Bristol Herald Courier front page news the next day		From TriCities.com:      News Reports  ·  Race columnist Allen Gregory  ·  BMS Photos BMS Coverage  ·  BMS Photo Gallery The race is a hit! The track changes didn't have exactly the effect expected - drivers found the ground high-line a good place to to run and traffic wasn't as tight as hoped, but there were Bristol theatrics and good racing, and already increased interest in tickets for the spring race next year.
Tri_Cities Flea Market		Now, less running around. Nothing scheduled at all until I leave from the Charlotte Airport over a week from now. I have a free day before heading east again, and Nikki has very thoughtfully made up a list of things to see, like the Tri-Cities Flea Market in Bluff City. It looks like there's a lot of parking around the site, but the whole area to the right is for outdoor tables - this is one Real Big flea market. There are multiple buildings with vendor booths, permanent or temporary, a number of Mexican-run eating places in the big building, and a few acres for people to make their junk into other people's stuff. It was only about half-full, but I cruised it all in about 2 hours, didn't find anything though.

Then off on a leisurely jaunt to Johnson City to the south, via Deer Lake Park, a lovely body of water surrounding the hills, with some humongous homes built along parts of the shore. With the rolling green hills, pretty much any place on a hill provides a great view, for pretty cheap too: the newspaper had a real estate page with a bunch of neat-looking places on a few acres for under $200k.

Johnson City has an enclosed mall - handy for shopping in the heat. It was a mall - nothing real special for someone from a shopping-crazy city like I'm from, but I found some 70% off deals at Sears on some beachwear. A darling young blonde tanned southern belle was my clerk, and upon commenting on her orange nail polish her "Why Thank Yooouuu" reply had me wishing I had a phone book or something to ask her to read for me. Man that accent really works for me...

Back at my lodgings for the last night I took my hosts out for dinner in Bristol, and hopefully got across how much of a part of this venture they have been - were it not for Nikki's quick reply to my random Craigslist post this whole experience would have been Just An Idea and I'd be watching the race on TV and maybe thinking about doing it next year. Without their hospitality this week would have been a much more anonymous experience. Good fortune comes in many forms in life, recognized or not, and Nikki and Jim and Bingo were a great bit of fortune for me!