Final Day in Goodwood

I'm a little late posting this, we are actually back home now but I wanted to finish up my travel log for this trip! I came down with a stomach bug or food poisoning (remember Nag's Head dinner from my last post? Not blaming or anything but...) so our last day wasn't so much fun for me but everyone else had a blast. 

All the other days were leading up to the grand finale - all of the car entries had a big timed event, one at a time they raced like a mile circuit around a couple curves and up a long hill...fastest time wins. There were tons of different cars from very old roadsters to current Formula 1 cars - we were there supporting and rooting for our friend Mike Skinner who competed in a Nascar truck and took 3rd place overall. So much fun (even not feeling good I still really enjoyed watching the spectacle)!

For a fun, different, unusual DIY project check out this idea - after Mike got done racing and was in the winners circle he popped open the trunk of his race truck and there is a bar built into the back! Haha, a "car bar" - how great is this? I'm trying to get Dave to let me do this in the trunk of my car but so far he isn't going for it...;)

PS: we had a very long trip home and ended up having to rent a car and drive from Toronto, yep that was a long day. Here's a pic of everyone stuck inside the jetway for about 20 minutes before they could load us onto the plane, not fun - I've never had that happen!

Another Track Day at Goodwood

Our group is quite large and our hosts rented out a few houses for everyone to stay at - we are at Hollingsfield Lodge waaaay out in the countryside about 30 minutes from the track. I'm talking way out - one lane dirt roads, brick cottages with ivy and flowers growing on them, huge fields of sheep, birds and bunnies everywhere - just like a movie setting. 

There are 9 people staying here, none of us knew each other when we got here but are now fast friends and of course have our own  "team" name ... our group texts are titled "hollingsfield cool kids" haha. 

Yesterday we were set up in a large area with umbrellas and the weather was decent so our location was perfect; today it rained and was quite chilly and we were lucky enough to be in an enclosed tent all day - nice. They had a huge lunch buffet, complete with multiple puddings for dessert and then later on brought out afternoon tea - finger sandwiches, scones, etc  and set up this really cute cookie display where they hung decorated car cookies up using clothespins - I'm stealing this idea for sure. I'm including a picture of the view from our room at the house, the cookies, and a couple of our view of the track today.

Last night we went into Chichester and ate dinner at the Nags Head Pub and Carvery. Overall the people have been very welcoming and friendly here but not so at the pub, it sort of became a joke counting how many times we could catch the wait staffs eye and order food and more drinks! If we were playing a drinking game and had to drink every time one of the waitresses literally looked over top of our heads and wouldn't make eye contact we would all definitely have been drunk! Anyway - there's a point to my story hahaha -  we ordered "chips" as a starter (very thick fries, crunchy and hot, with or without some kind of white cheese overtop - gotta say they are so far the best thing I've eaten here and I'd love to learn to make them when I get home). My housemate and new friend Annette asked for mayo to dip hers in (mmmmm mayo and fries) and they brought her an entire big jar of mayo but of course we couldn't get any plates. She had what I think is a smart solution, I told her I wanted to post her great idea and took her picture to pass on to you -  she squeezed mayo on her knife and dipped that way. It worked great and didn't make a mess - I think you could prob do this with ketchup too (which they didn't have by the way!) but obviously ranch or runny sauce isn't gonna work so good, maybe put it on your spoon in that case...individual dip bowls :). Genius, right?

First day at Goodwood

Woke up to a big ole thunderstorm in this cute country lodge and would have been perfectly happy to read and lounge all day! But we have things to do and places to be so...

First stop was the Goodwood hangar and airstrip located right on the grounds of Lord March's estate (the Rolls Royce factory is also here, and a 3 mile race track, horse paddock, restaurant, etc - the place is humongous). There were probably 50 people there with our group, 8 guys (including Dave) got rides in old Mustang and Spitfire war planes - so cool! At first I thought there would be absolutely no way I'd want to do that but then after they took off I changed my mind and wished I could have gone. And then they got back and said they weren't able to do any "arobatics" like barrel rolls because of the weather - as soon as I heard there was the possibility of doing arobatics I reversed to my original position, no way do I want a ride in one haha!!

The rest of the afternoon was free time - we ate lunch on the property at the "tower" (I had fresh locally made Brie cheese and cranberries on baguette - they asked if I wanted it on "white or brown" - and someone else at the table had a "jacket potato with various fillings" which was a stuffed baked potato with chicken salad on top). Yum.

Here's a couple pics from the morning: