Off to the races

We spent Saturday with Ryan's parents at the Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Missouri, (about a half hour north of Bolivar) for a Day at the Races for Linda's work. There were inflatables and other activities just for hospital employees a few hours before the races and Macauley enjoyed all of them.

But...what is the deal with the entrance/exit to the inflatable car tunnel? Quite an image with kids going in and out of that thing...

Macauley really, really wanted to get inside this car and had a lot of questions about the speedometers and other dials, as always.

There were also go-carts and Macauley and I went for a spin on a two-seater kiddie cart. Michael and Linda drove the bigger carts that went a lot faster. While Macauley and I were waiting in line, a little girl driving one of the kiddie carts came back into the pit at full-speed with no idea how to stop and crashed into the stairs right below us, completely denting in the bottom step. She hit so hard! I think she was only embarrassed and not hurt. The huge guy running the place yelled at her, after the fact, "The brake is on the left!" She was maybe 8.

We settled into the stands thinking the race would start shortly but ended up having about 2 hours to entertain Macauley in those seats with nothing happening on the track, leaving us all rather frazzled.

Macauley changes clothes about 10 times a day, and he was frustrated that he couldn't change his shirt after he got some Diet Coke on it, so he just took it off. No one seemed to care.

He made a bed for his Kenny, who was obviously as worn out as the rest of us. Macauley has been calling his blankie "Honey" and saying she's his wife and Kenny is their son. It's cute to see him so nurturing, and I took lots of pictures to show his high school friends someday.

When the races finally started, it was pretty exciting. I have never been to anything like that, and I wouldn't normally think this would be my cup of tea. I couldn't believe how fast the cars were going. We just all wished the actual races got underway instead of all the trials we had to sit through. We headed home before the real action got going. It was a long, hot day but we had a good time. Macauley (and I!) even won a contest by guessing how much candy was in a jar (75 was our guess) and got a (not very) fabulous folding coin puzzle from the US Mint.