Last Day in TN!

Last day at the Clarksville Fair at the Speedway started off as though it may not start at all. The weather, like almost everyday this week, was wet. I was awakened by a powerful shaking of my motorhome and a frightening sound. I thought I was in a small tornado at first. The sound was like that of everything banging and whooshing, and screaming at the same time. The night before was a late night since it was a Friday night at the fair. But it was made later when the track opened up for public drag racing at Mind-night. (I think that is a very clever idea...it gives the hot shot kid a place to race his buddies, or foes, in a controlled atmosphere.) But it kept me up very very late. I think the motorcycles were the loudest. (I didn't see any Prius'...but I would've laughed my butt off watching is buzz down the track as a mean sounding Ford blew it's doors off.)

(On another tangent Friday was truck pull night. Stock truck pull night. Anyone could enter. The idea is to pull a very heavy sleigh ( a weighted semi truck flat bed that lowers onto the ground so it is dragged.) with your truck. The audience is basically waiting for one of the trucks to blow out an engine or transmission. Really, that is when you get the good applause. The speedway boss told me one man actually called in and asked how much the sleigh weighed because he didn't want to exceed his GVW for towing. The boss said, "If you are worried about that you shouldn't enter." The idea is to go balls out and pull the sleigh as far as you can until your wheels are spinning and you aren't moving or you blow out something. )

Back to the Saturday. (Most fairs in Ky and TN end on a Saturday respecting Sunday. ) That crazy morning storm would last until 2:30PM. Vendors and management were disappointed for the late start...it meant less money to be made.

We did our first show at 4:30 and our last at 9:30. Every audience was fabulous. We didn't have a bad one all day and, in spite of the late start, we go all the shows we promised and exceeded expectations.

On a side note, again, on the 8th I ordered several pennant style banners for the top of the BMT and the banner line. It was the 18th and they finally came. But it took a phone call on Thursday to get them to get their butts in gear to mail them. They are yellow and red and look pretty good.

Back to the main thread here: the journalists who came to take photos of us and document our family and show story stopped by the fair to say goodbye as they head back to New Orleans and then on to other stories an projects. We really had fun with them. They were very professional and very personable at the same time.

At the end of the night the little ones were taken back to the hotel at midnight and the big kids spent until 1:30Am packing in the show. Midori was impressed at how fast the carnival packed up and was out of there. Most of it was down by the time we were packed up.

Finally in bed at 2AM I slept but only until 5am when another storm swept in. The one from the night before had yanked a wood stake from the ground and broke a metal one that held part of the banner line. (The banners were fine). It had also bent part of one of our cabana tents that housed the costumes and animals. But this early Saturday morning storm only made a lot of noise and sprinkled a bit.

Below are some random pix from the last day as well as pictures from Dunbar Caves from the day before. (The spider is a cave spider we found that was already dead.