Indianapolis-The 500-You Auto Know

2014 -Today with Bob Reif at Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Great day today at the speedway.

Bob Reif

Glamping With the DRR Racing Crew

Some other notable races-

Crash Course back in 2001

 2012-

You win some, you lose some, you wreck some.

The 96th Indianapolis 500- the best way to convert money into noise---was fast paced with lots of lead changes and drivers dabbling  in and out of  the boundaries  of disaster. There’s no secret to ovals. You just press the accelerator to the floor and steer left. The drivers  who think the brakes are for stopping usually don't win. As Mario Andretti said, "“If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.”

These open wheel drivers are like fighter pilots, flying in a gymnasium. The crashes fans  remember, but drivers remember the near misses, but nobody remembers who finished second but the guy who finished second. For the record, New Zealand's Scott Dixon was runner-up this time.

The weather was hot in America's Midwest after an emotional tribute to last year's winner  Dan Wheldon, the popular Englishman whose  thrill of speed overcame the fear of death  and in fact, actually died horrific crash in Las Vegas in October.

2009-2008 Same Shirt_Different Day

May 2009

May 2008

Read More

Nashville,TN-Cabin Fever

Belle Meade PlantationThis Antebellum home in Nashville, on a property formerly used as a thoroughbred horse farm,still gives a glimpse of a  beautiful home and of the privileged life enjoyed by a handful of Americans in the 19th century.

Read More

Shiloh, TN-The Blue And The Gray

 “We Americans have never lost a war.” is  rather amazing statement   I always believed  growing up as a Yankee East Coaster. Yet, Southerners have a sense of defeat which none of the rest of the country has. It is evident in the battlefields throughout Tennessee, especially here at Shiloh. A very somber place with mass burial sites and gravestone markers.

Drove down aways to see the final resting place of Lewis from the Fmaous Lewis and Clark Expedition,  who explored and mapped out the great expansion towards the West  through a number of rivers. They include the Ohio River,  Tennessee River, Missouri River  and Columbia River.

Read More

Little Rock, Arkansas-I Miss Bill

"“When our memories outweigh our dreams,
it is then that we become old.” Bill Clinton 

I am holding up a copy of  the president's  memoir, My Life, and thinking-Don't judge a book by its cover. He was a great leader. His  assertion that the best social program is a good job rings true. After all, government doesn't solve problems, they subsidize them.

In The background

I visited the Clinton Library and it was a nice reminder of all the prosperity and good that he accomplished for our country in the two terms he was in office.

The View From The Bridge

Read More

Walking In Memphis with The 3 B's-Beale Street, BBQ and Bikes

Bikes on Beale Street, or Bike Night, is quite the spectacle
and a good time on Wednesdays 

Mud Island

BBQ-- meet your meat--Ok it's like alligator, had to try it once,
 but it doesn't taste like chicken. Eating this was no mis-steak. — at Rendevous BBQ.

The Menu IS the meal

The Bluesmobile has been located in Tunica, MS

Read More

Driving In Memphis With The 3 Kings

BB, MLK and Elvis

 The Lyrics talk about this cafe where
"Muriel plays piano, every night at The Hollywood, located actually in
Tunica, MS off Highway 61.
  

At The Lorraine Hotel, Room 306, where Dr King got shot,
And The Greatest speech ever given by RFK delivering the bad  news
of his death.
Video

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.

Dr Kings Last Speech-"I've been to the mountaintop" 

is moving with the eerie prediction, "I may not get there with you".

BB King-Ouch With me messing around with Lucille, a black Gibson, I first
got to know his music through Eric Clapton

@The Gibson Guitar Factory

@ Graceland With Sarah Kennedy. Elvis's home is one
of the most visited private homes in the USA and most recognizable.
The most famous icon of the estate is the front gate, shaped like a book of sheet music/

Read More

St Louis-Traveling With Mark Twain

Steamboats Come True

Life on the Mississippi (1883) is a powerful narrative by Mark Twain of his days as a steamboat pilot on the Miss R. before the U.S. Civil War, recounting his trip along The River from St. Louis to New Orleans.

Twain writes with both sincerity &irreverence, as in this lament--- 
"There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land (and work) again after a cheerful, careless voyage."

My  own restlessness requests "Anyplace but here" and " I want to be surprised" can be summed up with this quip---

 "All I do know or feel, is, that I am wild with impatience to move, move – Move!"

Twain speak close to my  heart on what’s important for adventures and  travel seekers with this quote---


"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

2008 Flooding on the Mississippi River

The river calls me saying “I can help you lose your baggage without going to the airport"

Ernest Hemingway said, 

":Don't travel with people you don't love" 

Mark Twain value adds as-

"I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them."

I'll never forget this Twain brilliancy-"The Coldest Winter he ever spent in his life, was a Summer in San Francisco."

In my blog, Hotel @nyware,  I often use Twain's quotes to inspire me to further writing.
 For Instance

"Go To heaven for the climate and hell for the company". 

• Liking  many people spontaneously and without effort is probably  my  greatest of all sources of personal happiness.
  
  
I am  inspired because of my travels, I think, therefore, that I should write some more about them. Sometimes I see what I see and other times I see what I came to see. Yet Sailing on a cruise ship is like granola. Take away all the fruits and the nuts and all you have left are the flakes . 

    The gravity of  travel is that it can be expensive  and   living on earth and doing nothing still gets each of us a round trip around the sun. The earth school kills all of its students, and procrastination is just suicide on the installment plan- If it wasn't for the last minute, however, nothing would ever get done.  No matter how many plans you make or how much in control you are, life is always winging it, especially, living and working on a cruise ship. Some people will say it is a "dream world".  I love sleep and dreaming. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake anyway.Read more HERE

Twain voyaged to South Africa and beyond.  In fact this quote inspired another blog post of mine when I was in the Indian Ocean on my 2011 World Cruise.

My own version of "Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain"

"You gather the idea that Mauritius was created first, and then heaven; and that heaven was copied after Mauritius". Mark Twain
Read more HERE

Rolling down the river makes me think of John Fogerty and Proud Mary- and its playing on the radio too now-cool. for real, as I drive back to St Louis. Another catchy tune is from his revival album, The River Is Waiting. 

I must do a revision of 

9 Cruises I had To Go On Before I Died

Traveling on the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee Snake, Columbia Rivers are  now on my bucket list.

Read More