drivers are over 180 mph and just one simple mistake can be the difference in who gets the pole. The Nationwide drivers soon begin their qualifying and then the Sprint Cub cars again take the track to qualify. And then after that the Nationwide cars take to the track for the Feed the Children 300.....200 laps on the 1 1/2 mile track. So there's still A LOT left to do today and tonight. I haven't decided where I'm going to be tonight. A lot happened last night in turn four so I'm thinking possibly there again. I'll just have to wait and see. Forty-three cars is a lot different than the 36 trucks last night. I think it will be an interesting night.....Oh....and don't expect me to make any predictions. I don't do that anymore. I've seen too many crazy things happen.

THE CUP COMES TO

KENTUCKY

SPEEDWAY

It's already been a long day here at Kentucky Speedway and the first race of the 2011 season hasn't even got here yet. The Sprint Cup cars have made it to Kentucky Speedway for the inaugural Quaker State 400 on Saturday night. But this is Thursday night and it's the Craftsman Truck Series that takes center stage. Actually the Cup cars have been the ones to draw all the attention with very few paying attention to the trucks or Nationwide cars.

The Cup cars have had two rounds of testing here today once for six hours and again for two more hours after the truck qualifications. So far Kyle Busch has been the fast car on the track but only by just over a mile an hour with seven cars closely in behind him. While Busch and a couple of others have more experience here it hasn't taken long the other teams to figure things out about the track. Tomorrow's practice could be event more interesting and qualifying really could see anybody on the pole. Jimmie Johnson is one of those close behind and one of those to be contending.

I'm not going to make any predictions. It could be anybody's race. We'll just see what the mayhem brings.....

%-)

THE GRANDSON'S FIRST

BIG HIKE

When my grandson, Clayton, was 8 years old, I told him when he turned ten I would take him on an overnight hike down in the Smokies. So last September when he turned ten I started looking at what we would be doing. I decided to take him up to the Spence Field shelter from Cade's Cove and then hike 3 miles of the Appalachian Trail the next day over to Russell Field and then 5 more miles back down the mountain to the cove.

We got up at 3:30 Thursday morning and drove the five hours and got our permits and everything but we had to do some changing of things because they told us in the permit office the spring at the shelter was dry. I knew we would have a stream to follow going most of the way up so I got 4 extra bottles of water to take with us and took out 2 of my meals and one of his to make room in the pack for the extra water. That added some weight to the packs but I wanted to make sure we had plenty if the spring really was dry. I split things up to make his pack lighter (since he weighs only about 70 lbs but he still had about 25 to carry or so.

So....after getting everything done and the packs on the next thing we had to do was find the trailhead. That took a little extra work but finally we started up.

The next five miles was all uphill. No downers whatsoever. There were some pretty steep places in it too and for a while I was beginning to wonder if I was giving Clayton too much on his first big hike. But he was really doing pretty well. There was a pack of boy scouts that we leap-frogged with back and forth. Those boys were 11-15 years old and some of them struggled as they were going along. I don't know why but they were all wearing cotton shirts and two of them had their shirts completely soaked with sweat. They were the ones struggling what appeared to be mild cases of heat exhaustion. I had Clayton in all synthetic and he was having no problems at all, plus I was making sure he stayed good and hydrated.

It took us about 5 1/2 to 6 hours to get to the shelter. That included making stops for water, and air of course since it was thinning out as we were climbing, and a snack now and then. (I wasn't in as good of shape as I was when I was when I do my 73-mile hike so I was huffing and puffing some too.)

Just before we got to the shelter Clayton wanted to take the lead for the last 3/10ths of a mile. As we came into the shelter area there were 9 other guys there and you should have seen the looks on their faces. It was like they were saying, "What's this little kid doing up here?" LOLOL!!!!!! Actually Clayton turned out tho be the icebreaker. At first the guys were staying in their own little groups then one of them began to start a fire in the fire pit. Clayton jumped up and started gathering sticks to put in and they started talking to him and everybody started talking about him and to each other. Clayton kind of brought everybody together.

Later as it got dark I finally had to settle him down some to get him to bed. Even after that tough hike that day he was still bouncing with a lot of energy and I didn't want him to use it all up since we had 8 miles to do the next day. After it got dark we had a coyote start howling about 40 or 50 yards from the front of the shelter. That didn't bother him either although he was a bit worried about any bears showing up.

Well he woke up about 4 am the next morning but did go back to snoozing a little later. About 6:30 others began to mill around a little bit and Clayton started moving around more too. We both finally got up and started getting things back in shape for the next section of the hike.

We finally got our water bottles all filled. (The spring was running by the way with just enough water to be able to handle all 11 of us there. It wasn't a ton but enough and I'm still glad we took the extra with us just in case we did need it.) All of the other guys at the shelter called Clayton by name and told him to have a good hike down. I think he really impressed them.

We got going on the AT and first had an uphill then then a downhill. We then started another uphill and I was beginning to wonder again if I was giving Clayton too much so I stopped and asked him if he wanted to go ahead like we were doing or keep going the way we were. Well, his answer was pretty quick..."Let's go forward." he said. So off we went again. We did the 3.1 miles to the Russell Field shelter in just under an hour and a half. He stayed with me the whole time and we didn't take a whole lot of breaks. We both seemed to be in kind of a zone at the point and he did just excellent. It actually put us ahead of schedule for the trip back.

Then we started the 5 miles back to the bottom and it was actually tougher than I expected it to be. There were a lot of rocks and root wads we had to go over and we had some 60-75 degree verticals along the side of the trail. I wanted to make sure Clayton hung to the side because I knew if he tripped and fell he could be in for a bigger fall than either of us wanted. He did take two spills about halfway down, one of them being kind of half fall and the other one he went all the way down. It was just because his legs were getting tired. Mine were feeling it too. But he picked himself right back up and we kept going. One funny thing was when we would stop to take our little breaks, when he was ready to go again he would kind of say, "Okay....let's get to hiking." And not one the entire hike did he ask me to help him put his pack on. I even offered a couple of times and he said he would do it.

By the time we were getting close to the bottom he was pretty wore out. His shoulders were starting to get sore from the pack too. I'm going to have to get him a better fitting pack for next time. I got it for him for Christmas and it didn't fit quite as well as I thought it would. Next time he'll have a better one that won't bother him so much.

When we got to the last mile he wasn't walking behind me anymore but beside me. I have to say as I looked down at him I couldn't help but smile at that. We gave each other a high five at the bottom when we got to the end.

After that we decided to drive the nature drive loop there in the cove. We saw 3 bears on that trip, including one that was only about 30 yds from us that I got a bunch of pictures of. She was a 200 pound female.

The rest of the family came down to meet us in Pigeon Forge and then after getting cleaned up we went back to drive the loop again. Of the last three days I ended up seeing 12 bears and Clayton saw 10 of them. My wife saw 9 and the rest saw 7. That was a record for us.

It definitely goes into my best hike list. Clayton has already said he'll go again with me. At one point up on the mountain he said, "Now I see what I've been missing by not going." He's ready to go back to the mountains like me. Next time though I'm going to have some better gear for him.

A Nature Story

This morning while I was working on my last story of the week I looked out my basement window to see a small baby rabbit out in the yard. I also saw our cat who also took an interest in the bunny as well and figured he was about to grab his lunch. The cat, however, seemed more interested in just playing with the rabbit rather than eating it.

After a few minutes I saw the rabbit run out into the middle of the yard and then looked up to see two broadwing hawks circling overhead and it was obvious they were more interested in the rabbit as a meal than just playing with it.

But then something else happened I didn't expect and had never seen before. Two crows suddenly dropped from the sky between the cat and the rabbit. The crows gave the cat a hard time and forced the cat to back up and lay flat on the ground. One of the crows then actually picked the rabbit up a few inches off the ground but couldn't hold on to it as it tried to get in the air and dropped the rabbit to the ground.

Then came another surprise. We have five or six mockingbirds that hang around here and one of them went on the attack after the crows forcing them into a couple of small trees. With the crows gone and the cat still laying on the ground (She's been harrassed by the mockingbirds numerous times.) the baby rabbit jumped up and ran back into the high weeds. A few minutes later the cat then came to the window scratching at the glass to be let in. She had had enough of it all.

As far as I know the baby rabbit is fine and well. The whole thing was really something to see though. %-)

A PARADE OF PACHYDERMS

The other day I got to see something that you don't normally get the see everyday....an elephant parade. The Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus had come to Louisville and had their elephant walk that they usually do before performing in the cities they go to. Crowds of people came to watch the circus people unload the elephants from the train and even more came out of their offices to watch them go by.

Hi!!!!!!!!!

Hi there!!!!!!

Thought I would come visit real quick.

Nothing new right now.

It's snowed a little bit.

Gonna warm up tomorrow and all week.

Think I'll get some hiking in.

Yeah....I know.....this is one boring post isn't it.

Okay.....I'll wait till something more exciting happens.

%-)

January 5th Hike

Yesterday morning was a great day for a hike.

Temperatures were in the 20's and the sky mostly clear.

I was going to O'Bannon State Park near Corydon, Indiana in hopes of finding some ice formations that you don't see everyday....ice marbles. I found that and more.

About 5 minutes from where I parked is a large limestone bluff and I could see lots of large icicles hanging from the cliff. I also saw water dripping down and the closer I got I could tell there were going to be ice marbles on the ground. Not only were there ice marbles there but I also saw ice disks, something I had never seen before. There were big globs of ice that covered some branches and leaves. There was even an ice thumb that had formed on the stem of a leaf that was upside down.

I spent about 30 minutes there taking pictures and looking at the ice then continued on up the hill to see if a new shelter bad been built on the trail overlooking the Ohio River and into Kentucky. This shelter proved to be for the most part done and much bigger than the earlier one being able to hold at least 15 hikers. One thing I know for sure is that I'll be using it this spring as I make another attempt at hiking the whole 27 miles in two days. My previous attempts had been messed up by weather and lack of water. I know the springs are running now from what I saw yesterday and with the spring rains they'll be even better. This time I plan on making the whole loop and this shelter will help in a big way.

The whole thing about yesterday it was a great hiking day and my body told me it liked it as well telling me it was ready to go again. %-)