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Before I continue the Artscape trip report, just wanted to mention that my car is fine. One of the exhaust pipes had rusted through, that's why it was so noisy. It was a bit expensive -- I guess it must have been a big pipe! But anyway, at least it's fixed and it was nice to see my mechanics, who I really like. They wanted to hear about the parades, and I told them about the sunflower car in Houston, which really impressed them. The funny thing is that now my car is so quiet, when it's idling I can't even tell it's on! The car must have been getting gradually louder as the pipe rusted out for a while now.

Before picking up on the Artscape trip report, I have to mention that my car is in the shop. Between the parade and the horrible traffic jams, it was a weekend full of really hard driving. When I drove to work yesterday morning, I noticed that the engine was sounding loud all of a sudden. Not just loud, but loud, hole-in-the-muffler loud. At least I hope it's just a hole in the muffler. We dropped it off at my mechanic this morning.

Saturday was the big Artscape day and we had lots to do, so we got up early. The hotel had a nice big breakfast, still basically cafeteria food, but a cut above most hotel breakfasts I've seen. So we took a few minutes to eat and read the morning paper. Now, I'm not much of a "morning paper person" myself -- given the choice between a leisurely breakfast over the newspaper, and fifteen extra minutes of sleep, I'll take the sleep every day -- but it seems to be an essential ritual for Alix and so I was happy to partake.

Artscape was a blast! We drove up on Friday, stayed with our friend Alix in Columbia on Friday and Saturday nights, and came back Sunday. I wanted to write updates as it was happening, but the hotel we were staying at promised a computer room which turned out not to be functional. No big deal, I'm posting now instead!