no rest for the weird

I'm just starting to feel settled in and already it's time to start thinking about the next art car event. This one is in Mount Dora, Florida, from August 18-20. Mount Dora is the highest elevation in Florida. Which, if you know anything about Florida, will tell you that it's not really a mountain. I think in fact it's 200 feet above sea level. This is my second year at the event, and it's kind of brutal to be out in the sun all weekend in Florida in August. But other than that, it's a great event. Nice people and a nice location. It's a chichi little town full of shops, like Blowing Rock, NC or New Hope, PA.

They put us up in a really nice historic hotel, which best of all is (just like Louisville) within walking distance of the car display area. One thing I really don't like about art car events is when they stick you in a parking lot for hours, with no shade, no bathroom, no water, no nothing, and sometimes no way to leave until they say you can go. At Mt. Dora and Louisville, you can go back to the hotel room and cool off anytime you want. It makes such a huge difference. Even better, at both events there's an indoor space right there where you can get cold water and use the bathroom. It's the Museum of Art and Craft in Louisville; in Mount Dora each car has an assigned parking space, and the store we're parked in front of has water and facilities for us. The point of the event is to draw people into the town during the off-season. Which means that, even though we have to be there during such bad weather, the town is really nice to us.

The only bummer about this event is that I'll be on my own. Georg can't go since he used up too much vacation earlier in the year. I have some friends who live about an hour from Mt. Dora, and I was hoping to get together with them, but they have to travel a lot for work and it turns out they'll be away that weekend. Dang! Oh well, I kind of enjoyed my solo drive to Houston and I'm sure this will be fun too. I'm looking forward to seeing friends like Dean (Miss Vicky) and Hamburger Harry and Felicia (Catgoyle Cavy). I don't even know who else is going to be there, except that two of the drivers who met last year are getting married on Friday night! That should be a blast.

Last year we did the drive in two days and stopped in Savannah on the way. This year I'm going to try to do it in one. It's going to be a long day, but unless Mapquest and Yahoo maps are way wrong, it won't be too bad. (On the other hand, Google map thinks the drive will take 13 hours. If Google is right, I'm screwed). I'm going to drive down on Thursday and spend Friday relaxing before the event gets going. There's a TV thing Friday morning but it's right at the hotel, and then I'll be free the rest of the day. Saturday and Sunday are the event days. Then Sunday night I'll drive a few hours, just to get a jump on the trip (added benefit: I'm sure I can find a cheaper hotel on the road than the swank place the event is putting us in Mount Dora). Then I'll finish the drive on Monday.

The cooler full of food worked pretty well in Louisville -- helped us feel more in control of the situation, to know we always had good food on hand -- so I'll do that again. Unfortunately I didn't find much on Roadfood.com for stopping on the drive. So I guess it will be packed food on the way down and fast food on the way up. Maybe I can time it to stop for lunch in Savannah. Last year we had dinner at this amazing restaurant called Toucan Cafe. I wonder if they serve lunch?

The other bummer is that I had all these great ideas for improving Undersea Mah Jongg last weekend, but there's no time to implement any of them, even if it weren't too hot to work on the car. Oh well, next year for sure!