rockover

Sunday, while Azucena was at church, I cleaned up and packed bags. I'm glad we took an empty bag to fill up, because we did.

We were a bit concerned on how to take the flag home. With the pole it was attached to, would they allow it on the plane? Would it have to be checked? Would it be lost? I was going to find tooth and nail to take it on the plane. I would have been willing to lose the pole and buy a new one, but the airlines said it was ok. Maybe it was Azucena's Wave the Flag reasoning that did it.
While walking down the terminal to our gate, I saw a few others in NASCAR gear and thought 'OH YEAH, other fans are heading home just like us. I wonder if they know who we are. Hmmm.'
So Azucena calls one of her new contacts and chats for awhile. When I get back from the bathroom, she's talking to someone that overheard the conversation. She thought I was the flag waver, but wanted to verify, so they chatted for awhile. Azucena also showed her some pictures. Now I become the celebrity. I unfurl the flag and we take a picture with it. Wow, we've hit the big time. Did I say it couldn't get any better? Well I lied.
Someone else showed up and started confirming things. I chatted with her for a minute before walking to her mother (in a wheelchair) and I went through the NASCAR Points thing and our experience. Just as they were getting ready to board I unfurled the flag again and showed her mom. You should have seen her face light up. She is a NASCAR fan, but this must have been something for her. She was truly elated. We visited again on the plane because mom and daughter when on a fishing trip with Martin Truex, Jr. and wanted to share pictures.
So we got to inform just a few more people about NASCAR Points rewards.

What can be better than first class treatment? Flying first class all the way there and back.

By the way, Monday I took my truck in to get an oil change and other stuff. While paying, we talked a bit about NASCAR and I started to mention about winning the Wave the Flag and got cut off. Boy, how quickly we fall.

We can't thank Austin, Patrick and Christa enough. I can go on and on about how much they enhanced our experience, but that would take too long and bore you to death. But trust me when I say they went out of their way to make sure we had a great time. I'm afraid if they do this again, it won't be as great for the next winners as it was for us. Hopefully it will, but I don't know how it could be any better. It was impressive to see them use their connections to make the experience even better. It seems like Patrick and Christa knows everyone.

We've talked about if there was any time where we were less than pleased and outside of the rain shaking my faith, we couldn't come up with anything, except.... The start of the race. This wasn't Bank of America's fault, but with all our fans out there taking time to watch the start of the race, I was disappointed they didn't get to see what we were there for. But, a dvd is being put together for us and we'll share that with everyone, so stay tuned.