Echoes.

Those of you that know me know that I grew up in a DOWN HOME kind of place.
The kind of place where everyone knows you and your family… where instead of getting a ticket for speeding they just call your DAD, where good ole boys run wild and women in tanks go to Walmart in their pajamas.
Granted, it’s gotten bigger, but the ability to drive down the road and talk to a man about working on his tractor isn’t something you lose overnight.

So when Dad suggested we go to the drag races this weekend, I was all for it.
You see, I love cars.
LOVE cars.
I love the sound of them, love engines, love the gorgeous chassis that comes on a well made automobile, love the manly man sound that comes with a racing machine.
But.
I’ve never been to a drag race.
Nascar, yes.
Super trucks, yes.
Dirt tracks, yes.
Demolition derby, yes.
But never to a drag race.

So the family loaded up the truck and went to rediscover our roots.
It was fantastic.
There were normal people – people with nice clothes and all of their teeth. There were the kind of rednecks that even Jeff Foxworthy couldn’t dream up, and there were your every day average rednecks.

I loved it.
I loved the sound of the cars, I loved watching them scream past, I loved walking behind and meeting the drivers and inspecting the engines and just having the testosterone OOZE around me.

So even though I’m at work today – with no air conditioning and a sunburn, I enjoyed my weekend quite a lot.

I’ll entertain you with a few pictures that I managed to grab on my iPhone:

This lawyer couldn’t have been more well placed.  In the midst of drag racing hooliganism, his advertisements stood out like a beacon for those who had made mistakes and needed help to be able to be free and live to tell about it.

He was quite amused when I asked to take his picture and insisted that I take a brochure ‘just in case.’

This guy was the drunkest man I’ve ever seen walking in my life.  Dad said he managed to drink until the place closed down – and you can tell by his coloring he’d been there a while already.
He wore no underwear – and how the crowd discovered that I will leave to your imagination… every time his pants slipped even a bit, the strobe-like whiteness of his hip or other area would shine out and blind everyone within a twenty foot radius.

Just one of the cars racing that day – everyone was having a blast.

Including that lady… whose outfit STILL confuses and astounds me.
Check out the shoes!  Check out the shoes!
Yikes!

Look at them go!
Dude with the orange hat had such a big head that he managed to get into most of my shots.
I felt like kicking him in the face.

Brayden did too.
Or at least, I say he did.
He was so excited about being there that he stood up on someone’s lap the first hour… then started noticeably drooping.

Ah, the progression of droopiness in today’s youth.

And finally – the only crash that spectators got to witness in person…

All in all, a fun family outing!

Almost makes the fact that I’m stuck on the 17th floor of my building with no air conditioning manageable.
Almost.