Thursday, February 23, 2006
Vacation time!
Check out previous blog for today about Mother Nature.
We will be crusing for the next ten days and will not be posting again until March 7.
Check out previous blog for today about Mother Nature.
We will be crusing for the next ten days and will not be posting again until March 7.
Mother Nature’s Wardrobe Malfunction!
Remember Parkay’s commercials that warned us that "It's Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature?" Wham! Bam! Everyone who tried to do so got zapped—fried by Mother Nature to a golden crisp about like a chicken fried steak. Remember the Super Bowl’s wardrobe malfunction? Well, what happens when you combine the two?
Take Alaska. Exit Glacier and Portage Glacier have retreated a remarkable distance in the last few years. Those who stop on the road to Whittier to see Portage Glacier are in for a major disappointment. The Visitors Center which used to be just an arms throw away from the mountain of ice, now sits on an icy lake with the glacier so far away that you can barely see it if you squint hard enough. Same thing with Exit down at Seward. The map shows a lengthy retreat over the years—becoming much more pronounced the last couple of years. If you want to get to the glacier, you need to ask directions and have a good pair of hiking boots. At Juneau the Mendenhall Glacier is still prominent but it too is no longer available for in-your-face viewing. It seems that Mother Nature does not want to show off her goodies anymore.
But wait. Things are getting worse. The Iditarod is having trouble finding snow and not just for the ceremonial start in Anchorage. The actual race starts at Wasilla—normally. But if Mother Nature does not cooperate, then it moves up the road to Willow. Care to guess how often that happens? The last three years running. The Shaktoolik to Nome portion of the Iron Dog forced the motorized units to take wide detours to avoid open water or thin ice. Half the teams bailed out early. It is no fun racing Arctic Cats over boulders or thin ice or no ice in 50-degree temperature. The same problems confront the Yukon Quest Mushers. Re-routing or bad trails. One solution would be to drop historical references to Iditarod and have a Tour de Alaska (Tour de France) type race. Different routes every year. Another solution is to move everything back several weeks. Please note that the snowmobile trails at Chugach State Park at Upper Huffman never opened this year due to a lack of snow. The worst solution for the mushers would be to equip the sleds with bicycle tires—it would be much easier on the dogs. If it gets much worse the mushers will have to wear shorts.
Mother Nature has been testing others as well. The Snow of Kilimanjaro is no more. It is kaput! Maui is running out of sand. Florida has been zapped as well. Why do all the snowbirds come to Florida? The Sun and the Beaches! But wait! Mother Nature zapped the beaches. For the last year you could kiss all those romantic beach walks at New Smyrna Beach and many other places as well goodbye along with your sweetheart. The ocean surf came right up to the sea wall. You could look or jump in but you could not walk the beach. The city fathers in Volusia County decided to fight back. They brought in engineers, heavy equipment and dredging experts and set them to work. For the last month they have been pumping sand onto the beach in a colossal 15-inch pipe. The sand comes from what will soon be an ex-island in the intercostal waterway. Backhoes and Dozers pile up a berm to hold the ex-island one grain at a time. When the sand comes gushing out it is deposited while the water rushes down a long runway back to the sea. The backhoes scoop up the sand in their bucket to create artificial dunes. The dozer then levels everything out. One month into the project they have re-nourished 2 ½ miles of beach. They are now halfway finished. Rubbernecking is now the favorite pastime of all those snowbirds. And for me? Fried just like a chicken fried steak.
Remember Parkay’s commercials that warned us that "It's Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature?" Wham! Bam! Everyone who tried to do so got zapped—fried by Mother Nature to a golden crisp about like a chicken fried steak. Remember the Super Bowl’s wardrobe malfunction? Well, what happens when you combine the two?
Take Alaska. Exit Glacier and Portage Glacier have retreated a remarkable distance in the last few years. Those who stop on the road to Whittier to see Portage Glacier are in for a major disappointment. The Visitors Center which used to be just an arms throw away from the mountain of ice, now sits on an icy lake with the glacier so far away that you can barely see it if you squint hard enough. Same thing with Exit down at Seward. The map shows a lengthy retreat over the years—becoming much more pronounced the last couple of years. If you want to get to the glacier, you need to ask directions and have a good pair of hiking boots. At Juneau the Mendenhall Glacier is still prominent but it too is no longer available for in-your-face viewing. It seems that Mother Nature does not want to show off her goodies anymore.
But wait. Things are getting worse. The Iditarod is having trouble finding snow and not just for the ceremonial start in Anchorage. The actual race starts at Wasilla—normally. But if Mother Nature does not cooperate, then it moves up the road to Willow. Care to guess how often that happens? The last three years running. The Shaktoolik to Nome portion of the Iron Dog forced the motorized units to take wide detours to avoid open water or thin ice. Half the teams bailed out early. It is no fun racing Arctic Cats over boulders or thin ice or no ice in 50-degree temperature. The same problems confront the Yukon Quest Mushers. Re-routing or bad trails. One solution would be to drop historical references to Iditarod and have a Tour de Alaska (Tour de France) type race. Different routes every year. Another solution is to move everything back several weeks. Please note that the snowmobile trails at Chugach State Park at Upper Huffman never opened this year due to a lack of snow. The worst solution for the mushers would be to equip the sleds with bicycle tires—it would be much easier on the dogs. If it gets much worse the mushers will have to wear shorts.
Mother Nature has been testing others as well. The Snow of Kilimanjaro is no more. It is kaput! Maui is running out of sand. Florida has been zapped as well. Why do all the snowbirds come to Florida? The Sun and the Beaches! But wait! Mother Nature zapped the beaches. For the last year you could kiss all those romantic beach walks at New Smyrna Beach and many other places as well goodbye along with your sweetheart. The ocean surf came right up to the sea wall. You could look or jump in but you could not walk the beach. The city fathers in Volusia County decided to fight back. They brought in engineers, heavy equipment and dredging experts and set them to work. For the last month they have been pumping sand onto the beach in a colossal 15-inch pipe. The sand comes from what will soon be an ex-island in the intercostal waterway. Backhoes and Dozers pile up a berm to hold the ex-island one grain at a time. When the sand comes gushing out it is deposited while the water rushes down a long runway back to the sea. The backhoes scoop up the sand in their bucket to create artificial dunes. The dozer then levels everything out. One month into the project they have re-nourished 2 ½ miles of beach. They are now halfway finished. Rubbernecking is now the favorite pastime of all those snowbirds. And for me? Fried just like a chicken fried steak.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Alternative Racing!
Most people know about the Iditarod, The Iron Dog, The Daytona 500, The Indianapolis 500 and the Kentucky Derby. But, if you are looking for something a little out of the ordinary, you might want to try one of the following.
Every year the World Championship Tiller Racers are held in Emerson, Arkansas. There are various categories ranging from stock tiller to souped-up dirt slingers. There are brackets for women and children. The rules suggest that any female who is thinking about entering the dirt slinger category would be well advised to have a mental examination first. It might not be a bad idea for the gents either. The rules specify that the engine is limited to 100 horsepower, it must have tines, and you must have a kill switch attached to your arm. Engines are frequently modified to run on alcohol—not necessarily the store bought variety. Two other rules are worthy of note: you must wear shoes and you must be in control of the tiller when it crosses the finish line. The latter can be a bit touchy at times. Some participants have been dragged across the finish line with dirt flying in their faces. Others have swerved out of control and one or two have hit a fence. The two hundred-foot track may not seem very long to a spectator, but everyone who has ever used a Troy Bilt in high gear knows those things can really fly. Top speed in the event approaches 19 mph.
Outhouse races constitute another weird set of races. There are a number of these. The Outhouse Classic is held the last week in February every year in Trenary, Michigan. A properly outfitted privy with a door is mounted on a pair of skis and is pushed 500 feet to a finish line. One of the best entries was a 1999 entry known as the Vati-Can and was pushed by a group of “nuns” who of course had their own Ten Commandments. The most noteworthy was: Thou Shall Not Leave the Seat Up! For a miniscule fee you can even get your very own electronic Outhouse Calendar. Other races are staged in Gravel Switch, Kentucky (I sure hope they know what toilet paper is there), Conconully, Washington, and Mountain View, Arkansas. My own personal favorite, however, is the World Championship Outhouse Race held every October in Virginia City, Nevada. There the outhouses really look like the real McCoy. And when the racing is over, you can step inside the Bucket of Blood Saloon for a nice, double dip ice cream cone.
Every June the citizens of Fort Sumner, New Mexico, hold the Billy the Kid Tombstone Race at the football field of the high school. Male participants are given 80-pound replicas of the Kid’s headstone and must cover a course of twenty-five yards and clear two hurdles along the way. Females only have to lug a 20-pound facsimile. Advocates of the theory that the Kid did not really die at Fort Sumner and is actually buried in East Texas are automatically disqualified.
The largest chuckwagon races in the United States are held every year in Clinton, Arkansas. Last year 30,000 people watched as contestants competed in five categories. Chuckwagons may not look like what you see in old western, but they all have a driver, a cook and an outrider. Since it is hard to procure genuine wagon wheels, participants have put car tires on their chuckwagons. The Calgary Stampede also features chuckwagon races. But how did Clinton come to be the home of the national championships? Think Rooster Cogburn and the Hanging Judge. Think Dan Eoff, a self-described cowboy, who just wanted to have fun one day and suggested on a lark that they race chuckwagons.
Leave it to a university to try something different. Since 1957 Rice has staged its annual beer bike relay race. Participants race around a course, chug a cold one, and then the next member takes his or her turn. When Brown College was formed, the females were not to be outdone. So they started their own tea- trike races. Many coeds don’t even bother with the bikes and the trikes, they go directly to the beer and the featured event of the day—the water balloon fight.
Most people know about the Iditarod, The Iron Dog, The Daytona 500, The Indianapolis 500 and the Kentucky Derby. But, if you are looking for something a little out of the ordinary, you might want to try one of the following.
Every year the World Championship Tiller Racers are held in Emerson, Arkansas. There are various categories ranging from stock tiller to souped-up dirt slingers. There are brackets for women and children. The rules suggest that any female who is thinking about entering the dirt slinger category would be well advised to have a mental examination first. It might not be a bad idea for the gents either. The rules specify that the engine is limited to 100 horsepower, it must have tines, and you must have a kill switch attached to your arm. Engines are frequently modified to run on alcohol—not necessarily the store bought variety. Two other rules are worthy of note: you must wear shoes and you must be in control of the tiller when it crosses the finish line. The latter can be a bit touchy at times. Some participants have been dragged across the finish line with dirt flying in their faces. Others have swerved out of control and one or two have hit a fence. The two hundred-foot track may not seem very long to a spectator, but everyone who has ever used a Troy Bilt in high gear knows those things can really fly. Top speed in the event approaches 19 mph.
Outhouse races constitute another weird set of races. There are a number of these. The Outhouse Classic is held the last week in February every year in Trenary, Michigan. A properly outfitted privy with a door is mounted on a pair of skis and is pushed 500 feet to a finish line. One of the best entries was a 1999 entry known as the Vati-Can and was pushed by a group of “nuns” who of course had their own Ten Commandments. The most noteworthy was: Thou Shall Not Leave the Seat Up! For a miniscule fee you can even get your very own electronic Outhouse Calendar. Other races are staged in Gravel Switch, Kentucky (I sure hope they know what toilet paper is there), Conconully, Washington, and Mountain View, Arkansas. My own personal favorite, however, is the World Championship Outhouse Race held every October in Virginia City, Nevada. There the outhouses really look like the real McCoy. And when the racing is over, you can step inside the Bucket of Blood Saloon for a nice, double dip ice cream cone.
Every June the citizens of Fort Sumner, New Mexico, hold the Billy the Kid Tombstone Race at the football field of the high school. Male participants are given 80-pound replicas of the Kid’s headstone and must cover a course of twenty-five yards and clear two hurdles along the way. Females only have to lug a 20-pound facsimile. Advocates of the theory that the Kid did not really die at Fort Sumner and is actually buried in East Texas are automatically disqualified.
The largest chuckwagon races in the United States are held every year in Clinton, Arkansas. Last year 30,000 people watched as contestants competed in five categories. Chuckwagons may not look like what you see in old western, but they all have a driver, a cook and an outrider. Since it is hard to procure genuine wagon wheels, participants have put car tires on their chuckwagons. The Calgary Stampede also features chuckwagon races. But how did Clinton come to be the home of the national championships? Think Rooster Cogburn and the Hanging Judge. Think Dan Eoff, a self-described cowboy, who just wanted to have fun one day and suggested on a lark that they race chuckwagons.
Leave it to a university to try something different. Since 1957 Rice has staged its annual beer bike relay race. Participants race around a course, chug a cold one, and then the next member takes his or her turn. When Brown College was formed, the females were not to be outdone. So they started their own tea- trike races. Many coeds don’t even bother with the bikes and the trikes, they go directly to the beer and the featured event of the day—the water balloon fight.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Wheeling Down the Road!
We used to go to my Grandmother Vines house and have our own Indianapolis 500 and Daytona 500 rolled into one. It wasn’t 500 miles, but more like 50 feet. Also we did not have any racecars—just wheels. Not exactly wheels either—just tires. The two youngest, my brother and I, would curl up inside the tires and two of our older siblings or cousins would roll us down the straightaway. These were not the small compact tires that are so common today, but the larger sizes of the fifties. There was also an old tractor tire or two, but they were hard to manage. If you were inside one of those, it took two people to hold it up while you got situated—there was no getting comfortable, just situated. Our older siblings would rev the engines by rocking the tires back and forth a few times. If nothing else, this got you a little dizzy and your stomach a little queasy. Someone counted down and we were off. If one tire took a commanding lead, the other roller would give his tire a frantic push and let go. Sometimes there were just two tires freewheeling it down the stretch. Occasionally they would bump together and start wobbling from side to side. Then if you were not too dizzy you would jump out or at least try to jump out. You were wedged in pretty tight and generally had your feet and hands packed inside the inner groove where the inner tube would go. Once you crossed the finish line, the pusher stopped and you were on your own—heading toward a big patch of weeds. This was the final chance to jump. We did this for two or three years and then the tires just vanished.
When I was thirteen a rare opportunity presented itself. Magnolia was in the third or fourth year of its local SoapBox Derby competition and the sponsors of the event were desperately seeking participants—willing or not. Volunteers were being solicited throughout our junior high school. After listening to an impassioned plea in my English class, I signed on the dotted line. After all I figured if the Little Rascals could manufacture one of those glamour machines, so could I. Of course, they had more experience than I did. They had already built their own clubhouse. I knew which side of the hammer was up, but not much more than that. The important thing was not the race itself, but the car. The participants got to keep their racers. Everyone had a sponsor and the sponsor paid all the expenses, including the official set of wheels. No matter what I must endure, I was going to walk away with my own soap box racer. The owner of a local shoe store was my sponsor and he gave me a pair of Hush Puppies—my first and only “shoe contract.” I also did my first radio interview. With $15 in hand, I set to work. I blew half of my allotted funds on a piece of plywood for the floorboard. That proved to be a disaster. When I got everything else finished, I was down to a little over $2 and I had not yet covered my racer. I was reduced to finishing it with a shiny blue piece of oilcloth. No matter how much I stretched it, I could not get it taut enough. It became a wind trap. I had no chance—not that I ever thought that I would have one.
When race day came, I was in two heats. The first time I was just too slow. In my second heat I was matched against Gene Gardiner. His model looked as if he had plunked a large apple box on a piece of plywood. It was ugly and blocky. From the looks of things, it appeared that he had exhausted his car budget just like me. If there were one car in the entire field that I could beat, this was it. I was glancing in his direction with a bit of a grin on my face, when they suddenly dropped the release mechanism. We were off. I was caught offguard. As I jerked my head back to the right, I also jerked the car to the right as well. My little racecar veered sharply to the right and almost took out a whole row of parents. Alas, I could not overcome my bad start and was thus officially eliminated. Gene was babbling. “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it! I actually beat someone!” But I was not the least bit unhappy because I was going home with a great consolation prize—my own racer.
I managed to keep it in street condition for another 2 years. There was no such thing as duct tape back then or if there were I did not know about it. We patched the oilcloth with bits of electrical tape until the whole body cover looked like a giant band-aid. Everyone in the neighborhood got his shot at being back of the wheel. We lived in a somewhat rural area on a road with little traffic. We pushed the racer to the closest hill and after taking a close look for cars, we zoomed down the hill. Sometimes the oilcloth would rip and fly up almost in our faces. It was just a minor nuisance. Always after an even bigger trill, we went in search of a bigger hill. The problem was that once you went down, you had to push it back up again. The first time or two everyone chased it down hill. After that they wised up. If you rode it down then you got to push it back up all by yourself. A kind gentleman eventually came to our rescue. He attached a chain to the racer and used his truck to pull us back up the hill time and time again. After three years of use the oilcloth disintegrated, the brake pad fell off, and the supports were rather floppy. The car was laid to rest. I was now ready for a bigger challenge—girls.
There are two official SoapBox Races in Alaska. One is in Kodiak and the other is in Unalaska. Today there are three categories and three winners each year. Girls present a quicker challenge today as well—they can now compete in the derby itself.
We used to go to my Grandmother Vines house and have our own Indianapolis 500 and Daytona 500 rolled into one. It wasn’t 500 miles, but more like 50 feet. Also we did not have any racecars—just wheels. Not exactly wheels either—just tires. The two youngest, my brother and I, would curl up inside the tires and two of our older siblings or cousins would roll us down the straightaway. These were not the small compact tires that are so common today, but the larger sizes of the fifties. There was also an old tractor tire or two, but they were hard to manage. If you were inside one of those, it took two people to hold it up while you got situated—there was no getting comfortable, just situated. Our older siblings would rev the engines by rocking the tires back and forth a few times. If nothing else, this got you a little dizzy and your stomach a little queasy. Someone counted down and we were off. If one tire took a commanding lead, the other roller would give his tire a frantic push and let go. Sometimes there were just two tires freewheeling it down the stretch. Occasionally they would bump together and start wobbling from side to side. Then if you were not too dizzy you would jump out or at least try to jump out. You were wedged in pretty tight and generally had your feet and hands packed inside the inner groove where the inner tube would go. Once you crossed the finish line, the pusher stopped and you were on your own—heading toward a big patch of weeds. This was the final chance to jump. We did this for two or three years and then the tires just vanished.
When I was thirteen a rare opportunity presented itself. Magnolia was in the third or fourth year of its local SoapBox Derby competition and the sponsors of the event were desperately seeking participants—willing or not. Volunteers were being solicited throughout our junior high school. After listening to an impassioned plea in my English class, I signed on the dotted line. After all I figured if the Little Rascals could manufacture one of those glamour machines, so could I. Of course, they had more experience than I did. They had already built their own clubhouse. I knew which side of the hammer was up, but not much more than that. The important thing was not the race itself, but the car. The participants got to keep their racers. Everyone had a sponsor and the sponsor paid all the expenses, including the official set of wheels. No matter what I must endure, I was going to walk away with my own soap box racer. The owner of a local shoe store was my sponsor and he gave me a pair of Hush Puppies—my first and only “shoe contract.” I also did my first radio interview. With $15 in hand, I set to work. I blew half of my allotted funds on a piece of plywood for the floorboard. That proved to be a disaster. When I got everything else finished, I was down to a little over $2 and I had not yet covered my racer. I was reduced to finishing it with a shiny blue piece of oilcloth. No matter how much I stretched it, I could not get it taut enough. It became a wind trap. I had no chance—not that I ever thought that I would have one.
When race day came, I was in two heats. The first time I was just too slow. In my second heat I was matched against Gene Gardiner. His model looked as if he had plunked a large apple box on a piece of plywood. It was ugly and blocky. From the looks of things, it appeared that he had exhausted his car budget just like me. If there were one car in the entire field that I could beat, this was it. I was glancing in his direction with a bit of a grin on my face, when they suddenly dropped the release mechanism. We were off. I was caught offguard. As I jerked my head back to the right, I also jerked the car to the right as well. My little racecar veered sharply to the right and almost took out a whole row of parents. Alas, I could not overcome my bad start and was thus officially eliminated. Gene was babbling. “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it! I actually beat someone!” But I was not the least bit unhappy because I was going home with a great consolation prize—my own racer.
I managed to keep it in street condition for another 2 years. There was no such thing as duct tape back then or if there were I did not know about it. We patched the oilcloth with bits of electrical tape until the whole body cover looked like a giant band-aid. Everyone in the neighborhood got his shot at being back of the wheel. We lived in a somewhat rural area on a road with little traffic. We pushed the racer to the closest hill and after taking a close look for cars, we zoomed down the hill. Sometimes the oilcloth would rip and fly up almost in our faces. It was just a minor nuisance. Always after an even bigger trill, we went in search of a bigger hill. The problem was that once you went down, you had to push it back up again. The first time or two everyone chased it down hill. After that they wised up. If you rode it down then you got to push it back up all by yourself. A kind gentleman eventually came to our rescue. He attached a chain to the racer and used his truck to pull us back up the hill time and time again. After three years of use the oilcloth disintegrated, the brake pad fell off, and the supports were rather floppy. The car was laid to rest. I was now ready for a bigger challenge—girls.
There are two official SoapBox Races in Alaska. One is in Kodiak and the other is in Unalaska. Today there are three categories and three winners each year. Girls present a quicker challenge today as well—they can now compete in the derby itself.
