Saturday

Janet and I have known Kevin and Coni since 1988 when we were neighbors. We have done a lot of road trips together in the 17 years that we have known them. When we are at a motel it always amazes me how we never really have to set a time that we will be up and ready to go in the morning, it just always seems to happen (the time is usually in proportion to how hard we hit it the night before). This trip we hit the nail on the head once again...we then went downstairs to eat breakfast and get checked out.

We love the breakfasts at Myrtie Mae's so we usually make this a priority before heading to the car show on Saturday mornings. When we enter the cars in the show we usually try to be staged closer towards 10:00 AM. This year we had planned to show Mike and Chastity around down town before the show and then take the Trolley over to Pine Mountain Village afterwards. Mike and Chastity where a little slower getting around after their late arrival the previous evening so we went ahead and ate without them. We loitered in the parking lot for a while, and finally told Mike and Chastity we would just meet them downtown after they got out of the restaurant.

Another Round of Shopping...

Janet and Coni wanted to find some gifts for the kids, and Kevin and I wanted to shoot a few pictures of the downtown area. We sent them on their way and proceeded towards Main Street. The crowd and traffic flow were picking up at a rapid pace. You could tell this was going to be another busy Saturday in Eureka Springs. The funniest thing that happened to us during this time frame was the hyperactive lady that tried to unload her car in a no parking zone in front of the Basin Spring Park. She didn't see the Police officer on his bike setting across the street. She got one box out of her trunk before he finally got her to move her car. We told her we would watch her box of goodies, and did so for about 20 minutes...finally we just took it up to the tables where they were having the domestic violence sing along.

Anatomy of The Cover Shot...

With the girls hitting the shops, I wanted to go and try to find the "cover shot" for BadBrad.com's 2005 ESCW web site page. I usually like to take a picture of just the banner, or if I am lucky to catch a lone Corvette underneath of it. In 2002 all I got was the banner. In 2003 we caught the red convertible in a gentle rain shower. In 2004 there was no banner so I had to make my own. I took the 2003 banner and changed the information with the 2004 info. Both the 2003 and 2004 pictures subsequently ended up on someone else's web site with their initials on it which made me a little mad. I could care less if someone takes any of these pictures to do what they will with them. It was just a little frustrating to see something I spent a lot of time on with someone else's name on it on another web site.

As I took up position across the street from the ESCW banner I noted the massive amount of traffic in town already. I figured it would take a good 30 minutes to an hour to get the picture I was looking for. I hadn't been standing there for more than 3 minutes when I spotted this sweet looking black C6 heading down the street. They wanted to turn left, so they had to wait for the traffic to clear. It all fell into place and I knew I had the shot I was looking for. In a perfect world it would have been sunny instead of overcast, but this was close enough. My little Nikon was shooting as fast as it could (it is an older, slower model...honey I need a new digital SLR!). While all of this was happening Kevin had run back to the car to get an extra battery for his camera. While I waited for him to return I went ahead and got a backup shot of the yellow C6. After I got the pictures on the computer it was obvious that the black C6 was going to be my choice this year. I put all four pictures of the black C6 below to show you what it looked like as he made his turn. Thanks to whoever you are!!!

I also have added a concept picture for next year's show using the yellow C6 picture. I think I will get "Traction Control Boy" on the phone and see what he thinks about it...

Why On Earth Did I Lock The Car? Back To Climbing Over...

We got the call from Mike and Chastity that they were ready to meet up and head to the car show, so we set up a meeting at the Trolley Depot. We met the girls at the cars to put the gifts that the they had purchased away. I figured that since I was able to lock the door the previous night at Sparky’s that I would go ahead and do it again. My luck was bound to change, right? Uh, no…I could tell when I hit the door lock switch that it didn’t sound right. Sure enough it was stuck again. At this point I really didn't care. I basically had given up on the car for the weekend. I still dig the ride, but I was just anxious to get it home to tear into it and see what the deal was with the door lock. The ESCW was drawing to a close for us, and I figured from here on out I would just try to make sure no one was looking when I did my entrance into the car.

Trolley To The Car Show, and Taking Care of Business...

We got to the Trolley Depot and purchased our passes to get out to the Pine Mountain Village area and the car show. We then went outside the depot to watch the people and wait for the "blue line" trolley to show up. Then we waited some more, and waited again for what seemed like thirty to 40 minutes. Finally the blue line showed up and we were off to the car show. (Mental note: I saw a C2 backing out of an open car repair shop during the trolley ride to the car show). The car show had a good crowd as usual and we began to make the rounds. Usually at this time Kevin will venture up to the tower to take his sky photos (no way in hell I am going up there!), but he decided to bypass it this year because the tower was being over run by smaller kids. We made stops at the tent to purchase some ESCW apparel, drinks at the ice cream shop, and then we admired everyone's hard work that they had put into their cars. We also tried to help Mike in his future Corvette purchasing decision.

My favorite car at the show this year was the black "TCB" C3. (I believe it was an 80 or 81, I do not remember which). Of course there is probably some bias in my decision owning a similar body style, but that was my choice for best of show. There were so many others that I really liked, but this one was my favorite. The Elvis plate was the finishing touch. I toured Graceland for the first time this year, and I was still in the mood for anything Elvis. Uh-thank ya! Anyway, that is what I look for when I am at these car shows. It doesn't take a brand new car with $10,000 worth of add on accessories hanging off of it to impress me.

After we made the rounds it was time to head back downtown for lunch. We usually walk down the street from the car show just a bit to load the yellow line trolley for the return trip. This allows us to bypass the hoard of people trying to get back into town on the blue line at the show. It was there that I saw a new Z06 for the only time during the weekend. My family had toured the Bowling Green assembly plant on our vacation this year and at that time we had seen a new silver Z06 just like this one coming off the line. It sounded so bad-ass...I couldn't help but wonder to myself if this was the car that we saw coming off the assembly line in Bowling Green back in August.

Another Lunch Upstairs...

Now that we were back in the center of town we needed to decide where we were going to eat lunch. Janet wanted her brother to experience the magic of the Balcony Bar and Restaurant. I was hesitant to call this a good idea because past experience has taught me that this restaurant is a total zoo on early Saturday afternoons. Like a good husband I kept my mouth shut (I am probably going to get it for that comment) and followed the crowd towards the Basin Park Motel. Once upstairs I noticed that the restaurant was completely packed as expected. One of the waiters told us to put our name on the waiting list for outside seating, which we did. We hung out at the bar, and waited for a table for six to become available. To make a long story short it was evident that the restaurant was understaffed and that this was going to be a long lunch. After about an hour we finally secured two tables for four, with the 3 girls at one table, and the 3 guys at the other. We were unable to get a table on the outside row of the balcony so that we could do the people watch thing, but that was O.K. at this point. I was just ready to get out of there. It seemed like I had spent the entire day waiting…whether it be for trolleys, bathrooms, or at restaurants. I was starting to need that quiet spot on the dock at the lake…

This is not to say that we still didn’t see some weird stuff at the restaurant that afternoon that we will look back on and laugh about. The one that I am going to mention here was by far the funniest of them all. There was a rather attractive couple facing each other setting directly behind the table full of us guys. Mike just happened to notice that at one point the woman had her foot up between this guy’s thighs underneath the table…needless to say they were not around too much longer. I tried to get Kevin to sneak a picture under the table, but he wouldn’t do it. CHICKEN!