Pom Tryouts

Beth has now been going to her Pom & Cheer (Cheerleading) classes for a semeter, & it was now time for her tryouts & the parents evening.

Beth had to show her teacher (Miss Julie) that she could do all the pom & cheer moves that she had learnt over the course of the classes. Beth sucessfully did this - well done Beth! - & as a reward she was given the next colour pom (the colours indicate how advanced you are). We then watched the cheers, stunts, & moves that the class had learnt, before the awards ceremony.

Tying The Knot

One of the reasons that we came back to the UK when we did was to go to our friends Scott & Pascale's wedding. Unfortunately, I think the torrential rain we had sometimes seen in the US followed us to the wedding, except it had a traditional UK twist - it didn't stop all day!

Beth managed to pop in on one of her friends birthday party before the wedding. This was in a village that is only accessible by narrow country lanes. Not only did we get absolutely drenched just getting back in the car, but I was beginning to doubt that we would get to the wedding as the small lanes had about a foot of floodwater that wasn't draining away.

We made it to the wedding just in time, but the rain just kept on coming down. The service was really nice & Scott & Pascale looked really happy. Thanks to the weather, the photos were all taken in the church, but I think this made it more unique. We then drove over to a nearby village hall for a traditional wedding reception. Beth even got a present from Scott & Pascale, which was a really nice gesture.

Home From Home

Beth met up with her friends for a party at a local indoor play centre. En route to the party we stopped off at a local restaurant called the Downtown Diner. Ironically enough, this is an American Diner so we had just traveled 5500+ miles from the the US to eat in a US themed diner - mad!

Where We Went

Here's a few photos of some of the places we visited whilst we were back in the UK. These included: Maidstone (County Town of Kent), Canterbury (which is probably most famous for the Cathedral), & Dover.

Flying Visit (2)

We spent most of our time in the UK driving, visiting family & friends, sleeping, driving, visiting family & friends, & occaisionally eating. We were really limited in the time that we had to visit & so unfortunately couldn't see everyone this time.

Just Like I'd Never Left

Whilst I was back in the UK I thought that I would pop into the office to see if there had been many changes in the 9 months that I had been away. It was much as I remebered it but there were quite a few new faces (I guess they couldn't replace me with just one person - he he!). It was good to catch up with my old pals & have a quick chat, but as usual with so many people to see in a short time I could only stop in for a few minutes. Hopefully next time we are back in the UK our schedule will be slightly less hectic & I can spend a bit more time at the office catching up.

Back Home

It was good to be back in England, even if it was only for a short while. Mum & Dad kindly agreed to put us up for the week (thanks) which meant that we didn't have to worry about booking a hotel, & (when we weren't eating our favourite take-aways, mmmm, fish & chips) we were treated to home-cooking. They also kindly leant us their car whenever we needed it.

Flying Visit

My best friend, Scott was getting married. I had just about accrued enough vacation hours to make a quick trip back 'home' to visit friends & family & make it to the wedding, before having to dash back so Beth could be at school in time for her first day in First Grade.

The weather was good for our flight back to the UK & we were even joined by a Preying Mantis at the airport looking in on us as we ate our lunch before our 16 (ish) hour journey. Our connecting flight was at Newark, & Cheryl & Beth both got a really good view of The Statue of Liberty & Manhatten Skyline as we flew in. Although (as usual) I didn't get any sleep on the plane, the Trans-Atlantic section of our journey passed reasonably quickly. Cheryl's sister, Clare, & her friend Tracy, picked us all up at the airport which was really nice of them as it meant that we didn't have to drive back from the airport - Thanks.

NASCAR

JAG (the works social organization) had been busy organizing more events, the latest of which was a trip to the NASCAR race at Gateway International Speedway in Illinois. This is literally just over the river from St Louis & you can easily see the city & arch from the racetrack. This is a fairly new facility, with 2006 being the 'Turning 10' celebration.

The track has a 1.25-mile 'oval' and a dragstrip. It currently seats 60,000 but can be expanded to 120,000. The main events are the NASCAR (Busch & Craftsman Truck Series) and NHRA drag racing.

We arrived at the track at about 6:00pm (racing started at 7:15) having picked Steve up from downtown St Louis on the way. There was lots of traffic but JAG had got parking passes for the track side car park so we were close to our seats. It did take us about an hour to find a parking space, but this wasn't such a bad thing as about 45 minutes before the race was due to start a strong thunderstorm passed overhead. We were lucky beacuse we were still in the car, but the thousands of people that had been tailgating all day were getting pretty wet.

The rain, lightning, thunder, lightning, rain, thunder, (you get the idea) stopped about 10 minutes before the race was due to start. As we neared the track, all you could here was the sound of jet engines which were the track dryers.

The race eventually started almost two hours late. Brad (who organised the event) had got really good seats that were right by the start/finish line & the pits. The cars didn't seem that loud when they started & even when following the safety car (a new Dodge Charger), but as soon as this pulled in they suddenly got real loud as they all floored it.

The cars were doing close to 200 mph, which made for quick laps but just a blur as they passed us. The best place to see the cars was on the video screen in the pits & on the back straight of the track. The race lasted for 200 laps & although the storm had cleared the humidity, by 11:00pm it was pretty chilly. Probably the best part of the race was when there was an accident or mechanical failure. One car slid into the outer wall & another driver blew up his engine, but other than that it was pretty quiet.

For those that wanted to stay on & party there were fireworks & a free concert by Travis Tritt (a country singer). We chose to brave the traffic but last in meant first out - we were back on the interstate within about 10 minutes of getting to the car.

Peach Picking

There is a real variety of fruit grown here in the US, with pretty much anything available due to the wide ranging climate. We had heard about Eckerts Farm & that they did 'pick-your-own'. Eckert’s Farms have been family-owned & operated since 1837 by seven generations of Eckerts, & they are the largest pick-your-own orchard operation in the United States. They started as a simple roadside stand in 1910 & now have farms in Belleville, Grafton, & Millstadt, all in Illinois. We went to the Belleville farm which is about half an hour from our house.

When you choose to do the pick-your-own, you are given a cardboard, open-topped, box with the type of fruit printed on it (in our case it was Eckerts Peaches). Then you climb on board an open-backed trailer pulled by a tractor that takes you through the orchard to where the fruit is. This was pretty cool as it made a change to be travelling in the open air, & because it was a fairly slow ride you were able to take in the surroundings & get a feel for the size of the orchard.

We were dropped off at a field with rows & rows of peach trees in & were able to pick as many peaches as we wanted or could carry! As the peaches were tree-ripened, they were really soft & juicy & literally just fell off the tree when you touched them.

After another tractor ride back to the farm buildings we weighed & paid for the peaches (Cheryl also bought a book filled with peach recipies) & then finished the day with a frozen custard from the Eckert’s Country Store.

Hot Rods Out & About

There seems to be a reasonable amount of hot rodding activity close to where we live. During the summer months it is quite common to see old muscle cars on the way to & from work & hot rods at the weekends. I followed a 'Fad-T' home one evening & a Hemi powered '32 Ford crossed in front of me at a local intersection. I've also seen a 30's Ford Coupe regularly drive into Beth's school, & Beth spotted this '34 Ford at Gravois Bluffs - cool.

Heat Wave & Severe Weather

It almost felt like I wasn't going to make it back from my first 'long-distance' site visit. Whilst staying overnight, the local weather channel showed that very severe storms were heading towards Indiana (pretty much where we were). Anyway, the next day turned out to be really hot & sunny & I just assumed that the bad weather had passed without incident.

As we were travelling back to St Louis on Wednesday 19th July, Cheryl phoned me to say that a really severe storm was moving through Illinois & to make sure that I stayed safe. About an hour later Cheryl phoned again to say that the weather was now heading her way & that she was going down to the basement with Beth. When most of my other co-workers in the minibus started getting phone calls about the weather, it become obvious that this was something really serious.

Other than the minibus being buffeted by strong winds, we were OK. There was even a realy nice sunset to look at as we travelled along the interstate. St Louis wasn't so lucky though. There was widespread damage downtown with trees blown over, traffic lights down, & even a partial building collapse. Cheryl called to say that the tornado sirens were sounding & that the local weather channel indicated that there were strong winds & tornadoes in the vicinity of where we live.

Luckily the storm passed us without any real damage & thanks to our underground power cables, we were lucky enough to keep our power (phew). A lot of other people weren't so lucky with more than 500,000 residents not having power (for up to 10 days after the storm!). This was the worst power outage in St Louis history & with daytime temperatures around 115f this caused real problems as no power = no air conditioning.

A lot of the damage in the metro area was caused by straight-line winds or downbursts that were in the vicinity of 80mph. Areas of damage across Illinois suggested that wind speeds could have approached 90 mph. Two tornado tracks were uncovered across Southwest Illinois near the towns of Bunker Hill and Edwardsville.

A State of Emergency was declared for the St Louis Area, & Governor Matt Blunt called in the National Guard to help with heat evacuations and clean-up efforts from the severe thunderstorms. The temperature rose near 100 degrees once again on Thursday with heat index values as high as 115f.

To make matters worse, more severe thunderstorms formed across Central Missouri during the morning of July 21st. This cluster of thunderstorms formed into a bow echo as they pushed across the St Louis Metro Area producing another swath of wind damage from Central Missouri to Central Illinois. To the north of the apex of the bow a strong circulation produced several tornadoes. This led to many additional power outages & complicated the clean up efforts from the earlier storm damage. Some people who had just gotten their power back from the previous storm suddenly found themselves in the dark once again. (BTW the photos of downtown are courtesy of KMOV-4 & The St Louis Post Dispatch).

Works Roadtrip

A project that I am working on at work meant that I needed to travel to Greencastle & Peru, both in Indianna (which is the next state along from Illinois). Up until now, I had only travelled about an hour from St Louis, but this journey was over 5 hours. Luckily, I wasn't driving, & because there were a few of us on the trip it meant that we had a big minibus with plenty of space to spread out in & stay reasonably comfortable. Due to the distance, this was a two-day trip which meant that I spent my first night away from home in the USA - but more on that later.