Most of my European friends joke that watching a NASCAR race is boring because they just go around in circles. The race today was a real snoozer! If Jimmy Johnson and Chad Knaus are in the race you might as well go home. He drives out in front of everybody and the rest have no idea what to do to stop him. At one point I thought he was going to put his window flap down and have a smoke as he drove by. It was so boring we left with 50 laps to go. The three best things I saw at the race are posted above.

So back to Route 66 and Kingman Arizona for one last comment. I had always hoped that this blog would stimulate some comments and input from readers. My Aunt Gay (she's not really my Aunt she's my cousin but I've always been Little Johnny and she's always been my aunt ... family anomaly) responded to the post about Kingman with the following sweet story. We do indeed live in different times. Here's Gays early memory of Kingman ...

When Gramma Smith, my mom Hazel, Joyce, Rosemary and I set out from Michigan on VJ day, August 1945, we took the famed Route 66 ALL the way to your parents house in Duarte, CA. We checked into a motel in Kingman, AZ on the last night of our journey, had a bite to eat and readied for bed -- my mom Hazel could hear all the traffic going by and stepped out to the Motel restaurant and chatted with some of the truckers who told her everybody traveled the desert at night. She returned to the room with "Everybody UP" and piled us all in our 1942 Chevy -- we picked up a soldier hitchhiking just out of town (from Luke AF Base) after Hazel gave him the 3rd degree as to his wakefulness and driving ability and set him in the driver's seat with Joyce and I up front with him, instructing us to be sure he didn't fall asleep at the wheel. We sang songs all night long and arrived at your parent's home in Duarte the next morning. Your blog brought all that back to me vividly!!

For those of you too young to know or who failed our already failing education system ... VJ Day was the day the Japanese surrendered in WWII. Imagine the joy and relief that swept the country. The reason these 5 women we're traveling across the country alone was because all of the men folk were in the military overseas or working in the defense industry. Can you imagine 5 hot chicks today (and believe me, other than Grandma Bessie, these were some extremely beautiful women) picking up a hitchhiker on the edge of the Mojave desert in the middle of the night and asking him to drive!!! The world has indeed declined ... thanks Gay ... what a delightful story.