The weekend at a glance

The wife and I took off early on Friday and hooked up to the camper and headed to a campground at the state park about 30 minutes from here for a little "unwind time". No phone. No pool. No pets. (Actually we did take one of the dogs with us but he's no trouble). My wife's cousin and her husband were to meet us there with their camper. We always enjoy their company and camping with them is a lot of fun.
We had planned to go set up the camper, then run back home and get the boat and take it down. The state park has a big lake and we've never been boating on this particular lake and thought it would be fun.
Everything went great up to the part about riding the boat around. It wouldn't start. The battery was dead. I charged it all night and tried again Saturday morning. No dice. It appeared to be a bad battery so I go have it tested and it was. Time to buy a new one. I get the new one hooked up. Still nothing. We start troubleshooting it and decided to pull the starter off and go have it tested. It was fine but the solenoid switch was bad. Simple enough to remedy. Replace the switch. So $8 and 20 minutes later, we're ready to try it again with a new solenoid switch. And a new battery. And it still doesn't work. We scratched our heads and drank a beer or 2 while ruling out probable causes. I decided to give up on it. I'd just get it fixed later. I'm thinking (and hoping and praying) that maybe the water spraying under the dash has ruined the ignition switch or maybe just corroded a terminal on it or something. Something small and inexpensive and so simple it will make me feel stupid for not seeing it myself.

But we still had a good time. We went to the lawn mower races last night. I've seen these races at a different track and they were OK. But the races we went to last night were a lot better. And it was free! The little oval track sits about 100 yards off in a pasture beside a little country road. A pole on each end with lights and 3 white barrels marking the inside of each curve. That's it. All of the racers were parked on the other side of the track "in the pits" and the spectators were parked between the track and the road. I just backed the truck in and we sat on the tailgate to watch.
I did take a few pictures but the conditions for decent results were far from optimal. One thing was the low light. But those bastards were fast! I was amazed at just how fast a lawn mower will go. Some of the "regulars" were saying that some of the "open modifieds" were running 60+MPH. On a lawn mower, people! The slow shutter speeds combined with the fast moving subject matter made for some really blurry pics. But I did manage to get a couple that may be able to give you an idea of the action. (And now Blogger is being a pain and won't even let me post them. Imagine that.) I suppose they confiscate the really crappy ones? I'll try to get them up again a little later.

That's the extent of my weekend. And I enjoyed it immensely. I hope you all enjoyed yours as well.