It's Tuesday

I said I would write another post on Tuesday. Guess what. I forgot to write it in the planner...but I am here anyway!
And I made dinner tonight.
I know. It is amazing I had enough strength left over to type this post.
I also have already given Wyatt his bath. He met me at the door when I came home and insisted that he have a bath in my bathtub immediately... with his monster trucks. And bubbles. But I suppose the bubble part doesn't even really need to be stated because what child takes a bath without bubbles?
However, this provided a nice segway into my post today because guess why Wyatt needed to take a bath with his monster trucks.



Go ahead guess.




Because his monster trucks were dirty. Obviously.
But the reason they are dirty is what I planned on typing about today.
This past weekend we drove down to Louisville, KY to attend Monster Jam. We met my brother-in-law and nephew down there so the boys could watch the monster trucks. Both boys really like Grave Digger. This isn't really much surprize though because it is the most advertised car out of the bunch. If you go to any toy store you will see about two versions of each kind of monster truck but 85,000 versions of Grave Digger. Considering they are all owned by the same company I am guessing this is some kind of advertising ploy. And it is working because he is the clear favorite.

We also got "Pit Passes." Please don't think this was actually anything too cool. It really should have been called "Getting Un-Famous Driver's Autographs."

You see, back in the day when Bigfoot was awesome... the truck, not the sasquach.... monster trucks were owned and operated by the driver. Each driver had his own truck and was responsible for their own advertising, building, maintenance, etc.

Then some people (I am guessing it was more than one person, but it could have just been one rich guy) decided he wanted them all. I don't know why. I have never thought, "Hmmm. If only I owned all of the monster trucks, I could die a happy person." Anyway, this person or people started buying all of the monster trucks in the land. The driver would get paid to drive the truck but the organization would own the name, advertising rights, scheduling and everything else.

A lot of drivers sold out. It is expensive to maintain a monster truck, after all. I mean, just imagine how expensive each tire must cost! I don't even like paying for the tires on my own car.
A few drivers held out. Which is why you don't see Bigfoot anymore. His driver/owner didn't sell out to Monster Jam, so his truck isn't involved. However, all the other trucks are so there isn't anyone to race against him... so he just disappeared got overshadowed by the trucks with the incredible advertising power of Monster Jam. 

The organization discovered if they had more of the exact same truck, they could sell to more venues. At any given time there are at least two Monster Jams running. Each with the same trucks. Or at least they all have Grave Digger (see advertising). They cannot possibly have the original driver because we have yet to approve human cloning. Even for monster truck driving purposes.
So we got to see the "good" trucks, but we had never heard of any of the drivers. Meaning, we certainly didn't want their autographs.


Ok, well I just googled and apparently Bigfoot is still racing. and it is still owned by the driver, Bob Chandler. So any of you out there concerned about the Original Monster Truck, never you fear, you can check him out here.

Wow. I know too much about monster trucks.

Back to my story. We got "Pit Passes" and arrived super early. This wasn't the best choice because you couldn't actually get too close to the trucks. Half of them were perched on top of the hills they would later jump. Only a few trucks were on the dirt and even they were roped off so you could just stand near them to get pictures.
You can see here how we were no where close to the Scooby Doo truck or Blue Thunder (which is just a ridiculous name, thunder is a sound...thus it doesn't have a color).

We could get closer to this one, but Wyatt was scared of its "sharpie teeth." Understandable. I guess.

This one looks like a large helmet. I don't really get it either. 

To help me make it though this event, I bought myself a classy glass of wine. It came in its own plastic wine glass with a lid. But Sparky said that was unacceptable and I needed to at least pour it into a cup so the Monster truck crowd didn't beat me up.
He really shouldn't have worried about it though. The name of the wine alone should have given it away... "Red Blend." I am pretty sure the makers took the bits left in the winery and stuck it all in a vat and called it a "Red Blend." It tasted and smelled like lacquer thinner.

Of course I had to drink it all though, I paid good money for that lacquer thinner. I am pretty sure if anyone got rowdy at my sophisticated wine drinking I could have tossed the remaining wine in their face and their skin would have been eaten away.

All Wyatt wanted to do was play with his toy monster trucks in the dirt. By the time the "Pit Passes" were finished and it was time to go to our seat Wyatt was asking if it was time to go home. Of course. All that time and money and all the kid wanted was a pile of dirt.
So I have decided for next year we are going to dig up the grass behind our house and let him play in the dirt to his heart's content. Best part? Free.