Today was the overflow bike race up the mountain, so once again we prepped the car and food, and went to bed early.  Audrey didn’t want to take the Volvo because she doesn’t like the rattling noise it makes going over a bump, but it’s in better shape than the van.  But she declared she wouldn’t go if we didn’t take the van.  So we moved the power and radio gear from the Volvo into the van at sundown.  I just hope the van would start on the summit…

The alarm went off at 5 AM.  I got all the food loaded, woke up the girls and then loaded Errol into the van.  We were about 10 minutes late.  And sure enough at the mountain we were about ten minutes late!  Mr Cliff came out and gave the girls two 100% plastic t-shirts from the footrace last month.  They put them on over their clothes right away.

It was a good thing we took the larger vehicle.  The day was like last year when we took the German kids up there: 50 MPH winds and in the clouds.

This time I requested a higher location.  Usually we do Hairpin turn but I wanted to see the summit and maybe get to the cog tracks for the steam train.  We took the lowest spot at the last turn, the begining of HomeStretch.  I couldn’t see any trains, when the clouds lifted enough to see the tracks, I wondered if they were even running them.

The girls came back to the van when the steam train was going down.  I grabbed the camera and ran out but right when I got to a good spot to record it’s passage, the clouds hit again and I saw nothing at all until it was long gone.

The girls stayed in the van until the race started.  Then they went out and down to the turn where a couple of photogrpahers were.  Audrey had my camera and was taking pictures.

Errol got out a couple of times, but the wind kept knocking him down and he didn’t find that to be very much fun.

The race went well.  I missed the second female.  I saw her go by, but decided she was a man and didn’t call her in.  I heard another checkpoint up the mountain call her number.  I sat in the van most of the time reading the QST magazines I haven’t had time to get to.

When the race was over we all went to the summit together.  The girls went straight to TipTop House for a few minutes, then we went inside.  We wandered around the summit building for a bit and then went out and crushed some pennies under the wheels of a cog.

Finally we went for a little hike.  I took them to the south side and down the Crawford Path about 500 feet, right into the wind!  I held Errol’s hand the whole way because it was too much for him, between all the big rocks and the strong wind.

It was about time to go and we headed back to the lot.  Amazingly it was empty.  Ours was the only car up there, just two motorcycles along with us.  It made for going down nice and easy.  I had no scared slow drivers riding their brakes all the way.  I could just cruise down in 1st gear.

We didn’t go into Goreham this time.  I am out of money and we brought lots of food.  I took the Dolly Copp cutoff back home.  Audrey and Errol both slept most of the way home.  I stopped in Bethlehem and bought a cup of good coffee.

It was a nice trip even if it was windy and cloudy.