Live Music, Road Trips, Strawberry Moons & Hot Rods

Since Thursday I've been going pretty much non-stop......well, I did take a long nap Saturday morning, but other than that it's been busy. We made our trip to Ann Arbor Thursday to see the Refugees and it was a good time all around. If you want to read about the trip and the concert just click on this link.

http://tcsoldnewmusicreview.blogspot.com/2008/06/refugees-live-at-ark-ann-arbor-michigan.html

We'll start with Friday here...It was a long day at work running on 3 hours sleep but I managed to last. After supper the time was spent cleaning and polishing the hot rod for Sunday's show at Chalton Park until it got too dark to see it.

Saturday I got up pretty early cuz I woke up early, but after a couple hours of sitting around (Baaad Idea, I shoulda got up and got outside and did something) I nodded off again for awhile. when I woke up I got up and headed out to the garage to push the hot rod back out and continue on with the cleaning and polishing. It was about 2:00pm when I remembered about the Feast of the Strawberry Moon Festival over on Harbor Island so I put the car away, jumped in the truck and headed over there with the camera gear and kid in tow for a couple hours. The festival has grown quite a bit since it's inception and there was lots to see. Many eras and nationalities were represented with everything from candle making to an old time lathe were on display. I find the old stuff pretty amazing.....even more so if you look around at what all our technology builds for us these days......look at difference between old buildings with their scalloped designs and intricate brick patterns (I noticed this again in Ann Arbor) to what we're putting up in the air nowadays....new buildings have no art to them, just a bunch of cement blocks piled up.....same with cars, look at the design of a 1920's car and the art and skill that was involved in making it with limitied tooling and then look at the shoeboxes that are being designed today. I used to be able to tell every car from a distance as a kid but nowadays they all look alike and they all suck. Maybe there's something to the more technology we have the less we design with art and soul in mind. (/Rant)

Anyhow, we spent a couple hours wandering around the grounds, talking with folks about what they were doing and why. We also caught the last magic show of the day which of course was for littler kids than either of us, but we still enjoyed the performance. By the time the show was over the day was winding down so we started a slow wander back to the truck and home. Chris' girlfriend, who has been in Germany since Christmas, was coming home this day and the kid was antsy to say the least. We hadn't been in the house 5 minutes when he got "the call" so I drove him over to their "summer home" out on Stickney Ridge and then came back home.....just in time to get elected to go grocery shopping with the wife. We came home from there with a couple steaks that I threw on the grill. A trip to Dairy Treat afterwards for some Ice cream and a ride to go pick up the kid wrapped things up for saturday.

Sunday morning I woke up at 4:55am, 5 minutes before the alarm was set to go off. I tried as quietly as possible to get out without waking anybody up but when I fired up the car the silence was pretty much shattered until I headed down the road. I had to stop and get gas.....another $45.00 just to get to Hastings and back. It was dark when I started out but by the time I got to Byron Center the sun had risen and it looked to be a real nice day.

I pulled onto Charlton Park road and was surprised to find that there was a line of cars and the gates weren't opened yet so I shot the breeze with the guys ahead of me until the line of hot rods started moving ahead of us. I hadn't really given it any thought but with all the torrential downpours we've been having the last week or two there has been quite a bit of flooding in the low lying areas. Well, Charlton Park sits right next to the Thornapple river and up until a couple days before the show, quite a bit of the park was still under water, When I went to park in my old spot between the river and the road I noticed a fair amount of moisture so I ended up parking across the street where the ground was a foot or two higher. I heard from other folks during the day that the park officials had been telling folks who called to inquire about the water that the show would probably not go on and that pretty much explains why there was about 1/2 as many cars this year as last. Couple that the gas prices and it's easy to see why the numbers were reduced. The quality of the rides wasn't though, some very nice cars were in attendance.

I popped the hood, put up the show board, grabbed the camera gear and headed down the road for the first walk around of the day. After a couple hours of chatting with folks and snapping pics my stomach started to growl so I headed over to the food booths and got myself a polish dog, I hiked back to the car, grabbed a pop and sat down for awhile. It was a bit after noon when I got back up and started round 2. Because of the show being 1/2 the size it usually is I was able to cover pretty much the whole area by the time it was awards time. I hung around to see who got the top prizes and money awards. After the awards were over I headed back to the car and shot all the cars I dug as they went by on their way home. Once most of the procession was over I got in the car, fired her up and headed out the park gate for home. It was a nice ride home and I did nothing after I got there except eat some supper and kick back.

Nothing big planned for the coming week. If the weather is nice I plan to go up to the castle for the weekend. it'll be the last time I can go until the middle of July because of the impending trip out west. This coming Friday is the first day of summer so It'd be a good time to go and fight some ferns, check on my pine seedlings and take a nap around the campfire. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.

TC