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I haven't posted all week, because I am lame. But I have finally posted my photos from the Mount Dora art car event.

Hitting the road immediately after the art car event wound up, at 4 pm today, seemed like a good idea at the time. The plan was to drive until I felt tired, then stop at a motel for the night, and finish the trip in the morning.

I followed the plan until about 8 pm, when I stopped outside Savannah to grab a bite of dinner and find a motel. While they were bringing up my food at Wendy's, I turned around to get some ketchup and saw a cockroach. Crawling around in the sugar packets. Ugh ... ew... bleh.

I hope the people at Wendy's realized what a favor I did them: I did not scream oh Christ there's a cockroach in the sugar packets and scare away the other customers. Instead I calmly told the girl behind the counter about the cockroach. Looked around and discovered the health rating was not visible. Grabbed my iced tea, left the food, got in my car and back onto I-95. I was in no mood to eat after that and I wanted to put as much distance between myself and that sordid scene as possible.

So I guess it was inevitable that I would end up driving the whole way home tonight. I was just tired of hotels and wanted to wake up in my own bed tomorrow. Probably not my smartest road trip decision ever, but I made it home in one piece. Stopped for a snack out of the cooler and an hour-long nap around midnight, and then I was good to go. Got home about 10 minutes ago.

I think Georg might have had some inkling that I was going to drive straight through, because the kitchen light had been left on. He's asleep but the dogs greeted me with great enthusiasm, as dogs do. They're both quiet dogs so I didn't have to worry about them waking Georg up. I turned off my headlights as I pulled into the driveway, but my car must have woken Jane up because I could see her watching me out the window. She came bounding out the door, hopping around with excitement. (Then of course she ran past me to check for squirrels in the front yard. But at least I got her undivided attention for the first minute or two.) Thirteen was still asleep when I came in, but I woke her up by petting her head. It was kind of comical to see her thought process go from "wha-huh-what?" for the first few seconds, to intently sniffing my arm like "hey, I know this person! something important is happening!" to tail-thumping "it's the girl! the girl is back! my girl is back!"

Now they're both sleeping. And I should be too.

Today was the main day of the art car weekend. We had to be outside and ready to go at 9:30, and if I recall correctly we actually left fairly close to that time. We caravaned over to a neighboring town, which was fun, although it being fairly early on Saturday morning, we hardly saw anyone. Still, it was fun to drive along beautiful lakeside roads with all the art cars. I was near the front of the line and several people told me that the bubbles were particularly long-lasting. People at the end of the line, 15 cars behind me, were seeing the bubbles! I don't know if it was the brand of bubble juice or what. I got it at Walgreens. I'll have to go back and stock up.

We caravaned back to Mount Dora for the parade. Which was great, they had a nice big crowd. The downtown is very small, but they have us circle around twice so the parade lasts longer. They had us park downtown in assigned spots for the afternoon. Each car has a donation box with a sign asking people to "vote" for the car by donating a dollar. All the money goes to the local hospice, and the cars which bring in the most money win prizes. They haven't announced the winner yet, but since Sashimi Tabernacle Choir is here I think I know!

Besides Sashimi Tabernacle Choir, there's another showstopper here that I had never seen before, called Finn Jet. It's from West Palm Beach, which apparently has the largest Finn community in the US, and was made by Antti Rahko, who's sort of a Finnish cowboy. Finn Jet is a long silver car made from 2 Mercedes station wagons welded together, with decorative elements from 40 other makes and models added. It's amazing. I took lots of photos which I will post as soon as I get home.

This year I was parked on the busiest street in Mount Dora, so I was pretty busy talking with people. Except one time when I ran into the store to get a bottle of water, I never left the car all afternoon! I'm a little bummed that I didn't get to walk around and visit with the other drivers, but I had some really nice conversations at UMJ. An older couple who have a boat gave me great advice on a durable marine glue, and where to buy it. And I heard a new description of UMJ that I'd never heard before: "Lawrence Welk car"! I guess because of the bubbles. I have to admit I've never even seen the Lawrence Welk show.

I tried a new thing this year: music. No Lawrence Welk! Christa let me borrow her Divaville CDs to make a playlist of fun, upbeat standards and pop. I ended up with a lot of Louis Jordan, a lot of Perez Prado, a lot of Eartha Kitt, plus selections from a bunch of other people. Well anyway, the music was a moderate success. I was using Georg's iPod player, which worked fine, but in order to make it audible outside the car it had to be ear-splittingly loud inside the car. I need to get outdoor speakers. The ones that look like rocks aren't too expensive, and I could paint them blue so they wouldn't look weird on UMJ.

We were supposed to stay parked until 4 pm, but I ducked out at 3:30. I could tell that I had gotten a sunburn and I was having that feeling, that I was OK but if I had to stand outside in the sun for another half hour I was going to be miserable for the rest of the day. So I left a half hour early, had a quick shower and a nap before dinner, and now I feel fine. Except the sunburn, which looks kind of ugly around my neck and shoulders.

Holy crap! I'm watching a show on the Travel Channel called Wacky RVs or something. RV Crazy. They're doing a segment on Antti Rahko, the creator of Finn Jet! They're showing an elongated RV he made by welding 4 Chevy vans together. It has a sauna inside, natch. Hey, there's Jorma! Jorma is here this weekend interpreting for Antti. On the TV show he was inside the sauna beating himself with a branch. Those wacky Finns.

Now they're showing Finn Jet! Well maybe. It's called "Silver Turbo" on the show and doesn't have nearly as much ornamentation. It's possible that he made 2 different art cars by welding two Mercedes station wagons together. But I think it's the same car. The body shape is very similar, and some of the decorations (like the 6 side mirrors on each side) are there, as is the "Thank You Lord For Humor" sticker on the rear window. I can't wait to tell Jorma and Antti tomorrow that I saw them on TV.

I'm just back from the art car wedding! The bride and groom were Regina and Tom, drivers of Mom's Clutter Heap and Sun n Sand Van, respectively. They met at last year's Mt. Dora parade and got married at this year's. Isn't that sweet?

The ceremony started almost an hour late, but the reception was first so no one minded. We all just sat around the pool and snacked and chatted. The bar graciously gave me free refills on my iced tea so I gave my extra drink tickets to other art car drivers. The ceremony itself was perfect: short and heartfelt. And here I am, chilling for the evening.

The TV thing this morning was kind of comical. The TV woman seemed like a transplanted urbanite: she was wearing all black (including a sweater), extremely pointy shoes, a kicky hairstyle, and a very ... voluble way of speaking. She would have looked right at home in Soho, but in this tiny, charming Florida town it was a bit incongruous. She spent all her time with the Sashimi Tabernacle choir and didn't film UMJ at all. I don't blame her -- if I were doing a TV segment on art cars, I'd focus on Sashimi Tabernacle Choir too. It's such an awesome car, & the movement and sound make it so much more effective on TV. But still, I wish we hadn't had to stand outside sweating for hours.

After the TV thing a bunch of us had a great lunch at a cute little cafe a couple of blocks from the hotel. Becky (Wheels of Imagination) spent a couple of months here last winter, so she knows where all the good spots are. Funny story about Becky: This morning I walked over to the little bakery to get a bagel and pilfer a fork and spoon. A woman outside the bakery asked me if I was with the art car event, and when I said yes, she told me "I'm Becky's girlfriend." I didn't know Becky was gay but I like her a lot, so I told the woman (whose name I forget) I was very happy to meet her. I asked her when she had arrived in Mount Dora and she said that she lives here. I almost said something about the difficulty of a long distance relationship, but then decided that I didn't know her well enough for such a personal remark.

A little while later I saw Becky. She asked after Georg, and so naturally I mentioned that I had met her girlfriend. She had absolutely no idea what I was talking about! Turns out she's not gay and not even in a relationship. She wasn't offended or anything, just amused. Her main reaction was to ask, "So what does my girlfriend look like?" I was happy to assure her that her girlfriend is pretty and seemed really nice. We finally figured out who the mystery girlfriend is, and that she had meant the term in the old-fashioned sense of "good friend who is a girl." Since Becky's nickname is Queen Becky, I almost asked her "girlfriend" if she was a queen too. I'm so glad I didn't! I know Becky well enough to joke around like that, but it would have been really awkward with this other woman.

I'm in Mount Dora! The drive was easy -- almost exactly 10 hours. (I was thinking on the way down how much my definition of an "easy" road trip has changed. I used to think 6 hours was a terribly long drive.) Google Maps said to take major highways the whole way -- I-95 to Daytona and then I-4 west -- but AAA had me on state roads for the last hundred miles.

I took the AAA route and I'm really glad I did. At first it was like the busiest part of 15-501, lots of stoplights and traffic, incredibly frustrating after going 70 mph on the interstate. But eventually the road opened up and the traffic went away and it was a beautiful drive through a national forest. It was lovely and eerie, and kept changing: first pine trees covered with bright green moss, and mist swirling around them; then live oaks and Spanish moss; then the aftermath of a forest fire: acres of blackened, bare pines, still smoldering in places. At the welcome center for the forest was a Smokey the Bear sign that said "Moderate Fire Danger Today."

About 15 miles north of Mount Dora I passed a barbecue joint called "Old Crow Pit Smoked Bar-B-Q." It looked like it had been there forever -- always a good sign for barbecue -- and at 6 pm it was already crowded -- another good sign. I would have stopped right then but I ate my sandwich really late, when this photo was taken in fact. Funny story about that photo: I pulled into the rest stop, snapped that photo and then sat down to eat my sandwich. A car pulled up next to mine, sat there for a few minutes, and then a guy got out and asked me if he could take a picture of the car. His wife got out too and chatted with me, and it turned out they had seen my car several states away, and had followed me into the rest stop to get the photo! Just think, we were driving along together for hundreds of miles. The wife really loved UMJ because she collects Barbies.

So anyway, I had lunch really late so I wasn't hungry when I drove past the Old Crow barbecue place at 6. And then when I got to Mount Dora, there was a street fair going on with streets blocked off and art cars parked in the middle. I had thought to track down the event organizer and take my car to the street fair. But by the time I had checked into the hotel and gotten my bags up to my room, I suddenly realized that I was way too tired to do anything. So I took a shower, got comfy and had dinner from the cooler. Now I'm watching TV (Carole Lombard night on TCM! Yay!). And I have a terrible dilemma: I have a container of peach cobbler Georg made for me, but no fork! I forgot to pack a fork. And I'm in my pajamas! I think the cobbler may have to wait until tomorrow.

I never did a thorough write-up of the Louisville event, but I have to mention one thing that happened. We were on the illuminated cruise -- well actually, we were in a small group that accidently got sent out before the main cruise, sort of the advance guard. And by the way, a huge thank you to the architectural salvage car for stopping and waiting for us when they got through a light and we didn't.

Anyway, we were on the illuminated cruise. Which is not really like an official parade; it's more like the cars just get all lit up and drive around town. We're in a group but mixed in with the regular traffic, and there's no police escort. I was thinking to myself about the first illuminated cruise I ever did in Houston. There was this one moment where I looked to my left and realized I was being passed by a fully lit sailboat that was blaring Timo Maas. It was an incredible feeling of "I can't believe this is happening. This is the weirdest and coolest thing ever." And I was thinking to myself that this was my fourth illuminated cruise, and it was a little sad that I'll probably never get that rush of excitement again, because as much as I enjoy the cruise, it's not a new experience for me anymore.

I was musing on this, and I glanced over to my left and saw a car pulled up next to us at a stoplight. UMJ had its lights on and the bubble machine running, and it looked pretty good if I do say. There was a teenage boy in the back seat, gaping with his mouth literally open. The look on his face said, as clearly as if he were speaking out loud: "I can't believe this is happening. This is the weirdest and coolest thing ever."

Sometimes I love my life.

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!

On pretty much every road trip I see people taking Undersea Mah Jongg's picture. Sometimes they're nice enough to send me links to the photos. And sometimes, if I'm really lucky, they catch me scratching (just scratching, I promise!) my nose.

My photos from Louisville are online. Like I said, I didn't get as many photos as I would have liked due to equipment problems. On Friday my best lens mysteriously stopped autofocusing. By fiddling with it I got it to focus in, but never to focus out. That worked ok: I would just focus all the way in by turning the ring, and then let the camera focus out to the correct focus. But it took me awhile to figure that out.

I'm rather bummed out about the lens. To be honest, I would have rather the camera body had broken. The body only cost slightly more than the lens, and it would have been a good excuse to upgrade. I'm using the original Digital Rebel which I gather lacks some of the features of the XT. But the lens is exactly what I want. If I have to replace it, I'm going to get the exact same thing, except a model that will last more than a year.

So I'm going to call around and see if I can get the lens repaired. In the meantime, I spent so much time trying to figure out what was wrong with my camera that I forgot to charge the spare battery, and the camera died pretty early on Saturday. So I didn't get nearly as many photos as I would have wanted. At least I got a few decent ones, which are now posted.

My second stay at the Prince Conti and I have one complaint: the noise. Not just the bar bands on Bourbon Street, which they have no control over, but the walls are pretty thin too. (Fortunately the only noise I can hear from the next room is talking. So it's just annoying, not icky.) Still, the hotel is cheap, charming, convenient and has net access. So I'm still happy with the experience. Good thing I have earplugs!

The drive to New Orleans yesterday was kind of a pain -- bad traffic a couple of times, including one place where the signs said I-10 was closed and we were going to have to detour up I-45 N, but by the time we got to I-45 (20 minutes later) the traffic had cleared. I guess they hadn't had a chance to turn off the sign. I never did see what had happened; by the time we got to Whiskey Bay, where the road was supposed to be closed, everything looked totally normal.

Anyway, after all that traffic I took it easy last night, and plan to do the same today. Found a place last night called Coop's that has rabbit jambalaya and free wireless. My kind of place! I would have stayed all night but it's not a large place and I didn't want to monopolize the table. I might go back tonight though.

Today I learned that muffuletta is pronounced moof-a-lot-a. I learned this while ordering a muff-a-let-a from Verti Mart. So much for my grand plan to pass as a local. At least I'm not wearing a fanny pack. The Verti Mart muffuletta, by the way, was not as good as the one last week from Central Grocery. The bottom piece of bread was completely saturated with olive oil. I mean wet through and sitting in a puddle of oil. I thought it was because they made it in advance, but the Central Grocery muffuletta sat in my cooler all day and never got like that. I still have 2/3 of the sandwich left, here's hoping it seems more appetizing this evening.

I thought the way I'd been eating the past few days, I'd have gained a little weight. But this morning I discovered that I can put my favorite jeans on without unbuttoning them. I like my jeans a little loose in the seat, but this is a bit much. I think I need more beignets!

The plan is to explore the garden district this afternoon, but that may turn out to be too much walking for my lazy self. We'll see how it goes!