Le Mans/Normandy/Finland

First up, two of my friends and I took a drive out to Le Mans for the 24 hour race.  Unfortunately, I am apparently the only current Mancard holder in the group, so I got to drive the entire 7 hours (that turned in to 14) with no help.  The rental we got was a manual and one of the others couldn't get it at all.  The other one drove for about 30 minutes before getting too scared to continue.  In truth, I was also terrified the entire time.  We got to the track at about 8 the night before the race.  It took us another 3 hours to get to the campsite for a couple of reasons.  First, they overbooked the campground we had tickets for, so we had to drive further to get to the overflow campground.  Our original site was at the Porsche corner.  We ended up somewhere near the corner leading in to the Mulsanne Straight.  The real big hold up though, were the huge crowds of drunk fans trying to get people to do burnouts in the street.  Lots of people obliged.

Parking lots like this one were very common.

The race was pretty cool, and we had good weather other than a shower at the start.  The LMP1 class was very close for most of the race, but ended with Audi taking 1st and 2nd and Toyota getting 3rd.  

We packed up the next day and made our way north to Normandy to see the beaches.  First stop was Omaha, which was pretty neat.  

Next we went up to Pointe du Hoc which was amazing.  Craters and ruined bunkers everywhere.

This was where the Rangers scaled 90 foot cliffs to take the German stronghold so they couldn't shell Allied ships.  

The memorial at the site is quite phallic, I noticed.  No doubt this was an intentional tribute to the massive cojones these guys had. 

After going back to work for a day, we got a plane bound for Finland for their Midsummer celebration.  Like many northern areas, Midsummer is a celebration of the summer solstice when it is light all day long.  Apparently last year was very warm, this year we weren't so lucky.  Highs barely broke 50, lows in the low 40s.  None the less, we still celebrated the Finnish way: Drinking excessively, lots of time in the sauna followed by very short stints in the lake, and talking crap about the Russians.  

This is a picture over the lake at midnight. The building by the lake is the traditional smoke sauna.

This is the same place at 3 A.M.

And of course, the traditional bonfire.