[ChickenCityRoller]

I don't know what I was thinking considering I'm a lifetime member and a donate a lot of material. HESSTON STEAM GROUNDS! If you have kids and you haven't or don't take them there, you're... well.. you should take them! It's the coolest place in the world, especially if you're a kid (or a grown up kid ). Please, do yourself, your family or your out of town visitors a favor and visit Hesston in Heston. Just take 1000 North from Highway 12 and go out about 12 miles, it's on the left past highway 39.(There is a lot of debate on how it's spelled, lol. The town spells it Heston but the museum spells it Hesston)
When you go, make sure to check out and ride number 7, the finest restored Shay locomotive in the country! It's an all wheel drive train with a series of complicated couplings giving power to the train to allow it to go up steep switch backs and haul logs. They're open Saturday and Sunday. www.hesston.org

[Southsider2k12]

One of my favorites is Bailey Homestead during one of their fests... The Harvest Fest and when they tap the Maple Trees to make maple syrup are the best.

[Michelle]

Shadyhill Speedway trip report--Medaryville, IN

This is the first area track I've visited, so I don't know how it stacks up against Illiana or Plymouth. I've passed Shadyhill's sign several times, though, so I thought I'd head down there last night for some Saturday night racing.

Ooh, it was five hours of some good racing! Lots of fun and lots of action. Racing started at 6 pm Central with qualifying heats for a couple of hours. There was a bit of a break to get the track in the right condition, and then five feature races of 20-30 laps. Loud, crowded, and fast. Pretty good amount of side-by-side racing. There were a few newbies just making laps, but also a few guys who pulled off passes straight out of the pro playbook.

It's a 1/4 mile clay oval, some banking. It's out in the middle of nowhere, like it's from Field of Dreams. Just cornfields for miles. They had a big crowd, so everyone in the area must go. Not much else to do there, really. They ran street cars, a couple different kinds of modifieds, and minis.

$10 general admission, $2 for kids (can't remember if this is under 10 or under 12), free for under 4. Pit passes available for more money, but meh, I don't know these drivers. The crowd was friendly, and there were a lot of kids running around. No playground, but some open grassy areas to play. They had a nickel hunt for the little kids during the break for track cleanup. So feel free to bring the family.

Lots of parking, no problem getting in and out of the park. Reasonable concession prices, pretty good selection. Bathrooms were clean and in better shape than I was expecting. Seating is either bleachers or a tiered section for lawn chairs.

I'll go back again.

[Dave]

Hmmm... Shadyhill might be worth a roadtrip on September 13th for the figure 8 trailer race....