Start your engines and head to NASCAR, March 1, 2012

So what do you do in a Super 8 hotel room? I have my computer, my Iphone and free Wi-fi. I have coffee, but it's sure not on the standard I'm used to with Jaz making her French press Kaladi coffee and Elaine's Costco coffee (which happens to be one of my favorites) which I shared with my panel of NASCAR experts. But I have settled for what is in the room so I don't need to go downstairs to the breakfast room.

Room coffee had to do for me today.

Blogging is what I've been doing although there's not much for photo back up.

I looked out of the room window this morning, and it really doesn't lend itself to great photo support either. It's still the same weather I can have at home.

Not so nice here either in Minneapolis.

But I found this site with one of the NASCAR drivers I've decided to follow. He's from Michigan, which is why I chose him, and seems to be a nice guy. He's also the one that was tweeting during the red flag at the Daytona 500 race the other night.

I wanted to look at his tweets, although I wasn't sure what I was doing. I found a website for him. Bradracing.com, and went there. He's got lots of followers, so I decided to be one, too. Why not? He's from Michigan, his car is Number 2 and is blue with yellow trim, Alaska state flag colors. Plus I can get to him on Facebook. In fact I went out there and posted a couple of photos I had of him that I took at Daytona. They're not great, but they are him, and someone “liked” them. So I'm good with that.

Brad is the blue car with the yellow trim, Number 2.  Go, Brad.

So, birthday today. Coffee in bed and I'm working on the blog. I'm heading to the Mall of America in a while, then out to the airport to see if I can get on the flight home tonight. If not, I'll try again tomorrow.

What I did discover is that what I had carried in my purse is not working. I brought make up but no applicator, an eyelash curler but no mascara, and no lotion. Halfassed is what I call that. Next time I will also throw a pair of underwear in. I had to rinse it and use the hairdryer to dry it enough to wear. I need to be a little more prepared for standby travel. But I'm still grateful just to be flying on Hobbs's passes.

So, off with the blog and onto the Mall of America.

When I got to the Mall, I decided lunch was the first thing I needed to do. But to get there I had to cross the amusement park area. There was a roller coaster. Actually, there are a couple of them, but no coasters for me today. I had a couple of missions already … a birthday lunch and I had discovered there is such a thing as a Peep Store, so I had to check it out, and I wanted to go to the Sealife Center.

One coaster I did not do this trip.

I also passed Lego Land, which always impresses me because it's unbelievable what they can do with legos. Who knew?

These lego animals are so impressive.

This was a favorite, too.

As I looked up I could see that there were restaurants above on the third level, and I spotted a Bubba Gump's. I'd been wanting to go there since I'd seen one in San Francisco last year, so that's where the birthday lunch was. I had a special drink, mango lemonade, a fancy shrimp dish, and the staff sang happy birthday to me, and brought me a chocolate sundae. It was great.

My birthday drink, mango lemonade, a slushie actually, and the bottom of the glass flashes.

Headed for the Sealife Center since I like to see the fish, turtles, rays, and sharks, and whatever else they might have. Turns out there was a jellyfish special show, and it was really neat to see all difference types of jellyfish.

There were all kinds of jellyfish, and it was a very cool exhibit.

There were also garden eels, which were very cool, and pop up out of the sand, and many different kinds of seahorses.

These little eels look like worms.  They stick their heads up out of their sand holes, and wiggle back and forth.  They were actually pretty cute.  I'd never heard of them before.

I've always liked seahorses and the Center had several different types.  These two photographed quite well with my Iphone.  I only used it for photos since I was too lazy to get out my big camera.  Iphone did a pretty good job with all of these photos today.

Rays or skates are some of my favorite sea creatures.

Left the mall and headed to the airport to see if I could get on the flight. Might as well have stayed at the mall as the flight was oversold and they first offered $400, then $600 to get some folks to give up their seats. No standby people getting on this time.

Decided to get the blog up and discovered I couldn't get into my e-mail so I could get the photos I'd sent myself from my phone. Took them today at the mall since I didn't want to use the big camera. Mistake. It seemed easier to do it this way at the time. My e-mail was restricted, so had to spend time on the phone trying to get it fixed. Got 'er done. Folks at GCI were very nice.

So I headed back to the hotel and will try again tomorrow. I'm thinking another trip to the mall might be a good thing. Take in a movie, and who knows what else.