The Gamble Family (.Net)

My family and I had the pleasure of going to Panama City Beach this past week for vacation. This was a week that we had been looking forward to for a long time. This summer has been extremely busy for both my wife and me at work, and we both were nearly running on fumes by the time last week came around. Our son is starting his senior year in college this August, and as a result, we felt that this is probably the last year that we would be able to take a family vacation.

For the past two years, we have waited until late August to go to PCB. We do this because the summer tourist rush usually ends in mid August, which means fewer people and less rush. The only downside is that some of the seasonal businesses begin to close for the winter during that time also. Our favorite lodging, both last year and this year, is the Merrimac Condomimum. We like staying there because the units are clean, roomy, just across the road from the beach, and they are located down away from all of the commercialism and congestion.

We drove down to PCB on Saturday - 8 hours, 475 miles. That’s a long trip. We arrived at 5:15. Saturday evening, we ate at our favorite hangout, Schooner’s. Schooner’s is “the last local resort” in PCB. The atmosphere is great because they have an open air dining area and they are located right on the beach. In the evenings they have live bands performing. The food is always great. We also usually walk back down to Schooner’s each evening around 9:30 to sit out on the beach and just gaze out into the peaceful gulf under the moonlight.

On Sunday, we went for a cruise into the gulf on the Island Time catamaran. We had a great time snorkeling. The water was clear enough to see all types of marine life. We were hoping to be able to swim with the dolphins also, but they did no want to cooperate with us this day. We caught glimpses of several while we were out, but for some reason, they decided to keep their distance from us. Later that day, we took our turn on the Cobra Vortex wooden go-cart track. I, unfortunately, had one of the slowest cars on the track while my son had the fastest car on the track. Needless to say, I received much grief from him about that.

Snorkeling on the Island Time Catamaran

On Monday, we were all fairly sunburned from having been out for most of the previous day, so we decided to have a day of driving around the area for a little relief. We drove to Destin to take a look around. On the way, we stopped off at one of those “self sustaining” resorts that has homes, condos, shopping, golf, etc. all on the premises. We spent some time walking around looking in the shops there. After driving around Destin, we came back through Seaside. Seaside is a beautiful small community that looks like it was taken from the pages of “The Great Gatsby”. The beach there is beautiful. There are no waves at all because the shoreline is very shallow (knee to waist deep) for about 100 yards out into the water.

Shops at Destin

After browsing around the shops at Seaside, we returned to PCB. Later that afternoon, my wife and I took a sunset sailing cruise. The water was calm, the breeze kept us moving along, and we saw lots of dolphins.

Sunset Sailing Cruise

On Tuesday, after recovering some from our Sunday sunburns, we headed back to the beach. We started off riding jet skis. The gulf was fairly calm, and we had a blast. My wife has a hard time hanging onto the back with me driving. I almost dumped her once (purely by accident), but she managed to hang on. After the jet skis, my wife and I took a parasail ride. I had parasailed once before, but my wife never had. It was funny to hear her gasp as we shot up into the sky. It’s so peaceful as you float a couple of hundred feet up above the water. After parasailing, we returned to the condo for a refreshing dip in the pool.

Ted and Cheryl Parasailing

On Wednesday, we had sort of a slow day starting out. Everyone seemed a little tired, so we decided to just hang around the pool for a while. It started to rain about 2:00, so we went inside and took a break while the afternoon shower passed. Later that day, my son and I decided to take our turn on the Vertical Accelerator (aka - The Slingshot). Talk about an adrenaline rush! Being shot 200 feet straight up into the air certainly has it’s way of waking you up. I usually get uncomfortable on high places, but this was total fun.

Ted and Chris on the Vertical Accelerator

Thursday, unfortunately, was the day to return home. The trip back always seems so much longer than the trip down there. We arrived safely back home around 5:30 with lots of dirty clothes, tired bodies, and a lawn that was in desperate need of mowing. Welcome back to the real world.

Darrell Waltrip may have Toyota for his Craftsman Truck sponsor, but on this day, Chevy owned the Nashville Superspeedway. Today, my son, Chris, and I had the priviledge of meeting some fellow Chevy Avalanche owners and of driving my Avalanche around the track at the Nashville Superspeedway. The meeting was organized by Scott Gattis, the local MTAC president. Scott, thanks for a great time and for organizing the event.

The Middle Tennessee Avalanche Club had a GTG (that means “Get Together” for you non-Av’ers) today. We met at the Cafe Mexico City in Lebanon, TN for lunch. After lunch, we all had the time of our lives. We were given the opportunity of driving our trucks around the 1.5 mile Nashville Superspeedway race track. We also got to walk around pit row, the infield, the garage area, and the winners circle. Talk about fun!!!

Driving around the race track with 20 other trucks was a blast. We weren’t allowed to get over 55 MPH (although a few of us cheated), but the thrill of driving around the 14 degree banking and driving up next to the wall was a total blast. I took my son, Chris, with me. He had a great time hanging out of the passenger window taking pictures.

It was also fun looking at everyone’s trucks and seeing what mods they had done. There were lots of great looking trucks and lots of great people to meet. There were 21 Avalanches at the GTG.

Here are the members’ screen names of those that were in attendance:

EarthQuake/Aftershock
Rainman
Tree Hugger
Fran & George K.
Z-66Mike
Tedgamble
AV Farmer
Alohapiper
AV CAV
Luv2FlyCubs
Schmitty
John S.
MurmanZ71
Wfbarto
KY Bob
Musiks
Main One
Raychevy
Smart AV
TexasCwGrl & Just Jeepin
Quietman

Lunch

Entering the Race Track

On the Race Track

Good Looking Bunch of Trucks

Our Tour Guide

Garage Area

Winner’s Circle

Scoring Tower

Leaving the Track

The Group

As promised, here are pictures of my Avalanche after two applications of Liquid Glass. The pictures were take late in the day and the skies were heavily overcast. Pictures never do justice to the shine of an automobile, but here goes anyway.

Right Front

Side

Right Rear

My Reflection in the Door

As you can see from my reflection, the truck has a mirror finish.

The sun has done its job and the shine is impressive.

After the Avalanche and bike “baked” in the sun all day yesterday, I put the second coat of Liquid Glass polish on each one. I have to say that the shine totally blows me away. Both vehicles appear to have a 1/8″ coat of glass on them. I will post pictures within the next few days, although pictures typically don’t do high-gloss shines justice.

Last evening I applied Liquid Glass Pre-Cleaner to the Avalanche. I then applied the polish. I also applied polish only to my bike.

The pre-cleaner is a fairly labor intensive process. The liquid is very thick, and is best applied by putting a small amount (about the size of a quarter) on a cloth and rubbing it onto the surface in small areas (about a 2 foot square). Next, let it dry to a haze and buff it off. The pre-cleaner buffs of easily, but applying it takes some effort. I re-buffed the entire vehicle with a microfibre cloth to be sure that I had removed all of the powdery residue. There was not much white powder left from the initial buffing, but I wanted to make sure that the surface was as “pure” as possible before applying the polish. The results of using only the pre-cleaner were super. All water stains and dullness in the paint were removed and the surface had a high shine.

The next step was to apply the polish. The polish goes on easily and also buffs off easily. There’s an interesting twist in applying and buffing the polish, however. The manufacturer recommends that you should not use a circular motion, but instead, use a straight back and forth motion. This takes a little getting used to as I think we all unconciously use a circular motion when rubbing and buffing on our cars. I was extremely pleased with the finish. I can hardly wait to see the results this evening. The finish supposedly improves after baking in the sun for 4 hours. The shine on the bike was also super.

Tonight, I’ll put another coat of polish on both. Stay tuned.