Roadtrip Report - From the F1 Race to the Knit Shop
I've been back almost a month, but haven't had a chance to report back on my roadtrip. So here goes. It's long. Be Prepared.
My sister and I left Shreveport on Tuesday June 14th at around 4 o'clock and made it to West Memphis, Arkansas for our first night. The next day we stopped along the way and went to the Lost River Cavern in Bowling Green, KY, which was really cool. You take a boat ride down a portion of an underground river. We then scooted over the Mammoth Cave National Park before arriving in Indianapolis for the second night.
If any of you are race fans or saw the sports news about a month ago, yes I went to THAT race. I'm getting ahead of myself though. We spent the next 3 days at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway doing a pit walkabout and watching practices and qualifyings for Formula One and some other feeder circuits. We had an absolute blast.
The race, however, was a disaster. Michelin showed up with bad tires and withdrew all their teams from the race (this is a very truncated explanation). Only 6 cars raced. People were shouting, throwing things on the track, it was surreal. I have to say now, though, that I can't believe that I actually saw that in person - a historical racing moment if there ever was one. Within the next few weeks Michelin is supposed to be sending me a check as reimbursement for my tickets and if there is a race in the US next year, they will buy the first 20,000 tickets and send them to people who held tickets to the 2005 race.
The rest of the trip was wonderful. We drove from Indianapolis to Niagara Falls on Monday and really enjoyed the view. We walked over the Rainbow Bridge to Canada and saw the falls from that side as well. Over the next 3 days we flew by the seats of our pants getting off the Interstate and heading in the general direction of Center Harbor, New Hampshire. We saw lots of farms, streams that ran along side the road, lots of big rocks (big deal for Louisianians), and about three covered bridges through Vermont (I even drove through one).
I promised a report back about Patternworks, the big knitting store in New Hampshire. Here goes. The yarn was amazing and the town of Center Harbor was very quaint, if a little resorty (is that a word?). The store is in an old house and you can see a lake from its front door. We stayed there for four hours and touched every kind of yarn they had. I managed to spend every dime I had set aside for this excursion and enjoyed every minute of it. I still think, though, that Stitches n'Stuff in Longview, TX is the best yarn shop ever. The ladies at Patternworks got upset when we sat on the floor to look at yarns better, the ladies at Stitches n'Stuff will join you on the floor.
The next two days were spent getting a new tire in Manchester, New Hampshire and making our way back to Louisiana. We did, by accident, wind up spending the night in Chambersburg, PA on Thursday night and couldn't resist heading over the Gettysburg. I'm afraid we didn't do it justice, though, since we were getting a little short on time if I was going to be able to go to work on Monday.
Now I'm just trying to figure out what to do next year.
Sorry to being an old topic back to the top, but...
I just found this report linked on another thread and it amused me to read it. It bought back a whole load of memories of my own from that day. Fantastic! :)
