I'm sure this is not news to most of you near my age, but the days of going to bed early to get extra sleep, don't always work out like they used to. I have about a 50% success rate, when it comes to trying to get 8+ hours of sleep. Sometimes I wake up, and am able to get back to sleep, sometimes I wake up after 5 or 6 hours, and any attempt to lay back down is complete folly.
Tuesday morning at 3AM, I heard Dale and Jacque getting ready for work, and couldn't get back to sleep even after they left. So I got up and raided their refrigerator for leftovers! I had a nice plate all laid out and micro-waved when Dale came around the corner and scared me to death!
"Startle you?" He laughed, and grabbed himself a bowl of cereal.
"Yeah! I thought you left!"
"That was just Jacque, I go in a little later", he explained.
"What's with the slacks and the nice polo?" I teased him, "You clean up good!"
"As I've climbed the ladder, they expect me to be more professional...they get mad when I go down on the floor and start wrenching on something myself!"

We sat at the dining room table for forty-five minutes or so, not even mentioning the cars, just talking about life, work, the grandkids. These are the moments you steal on a trip like this that you cherish later. Drag Week makes you hyper-sensitive to the here and now, living in the moment, and appreciating the moment! Throw in family, friends, and hot rods...well, that's as good as it gets.

Pretty much all Skippy and I had done on Monday, was to unload the cars, all our gear, and disconnect the truck from the trailer. So we needed to get a plan going while we were there alone. I decided if I was going to be spending a bunch of time wiring, I needed to be comfortable, so we removed the hood from the Belvedere, and pulled the springs off the hinges so they would lay down. The next project I gave the young man was removal of the driver's side front seat, and dropping the steering column at the dash, so I would have access to all the wiring I needed to get to under there.

Nitrous delivery had been a problem the last time out in the Belvedere, and while I was sure it was the solenoid, I had decided to upgrade the feed line from -4 to a -6 in the process. I gave that job to Skippy while I started sorting wires. That led to me teaching him the process of removing the back seat bottom cushion, the kid was definitely getting a classic car 101 session to start his day in earnest!

Dad showed up a little later, and he talked to us for a while in the back yard before retreating up front to work on Darren's Charger.
"Where's Boone at?" I asked him.
"Oh...I don't know...he said something about running by Grand Prix for some part before he came over here." Dad gave me a chuckle then added, "He might not be able to move this morning, though...bet he stiffened up pretty bad last night.

Boone showed up around noon, and produced two large boxes of Pizza Hut's finest, as he crawled out of his Coronet looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame!
"This is why you will always be my favorite brother!" I commented, as I helped myself to the first pizza.
"Saw Darren over at Grand Prix!" Boone related, as he pulled up a chair, and labored to sit.
"What the heck was he doing there?" Dad asked as he grabbed his first piece from the open box, "He was supposed to deliver his load in OKC this morning!"
"I guess one of the other guys took it for him, because he has a load heading out to Illinois or something..."
"So what has he been doing all day while I've been working on his car", Dad cut Boone off in mid-sentence.
"Just Darren being Darren, Dad, why are you surprised!" Boone threw his hands up in mock disgust.