As I came back in, the guys were starting to stir. They eventually got up, got cleaned up and we headed out around 10 to pick up some breakfast and meet Caitlin and some of her friends from yesterday at her house. We scooped up some food from Panera (ask Nick how good his sandwich was) and drove to Caitlin's. When we got there, Caitlin wasn't ready, so we chilled for a bit. When she was finally ready, she came downstairs wearing the t-shirt you see in the picture. Craziness! These two were definitely cut from the same mold.
We were scheduled to take a tour of the Lowe's motor speedway around 11, but since it was raining, it got pushed back to 1:30p. In the meantime, we went out to eat at a local but popular diner. I wasn't that hungry since we had just eaten a couple hours ago, but I had a little bit of something. You don't think I'd let something like being full stop me from eating, did you? Wow...that sounds really bad...
After eating, we came back to Caitlin's house and watched some Jeopardy episodes they had on DVR. It's amazing how love for Jeopardy is universal!
The Lowe's motor speedway is one of the most popular NASCAR speedways in the country. With stadium seating combined with the people that camp out on the in-field, the stadium holds over 160,000 people! The race scenes from Taladega Nights and Days of Thunder were both filmed there, as well as numerous NASCAR commercials and television spots. I never realized just how huge NASCAR was, not only as a sport but also the tracks where they race; I was definitely impressed. When we arrived at the speedway, we went inside to meet our tour guide. As we milled around the building lobby, a man called out to Nick, "Hey Nick! You're Nick, right?" None of us knew this guy, so we were all a bit confused. But it was all pretty simple: The guy knew Nick's name because of Caitlin's t-shirt! We all laughed about that.
Our tour guide loaded us up in a van and took us inside the speedway. We could tell she loved her job, as she was very excited to tell us all the facts about the speedway. The coolest part of the whole tour in my opinion was when she drove us around the speedway track. At it's highest point, the track is banked at 24 degrees! She actually stopped the van on the bank, and I was just waiting for our van to roll over! Thankfully, it didn't. She said that the race cars fly around the track at over 170 mph, and when they're going that fast, they don't even feel the elevation in the bank. I wish we could have done that in the vans, but she only got up to 70 mph.
After the tour was done, Caitlin revealed the next part of our agenda, which she had kept secret from us: We were going to go Geo-cacheing. If you've never heard of it, basically you are given the GPS coordinates of a "treasure box" hidden somewhere in the woods, and you're to use a GPS to find the treasure cache, which will have clues to another cache. Inside the cache are things that other people who have found it before you have left, and you're supposed to leave something in it as well.
We spent a few minutes figuring out how the GPSs worked, and then we hit the road! We were able to find the first one without many problems, but the other two that we tried to find wern't there! We looked and searched and dug but found nothing. It was a bit frustrating, especially since it was raining the entire time, but we made the best of it. We figured other people must have moved them or taken them away completely. Ah well...We came back to Caitlin's and dried off, watching more Jeopardy and old episodes of The Office. Our dinner plans changed a bit, so myself, Minh, Ben, Paula and Corie went to Panera to catch some dinner, while Nick and Caitlin went to see a friend of hers. They joined us a bit later and we all went out to Coyote Joe's, which is a country/western club. This was absolutely a new experience for me, and I was looking forward to doing a little line dancing.
Coyote Joe's was a trip! Imagine a huge warehouse of a place with a two levels, pool tables, a couple bars, tables, a mechanical bull, a huge dance floor and a live band! People were line dancing and square dancing all over the place, and there were plenty of guys and girls in cowboy hats and boots. Our group got on the dance floor and tried to keep up with the line dancers, but those dances were hard! I thought most line dances would be fairly simple, and a few of the dances I managed to pick up, but all in all, I was lost trying to keep up with those guys.
Now, I know you're asking yourself, "Did you ride the mechanical bull, Russ?" Do you really need to ask that question? What you should be asking yourself is, "How long did you stay on the bull, Russ?" I'm not sure...I saw the video of me on the bull (yes, there is a video floating around somewhere of me on the bull) and I don't think it was that long...maybe about 20 seconds, if that. It was fun though! Both Nick and Minh rode the bull as well...great times!The rest of the night was spent on the dance floor. I gave up trying to line dance and just did my own thing for the rest of the night. It was great fun and Minh and I made it back home sometime around 1a. Nick got in about an hour later. Another good day in the books.
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