Vermonster 4x4 - Bradford Mud Races - September 2011

Kevin and I were on our way to Vermonster by 8:45AM.  We arrived a couple hours later and headed for the gate.  Once inside we looked at some of the show trucks.  There were food, clothing, and equipment vendor tents set up. 

We headed for the stands to get a seat so I could take some pictures.  The monster trucks started the event and would have a drag race and monster truck competition later in the day.

The drag races, trench, and rock crawling started.  Some of the trucks were real loud.  You could feel the power in some of them.  A couple of the mud trucks had 1000 hp. 

Some of the drag races were very fast.  Kate loves Mustang's so she would have liked to see this car.  It looked cool but wasn't as fast as the other trucks,


We liked watching the extreme truck races.

The drivers took 2 laps around a course that had 2 jumps, mud, a 360 around a large monster tire, down the back straight which had 2 small jumps and a washboard, looping around to the front straight again.  The second jump on the front straight was a truck stopper.

The trench for the mud runs was deeper that it was in May.  The last part had a deep hole which had to be 5 to 6 feet deep.  It got deeper as some of the trucks that made it in the hole kept their tires going making it deeper.  We only saw one truck do a complete run.  A couple of the tricks have very large tires and were light enough so when the kept their tires spinning just a little bit it made the truck float to the top of the mud.

Some of the rock crawling vehicles did real well.  One of the drag truck lost control in the ruts went off the track and almost cracked up.

The monster trucks jumped the cars and the school bus ramp.  3 of the 4 monster truck broke something during their runs.  When you toss a 12,000 pound truck around like these guys do something is bound to break.  We left around 6:30PM as Vermonster started to wind down for the day.  Kevin wanted to go back the following day but I didn't get a 2 day pass.

Search Blog Archive: September 2012, May 2012 & May 2011 - for more Vermonster 4X4

Skydiving - Pepperell, MA - 2011

Because of busy schedules, I didn't spend as much time taking skydiving pictures as I would have liked to.  It is fun experimenting with my camera.    Megan did a jump this year when Matt was on leave.  I have a previous post with their adventure. 

I enjoy taking canopy flight shots and landings and tend to look for colorful parachutes. 

I did stop by Pepperell's 18th Annual Boogie.  It was packed with lots of formation jumps.

The "Air Adventures Parachute Team" did a Y formation then broke off into a downplane.  That was real sharp.  They have performed at the Portsmouth Air Show in the past.  Maybe we will see them next year.



Search Blog Archive: September 2010, August 2010, August 2009, May 2009 & November 2008 - for more Skydiving.

Lost River Gorge & Boulder Caves

I took a day off so we could do the family thing before school starts.  Kevin suggested Lost River so that is where we headed.  It was a nice day for a drive. 
If you aren't able to go up and down lots of stairs Lost River may not be the place to explore. We had fun going into the maze of caves.  Some were very dark so   Kevin used a headlamp he uses for hunting.  We ate lunch at the picnic tables.  I saw a butterfly bush in a landscaped flower bed along the path.  I saw 4 or 5 hummingbirds flying around.  They seemed to be chasing each other.  I tried to get a picture of them but there were to many people walking by.
 

After lunch Kevin and Kate took off into the caves again.  We caught up with them about half way through.

Mid afternoon we headed to Franconia Notch.  Kate, Kevin and Pam hiked to the bottom of a bridge we went to.  Mt. Lafayette was in the background.  It is probably 100 feet to the bottom.

We headed back to Rt. 112 toward Loon Mountain and the Pemigewasset River so we could relax and play on the rocks.   The river rocks were all sizes with many being very round and smooth.  This is from the water rolling the rocks down stream during big storms. 

Three days after these pictures, hurricane Irene dumped 8 to 11 inches of rain in this part of NH.

With so much water from Irene the river has washed out several sections of Rt 112.  We crossed over the Loon Mountain International Bridge which you see in the background.  After Irene, the bridge was closed and a damaged section of the bridge has now collapsed.  One Loon report said the water crested at 23 feet.

Boston - Portsmouth Air Show

Pam, Kate, Kevin, and I decided to check out the air show in Portsmouth.   It wasn't a very good day for pictures as it was hazy and hot with an overcast sky.  We arrived just before noon.  This gave us time to walk around and check out some of the planes on the tarmac. 

U.S. Army Golden Knights were skydiving.  They were very good. 

One of them did  a controlled cutaway which are the two pictures you see here.

USN had an F/A - 18 Super Hornet at the show.  The pilot put it through it's paces.  It is a pretty threatening plane and was fun to watch.  Did I say it was loud ...

Team Heavy Metal flew some nice formations.  They had a Russian MiG flying around with this group also.

Jason Newburg flew the green biplane and Sean Tucker flew the red biplane.  We couldn't believe the things they had those planes were doing.  They were outstanding.

Team AeroShell had 4 red and silver planes.  They had excellent formations.  They were fun to photograph.

Michael Goulian normal stunt plane.  He did some amazing stunts for us.  There was also a US Navy Legacy flight featuring an old WW11 Corsair and the new F/A - 18.

I saw some real fancy cameras with huge lenses at the show.  I didn't see a lot of those guys trying to follow the planes flying around.  Most likely tough to do because of the weight and lens length.  

You need to go to an air show at least once.  We had a great time.