SUNDAYSUNDAYSUNDAY!

This year, CPURL and I decided to do some stuff that we have never done before. SO, it's a quiet and gray Sunday afternoon... what are two forty-something women to do to keep out of trouble? That's right- go to a monster truck rally. What else?

The location: Arco Arena, Sacramento, CA.

The seats were packed! The crowd grew restless with excitement...

Leftcoast and CPURL could hardly contain themselves!

The anticipation grew, and finally the lights dimmed... and then, finally, a single spotlight glowed... the announcer gave an exceptionally lengthy and heartfelt introduction to the National Anthem.

At last, the engines roared to life! Only for long enough to give us just a taste of what was to come... That is Gravedigger at the far left- the star of the show. The dinosaur truck is Jurassic (driven by a woman!), the red truck is Terminator, and the camo truck is Airforce Ranger, which is driven by a man who is a parapalegic, and controlled completely with hand controls. Cool!
We were wowed by skilled and daring ATV racing (California vs Nevada, CA won, of course)


And then came the real show! Monster trucks racing side by side, over a jump and to the other side of the arena- exciting! Airforce Ranger won this round!


Then it was time to get ready for the wheelie contest.


3000 horsepower makes a lot of noise!


This was a sissy wheelie- the best wheelie, in case you did not know, is one where the back bumper touches the ground but the truck does not go over backwards. This requires the truck to be perpendicular to the ground. Gravedigger won this one, with a perfectly vertical wheelie!


Intermission... my bottle of water accidentally got knocked over the ledge and under the seat of the man in front of me... bye bye water! Oh well.

Of course we had snacks too...

At last, the grand finale of the Monster Jam- the freestyle show. Trucks get 3 minutes to do whatever they want, and they get a score. Usually this means that they try to do donuts and almost tip over but dont, and then they drive over the old-car jumps at one end of the arena and do some more wheelies. Gravedigger always wins, but we still rooted for Airforce Ranger!

This is not Gravedigger, it is another truck that crashed into the end of the arena (oops).

Not a problem, though- if your truck turns over they just turn it back with this bulldozer!

Feel the power...

And now for the Champeen of the Monster Jam, GRAVEDIGGER! Woohoo!
The Review

Was this what you expected it to be?

We'll, actually no- I expected that all of the trucks would drive around at once and try not to crash into each other, doing cool tricks at the same time. This did not happen. In reality, the trucks don't do a lot, and what they do do is very limited by the small space- although the arena is big, it is not quite big enough for a Monster Truck race!

What was your fave part?

The freestyle portion, and any pert where they drove over the old cars at the end of the arena.

Who was in the audience?

Besides myself and CPURL, mostly families with very cute small children. In many ways the show was geared to kids.

How were the souvenier stands?

They did not have as many t-shirts as I thought, and many things were quite expensive! They did brisk business, however!

If you were a monster truck, what would your name be?

Hell on Heels, and my truck would look like a giant high heeled shoe.

Hotdog rating: 6.5.

All hotdogs are rated against a Costco hotdog, which has a rating of 10. I have not had a Costco hotdog, so I had to take CPURL's word for it.

Monday Back to work shot...

Skeining Party!

Last night, my knitting peeps and I got together to help out Janelle of Snicklefritz Yarns wind skeins for dyeing. We wound 30 skeins in all, and we got to have a sneak peek of what she will be bringing to Stitches West (booth 637)!

KnitPsycho & J working as a team

The Master (Snicklefritz) at work

Blogless Friend B and our assistant Jack

Jack, supervising the winding

The un-dyed stuff (No, we did not give Jack a haircut and spin it up)

Samples!

Dishcloth Mania

Recently I was gifted with some absolutely lovely handknit organic cotton dishcloths. They were far too pretty to use, but at the insistence of their creator, I gave them a whirl anyway... they are so fantastic that I had to knit one or two myself. Full on dishcloth mania has ensued.

Dishcloths are a great project- they are small, easy (usually!), inexpensive, quick, fun to use, and they always fit. I have used up all of my cotton yarn- time to hit Michaels!

On another note (not to do with dishes), it was lovely here in the Bay Area all last week, and, for the first time ever, a Hellebore that I planted three years ago is about to bloom!

Woohoo!