Grumpy Trout turns 65 June 30, 2013 -- Surprise party June 29, 2013 -- back to the Pacific Northwest

My husband, Trout, couldn't attend the HHS reunion because he had a race in Portland, OR that same weekend.  The following weekend was his 65th birthday.  He kept telling me that I didn't have to come back from San Antonio for his birthday, but little known to him, I had arranged an immediate family only surprise birthday party for him at his favorite restaurant, the Fife City Bar & Grill, for the evening before his birthday.  All his kids and grandkids were there, as was his ex-wife. 

Some of you may remember that I swore I'd never have kids, or that by the time I would be settled down enough to want them, I'd be too old to have them.  I got lucky and married a man with 5, including one set of identical twins.  Over the past 25 years (our 25th anniversary was April 1st) they got married and had their own families.  We now have 13 grandkids.  See the list at the end of these party pictures for the breakdown.

Yes, it was a zoo, but a fun one.  The food was great.  The kids got there early and decorated the place.  They did a great job.  These are some pictures from that evening.  Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of everyone, but when I finally get on Facebook, I'll be able to see the pictures many others took.

The woman in the purple and green in the foreground is Ramona, the youngest who just graduated from UW and is now in an archeological field school on the island of Gotland, Sweden.  The kids have Scandinavian heritage on both sides, Swedish from their mom, Sarah, in the white on the right and Icelandic from Trout.

 

The 33 at 65 banner is all about his racing.  His car number is 33 and the colors are blue and yellow.  That's our son, Lee, taking a picture of me while I take a picture of him and GK Brynne looks on.

 

The balloons marked Trout's spot at the table.

 

This is Jason, Ramona's husband.  He recently got out of the Navy and is studying forensics for his civilian career.  He spent much of his time in Naval law enforcement, so it's a good match.

 

In the foreground is Dorothy, one of the twins.

 

Trout looks all alone here.  I think he's enjoying a break.  It was a good time for all the kids and grandkids to get together.  The last time they did that we know of was in Utah on a camping trip the first week of April, 2010.  It was very cold.  Not all of the GKs were even born then.

 

This is Audrey, daughter of our oldest, Katie.

 

This is Dorothy, daughter of one of the twins, Ruth.

 

Here is Sarah and Katie.  I loved it when Katie turned 39, the same age Trout was when we got married.

 

Left to right, this is Kaya, the oldest GK, her sister Phaedra and their aunt, Ruth.  Yeah, when they were very little, they did confuse her with their mom, Dorothy.  As did her husband, Aaron.  He wasn't able to be at the party because of truck trouble.  After the party, we helped them out a bit with that, Trout more than me.  We missed you, Aaron!

 

This is Melissa, Lee's youngest daughter.

 

 

This is Dorothy, with her youngest, Gavin.

 

This is Kiersten, with her little sister, Dorothy.

 

Now we have the group pictures.  Missing spouses are not there because they weren't there or because they were taking pictures.

 

I wondered what Trout was pointing at in some of these pictures, but I realized he's "directing" the Happy Birthday song.

 

 

The chef and owner of FCB&G, Diana, made a red velvet cake to die for.  She also made some chocolate espresso flan, also to die for.  And for the honored guest, she made a special little bowl of gazpacho as an appetizer earlier, complete with a birthday candle stuck in a dinner roll beside it.

 

When Brynne, whose parents both have dark hair and eyes, was born with red hair and blue eyes, we thought she'd be teased by her older sister, Morgan, about not being a part of the family.  Then when Lee's youngest, Melissa was born with light red hair and blue eyes, we decided his wife must have some Scandinavian heritage, too.  We missed you, Hilary!

 

This is Ramona and Jason's only, Aidan.  

 

And here's Morgan, Lee's oldest.

 

A good time was had by all, I think.

 

 

 

 

 

Now here's the cast of characters:

 

Trout -- Father and grandfather.

Lo -- Step-mother and grandmother.

Sarah -- Mother and grandmother.

Katie -- the oldest.  Husband - Jim.  Kids - Jimmy, Audrey, Joe.

Lee -- the only boy.  Wife - Hilary.  Kids - Morgan, Brynne, Melissa.

Ruth -- one of the twins.  Husband - Aaron.  Kids - Kiersten, Elijah, Dorothy.

Dorothy -- one of the twins.  Husband - Phill.  Kids - Kaya, Phaedra, Gavin.

Ramona -- the youngest.  Husband - Jason.  Kid - Aidan.

 

Some of you may be wondering what this racing thing is all about.  Trout wanted to do it from the time he was about 12, but he never had the money until the mid-to-late 80's.  He loved the sport so much, though, that he worked turns and did lots of other volunteer work at the tracks in British Columbia, Oregon and Washington.

 

When we moved to Tucson, he was hoping that the racing here would be good, but so far it is not, so he goes back to the NW during the summer to race there.  If it was good here, he'd race in the winter down here.  He keeps hoping...

 

These pictures are not all recent.  They are just some favorites of mine.  He calls his "team" Rainbow Trout Racing, hence the colors on the shoulders of his suit.

 



 

Most people only know about Nascar or some kind of racing on oval tracks.  We find there aren't many followers of Formula 1 or open wheel, road racing.  This is his car.

 

Here he is on pre-grid.  

 

And on the track.

 

And back to the paddock safely.

 

In 2012, he raced a lot.  He ended up with the 2nd place trophy for Formula Club Ford from the International Conference of Sports Car Clubs.  International you say?  Remember that part about British Columbia?  Whether the race is there or Washington or Oregon, both the Canadian and US flags are flown and the anthems are played.

 

Now for a little attitude...

 

Vintage Racing in Portland -- 8/29/08 - 9/1/08

The reason we went to the northwest in late August and early September was that SOVREN, a vintage racing organization, was hosting a 40th anniversary celebration of the creation of the racing class of Formula Fords worldwide. A year after they started in Europe, the cars began to race in the U.S. Trout crewed at the 30th anniversary of Formula Fords in the U.S. at Buttonwillow in southern California. He raced at the the 35th in Las Vegas in 2004. He hopes to go to the 40th at Elkhart Lake Wisconsin next summer.

This event was combined with a regular SOVREN race at Portland International Raceway. More modern Formula Fords that normally aren't allowed to race in vintage racing because they are too new were allowed to race side by side with the older cars.

On Friday the 29th, Trout went up early to test and tune with another group using the track. Long time friends, Mike and Diane, live just a stone's throw from the track. Mike raced in the past. Diane brought their 3-year old daughter, Melissa over Friday afternoon for awhile. She seemed to like sitting in Trout's car. We had dinner with them Friday night and they all came all three days to enjoy the racing.
Here is Trout coming under the Bridgestone bridge during the test and tune.

The way Trout normally races with the International Conference of Sports Car Clubs (ICSCC) is that there's a practice on Saturday morning, a practice and qualifying on Saturday afternoon, a practice and qualifying on Sunday morning and a race on Sunday afternoon. There are rules that prevent the drivers from really racing at any time except during the Sunday afternoon race. Where they are positioned on the grid for that race depends on their best time for the qualifying sessions.

The normal ICSCC racers really liked the way SOVREN did it better. They had a practice and qualifying Saturday morning and races both morning and afternoon on Sunday and Labor Day Monday. The 1st race's grid position was determined by the qualifying time on Saturday morning, but all other grid positions were determined by the finishing position of the previous race. That meant that the drivers actually got to race 5 out of the 6 sessions on the track.

The pictures that follow are not necessarily chronological. I just picked the best ones to illustrate the drivers and the track. One of the reasons Trout keeps going to the northwest to race is that he likes the tracks (Portland, Seattle and Spokane) better than the one at Phoenix.

Here he is on the grid. Some of those vintage Formula Fords are behind him. The drivers that pit with Kenny Dye and his sons, Tracey (here with the umbrella) and Stu are typically called Ken's Men. But the racer in the beautiful vintage Lola shown here is driven by a woman, Carolyn. The yellow car behind her is a vintage Titan driven by John, who drove all the way from Montana where he owns a microbrewery in Belt. Unfortunately, he blew his engine early on Saturday morning. Trout helped him remove it and it was taken to Jay Ivey's shop in Portland. Jay is the premier Formula Ford engine builder in the northwest.

By Sunday night, Trout was pretty pooped and feeling really sorry for John, so he decided to let John do a warm up on Monday morning in his car and then let him drive the race Monday afternoon. We always say that Trout is the fish that hooks others into getting Formula Fords instead of whatever else they are racing. As with most any older vehicles, the vintage Formula Fords are beautiful, but they don't have the power or the maneuverability of the modern ones, so drivers can't drive them as fast. John could really tell the difference between driving his vintage Titan and Trout's more modern Crossle.The driver in this Formula Ford, Brad, is another example of Trout's fishing ability. He used to drive a Porche, Trout lent him his Crossle and the next thing you know, Brad owns a Van Diemen.
At the beginning of the grid here are Stu on the left and Steve on the right. Both of them, as well as the guy in the white car behind Steve were pitted with Ken's Men. By the way, Steve has been racing for many, many, many years. He gets his longevity from working at Hanford. Here are the drivers starting off with Stu in the lead.
This is Stu (in front) with his primary competition for the weekend, Neil. They constantly swapped racing positions by passing each other in various places on the track.
And here's Stu behind Neil at this turn.
Here's Brad in the middle of a bunch of cars at the Chicane.
And here are Stu and Neil again in roughly the same location. Steve had an incident early on the weekend involving another car. It seemed to fare okay, but Steve got airborne had some pretty serious damage. Kenny was able to fix it by the afternoon and Steve still got to race the entire weekend.
Here's a track worker making sure Steve is okay.
And here's Steve in a different turn at a different session.
Here's Trout behind another car at that same turn.
And here he is at the entrance to the Chicane. Most of the Formula Fords were pitted in the same general area. These are some of the vintage ones.
And here's Kenny's pit area. All the cars are out on the track except Brad's. He also had a mishap, had to miss one session but was able to race the rest of the weekend because Kenny and the boys fixed the problem.
Here they all are back and under the EasyUps.
I mentioned that there is one woman that Kenny supports. I like her bumper sticker.
And here's Carolyn with her mom. Yes, we did have some typical northwest weather on Sunday. It rained and it blew and it was cold. That wasn't any particular problem for the vintage racers that didn't mind going out in the rain because they have treaded tires. But the modern Formula Fords race on slicks normally, so they were scrambling to change tires before the next race.

This is Brad.

And that's Kenny standing in the middle with Ron hauling a tire to him.
And we finish with Trout. He isn't in his racing suit because he thinks it's cool, but rather because it was cold.
When he didn't have his suit on, it was usually hanging inside out along with his Ninja underwear to air out. We did get them washed and dried before packing them. He didn't do that last race in Spokane in July and unpacking was not a pleasant experience for him when he got back.

When Trout goes up to the northwest to race, he usually stays with Kenny and his wife, Sandy, and borrows Kenny's MR2 to drive around town. I've always been a little shy of doing that when I'm along because I didn't want to impose on them, but this trip I decided to do it at least for the time before and immediately after the race weekend. It turned out great for us and I really want to thank Kenny and Sandy for their hospitality. It was a help for us plus we got to visit more with them and that was great.

There are a few more postings from this trip so check the list for them and see British cars, kids, grandkids, the Pacific Ocean, Puget Sound, Mt. Rainier and lots and lots of trees, sand and water. I'll try to get them all done by the end of the week.