i awoke feeling far more refreshed than last year at this time. drove out to the gathering area in the front and we had of course been joined by many north texas folks, including kevin buchanan and his grandmother in Spirit, Yellow Rose of Texas (I think they came last year-- nice folks but i didn't get their names! and a very nice car), BoBug being driven by Jim D'Englere and his wife (they remembered me from last year, but I didn't remember them-- kind of a problem I had for the rest of the weekend), an Isotope, the Alien Love Bug, I think one Vapor, and a host of others. All told there were 31 of us. The Houston group didn't join up in Dallas this year, so the group was smaller than last year.

we had a nice meet-and-greet in the parking lot, and as i was getting things set up terry (of yellow fever) came and had a look at my setup. he said, "wow, do ya need an extra battery to power all of that?" oh no, i said, it's fine. and then i had a big hand-slapping-forehead moment, "D'oh!!" maybe that's what killed my a/c? i just overloaded the poor thing. So I went as easy on it as i could the rest of the day, let the ibook run on its own battery a lot, and the a/c was fine all day.

The departure from Dallas didn't seem as hairy as last year, and the trip went very smoothly. i guess between lessons learned last year and the smaller number of pods, we were able to have our act together a lot more. Dennis, Sean and BUZZZ helped keep things in order by troubleshooting a noisy FRS radio. They also did a little daredevil photo-taking which involved Dennis standing up in the sunroof while we were at speed. Sean told me he hit a big gust of wind at just that moment and nearly lost control of the car.

The town of Sweetwater, TX was more than ready for us this year! There were greeting signs everywhere and the schlotzky's folks were giving out free cookies to everyone. we swarmed the place, and some locals in line with me asked what was going on.

after eating we converged in a gravel lot where the chamber of commerce was handing out free goodies and the local news was interviewing. They interviewed Steve, then Tyler, then Steve directed them to me, and I told them about the web cams in the Spacepod. So I guess I was on tv somewhere in texas, but none of us will probably ever see it. The reporter told me that she was going to offer the story to the Dallas stations though.

The Sweetwater purple color-changer was there but they took their own route to roswell and didn't come with the caravan. the guy who owns it and did the work on it was there explaining stuff about the car to everyone.

Our next stop was at a Dairy Queen which we briefly swarmed, then on to the final push for roswell. Several miles out from town Spirit was low on gas. Kevin had to shut off his a/c and could not pass a truck that was holding us up. Yellow Rose stayed with him, and another car traded a passenger with him so his grandmother did not have to ride in the car with no a/c. by this time it was around 100 degrees and must have been quite misreable in the car. Thank goodness for the FRS radios so we knew what was going on. and here i will begin a refrain which will probably continue throughout this journal-- these people are amazing. if there's ever a problem, you can count on someone coming to your rescue and looking out for you. (of course-- i know this first hand-- with my a/c adventure.)

around this time i really had to pee (ok, everyone on the caravan knows about my peeing habits, so i might as well share with the world :) but didn't want to be separated from teh caravan again in this final push. by the time we hit the city limit i just couldn't stand it any more-- stopped at a gas station, and teri in smylz stayed with me so she could help me unload the car later. as i was coming out teri said, "look who's here..." and there was Kevin and Spirit, filling up at last.

we then went to the sally port for registration. everyone was there! deja vw, that beautiful car that greeted us last time, was being shot by the local news, along with cueball and a couple others. howie was working registration, and we found stephanie too. headed out to our hotel and stephanie, teri and stan were incredible helping me get every last thing out of the SP. i don't know what i would have done without them.

i was feeling so much better than last year at this point-- not really tired at all. stephanie and i headed out to the skywatch party shortly thereafter.

the lot was already packed by the time we got there. the energy was amazing, to be around all the bugs, all the people, seeing folks that we hadn't seen in a year, or hadn't ever met. while walking in i spotted chris hanner, which was really great. later chris found me and made me come look at his car... "I've done a few things to it, I want you to see..." and oh my goodness, the man had been hard at work. on a trailer behind the car was a miniature old beetle in the same yellow as his car (which now has the plate GRUVEN). he explained that he'd made this perfect model beetle himself, from scratch-- welded it together. it was flawless. i was stunned.

i was in stealth mode, no name tag. we ran in to cameron and karen talley and they began an avid conversation with steph while i stood by. finally karen turned to me and introduced herself... "hi, i'm karen talley" "i'm lisa linn, nice to meet you" "OH! LISA!!" hehe.

i also managed to meet a host of people who remembered meeting me last year but who i did not remember meeting, which made me appreciate just how out of it i must have been. they all seemed to be fairly understanding of this.

inside i ran into jan peters. as we were talking a slighty scruffy guy dressed all in blue and wearing a slouchy hat came up to say something to jan. they spoke for a moment, then jan turned to me and said, "lisa, this is blue nelson. blue, this is lisa linn." WHOA!!! for those who don't know, blue did the VW Adventure web project, the web site for which was one of the major inspirations for this site. he is also a bit of a celeb in the VW world, as well as being a filmmaker. i proceeded to make a total fool of myself "you're blue nelson? oh my god, your web site blah blah blah blah..." he explained that the vw adventure web site basically melted down once he got to europe due to the number of hits it was getting, and although it's down now, it will be back again some day, with lots of stuff including footage from travelling in russia. yay! turned out blue was at r2k to work the tva booth. he also told me that he'd gotten some blue valve stem lights (VSL's) and our police escort for the bug glow had agreed to let him ride along and shoot some film, and put the VSL's on the cop car.

later in the lot i found the one person who could really appreciate why meeting blue nelson was significant, kevin buchanan. he was totally knocked down, too, "blue is here? really???!?! wow. wow!" hehe.

also inside i saw russ and he introduced me to mike who had run web cams in a borrowed nb during the western caravan. jan had helped mike get a loaner nb from his dealership, and with russ' help mike had created a cam setup based on what i had done last year. it wasn't fully baked so he didn't publicize the url, but he said he'd like to join a differnt caravan next year and run the cams for real. of course mike and i had a lot to talk about, went outside and looked over each other's setups. he had a d'oh! moment when he saw the cam stuck in the bud vase, and i had a d'oh! moment when i saw his cams clipped to the edge of the headliner in front of the rearview mirror, one turned to the front and the other to the back.

before long the lot was filled with bugs and people elaborately adorned with glow items. there were lots of novel glow ideas in effect, including a few computers, a neon clock, and of course fuse VSL's and plastic glow items. after a bit of gridlock the glow-enabled pods lined out and filed out onto a dark desert road.

the air was delicious and i ran with windows and sunroof open, and fatboy slim on the stereo. it was black except for the long line of glowing pods and the effect was transcendental and hypnotic.

there were lots of folks taking photos and shooting video along the way so hopefully some of that stuff will surface.

stephanie, jim and i later went to wash our cars at an all night car wash, which was kind of a nice, quiet time. it was about 1am by the time we finished; when we got back to the room i worked on the cam setup for saturday until about 2:30 at which point i was unable to think (since my body thought that it was actually 4:30am), and gave up til morning.