Kentucky Derby with Noah: Oaks145

Friday was a beautiful day for Kentucky Oaks. It was early afternoon by the time we all got to the track, but that was plenty of time as the Oaks is not actually until about 5:30pm.

Chris, Tracy, Kevin and I had lunch at O'Charley's over near the restaurant that Bill loves, Bob Evans. We would have eaten there, but the wait was more than we wanted to wait. We ate most of lunch at O'Charley's before Bill joined us. He wasn't going to eat, but we had plenty of leftovers and he could not pass those up.

After O'Charley's, Bill drove us over to the backside. Tim had left him a parking pass and we rolled through the gate with no questions asked. It was awesome!

April, Missy, Momma and Kyle met us all at the VFW along with Kelly and Wes and all of us drove over to the backside with the guys riding in the back of Bill's pick-up truck.

We lucked up and got a fantastic parking spot right up on the track next to a set of stables on the back stretch. Great spot.

Before the actual Oaks race, I bought everyone tickets to trackside and we all walked through the metal detector on the backside, through the tunnel to the infield, through the tunnel to the trackside and to our seats in the grandstands. We had a really great view of the track just about where the horses lined up and started the races.

Going through one of the tunnels

My sister and her pink hat

April, Momma and Missy on the rail for one of the races.

Noah, April, Kyle with the Spires behind us.

Missy, April, Noah, Annette, Kyle and the Spires

After the races, we made our way out of the track and took a golf cart ride over to the VFW where we all partied there for a while. Kelly sang karaoke. We all danced and I stayed the night with Momma, April, Kyle and Missy at Tim and Courtney's beautiful house in Indiana.