On Saturday April 14, kc, John Michael and I drove to Long Beach to see the “Grand Prix” racing. We watched the IMSA Prototype and GT race and saw the last IndyCar practice.
Prior to watching the race action, we were able to visit the paddock and were walking about, watching the race engineers prepare the cars for the practice session. While looking into the Carlin team garage, one of their drivers, Max Chilton was sitting on a table with his super gorgeous girlfriend or wife. She was making goo-goo eyes at John Michael and poking Max, telling him to get John Michael over there! He did and we got this photo. Unfortunately, I was not able to take a few thousand photos of her!
kc introduced John Michael to the YMCA skatepark last summer. He uses a scooter there (by far the most popular vehicle). There are some kids there on skateboards, BMX bikes and even a few roller skaters. He did a camp last summer and we took him a few times.
We returned last month and he just became obsessed with this. Wants to go everyday and he and I usually go after school for an hour or two.
Something clicked with him last week and he suddenly became determined to do things he recently said he thought he’d never do. It’s very fun to see this self-confidence blossom in him. He’s one of the younger kids there and has earned some respect from older kids and young adults who have begun to offer him tips to improve.
Here are some things I promise you I will never choose to attempt.
Update:
Here’s a GoPro video of one circuit of the big ramp section of skatercross (and some advice from Alex).
One of John Michael’s Christmas presents (early) is to enjoy indoor karting (at a business called K1 Speed). We did this because he so enjoyed the driving experience at Toyota MegaWeb (still to come) and now thinks about performance cars for about 95% of his waking and dreaming hours.
It was the whole reason we were able to visit Singapore and Tokyo, but it was really a joy for John Michael, Mary Pat and I to see kc’s hard work rewarded. It was the highlight of a phenomenally fun trip.
One of the places we visited on our summer vacation was Devil’s Postpile National Monument. This was really a special beautiful place. It is marked by this formation of columnar basalt, but it is a beautiful place in the mountains as you can see here.
We arrived at Mammoth Lakes on Sunday and made plans to visit Yosemite on Tuesday. The concierge thought it would be a good time to visit since it was midweek and public schools are back in session.
It was a beautiful drive to the park, but once we got down in Yosemite valley there was quite a bit of smoke, so much that I only took one photo down there, with my iPhone, of the falls.
kc and John Michael were going to go off on a bike ride that the rangers assured them was well mapped and fun. That’s when I discovered my kneel-scooter had a flat tire. Oh, did I mention it was hot and humid? So, as the crowds began to grow to Disney-like proportions, I insisted kc and John Michael take-off and I pushed to scooter to a bike rental location, certain they would have a mechanic and supplies – nope. There were two college kids who never worked on a bike, but who would sell me a patch kit and let me use tools in a cardboard box. Long story, shortened, I fixed the tire and injured my foot, perhaps in a new way.
I tried to intercept kc and John Michael what was supposed to be the return path, but after a few hours gave up and went back to the truck. They got back an hour later and said they had gotten lost, the signage was non-existent and ended up having ridden about 15 miles.
We tried to see a few more things in the valley until we were so irritated with it all that we headed-out. The eastern and high regions of the park were much less crowded, cooler and less smoky and we stopped along the way to relax and have a bit of fun.
