Well, to try and pull things up again a little bit ... my mem
day was awesome! Here's how I dolled up the car for the parade
[select the pic for a larger copy to read the signs]:
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I managed to come up with a small batch of simple inoffensive
and not-too-smug messages, keeping it to a minimum since it
would have to be read on the fly. Some are the attractors
I usually stick to the car at the energyfests anyways. The
"right foot" strip was an inspiration as I woke up around 6am
this morning, and took a while to print and tape together
but I think it totally worked. It's still on the car as
of this evening, and I might just drive around with it for
a couple of days until it starts to shred itself.
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They weren't staging up the parade cars in any particular order
so I just lined up behind some ol' coupe and soon this vintage
truck pulled in behind me and several more cars filled in
behind us along the side of the road. I had no idea there
were that many of them around here; they must only come out
for special occasions.
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After checking in with the coordinator I ran around frantically
finalizing my decor and handing flyers to a couple of vintage
owners who were definitely bemused by this techie pod dropping
into their midst. Soon the parade actually got moving. I was
basically sandwiched in between a bunch of muscle cars, and
it was a continual rumble of lumpy cams and glasspacks both
fore and aft. [And they did *not* shut down to descend a small
hill...] This allowed me to make the "those guys can make
all the noise for me!" comments as I waved to people while
drifting silently along. And they seemed to love it! I kept
hearing a ton of comments, "yay prius!" "go green!" "that's
the best car!" "is there a raffle for that one?" which was
just incredible to hear around me.
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But what really got 'em going was this piece of my signage,
another early-morning inspiration:
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which I frequently heard back toward me as a half-question,
like "look at that, *65* miles per gallon??" to which I would
occasionally reply "yep, that's real life!" ... because that's
what was honestly sitting on my display with about 450 miles on
the tank. A few of us went down to Newport to tour some of the
big ol' mansions [ahem, "summer cottages"] yesterday, and I drove,
and without even workin' it that hard that's what I came back
with. 260 butt-miles per gallon for that run with 4 people.
Newport was awesome, and yesterday had been a totally perfect day
for it. Now we were having another perfect day for this, and I
was definitely opening a few eyes as I slid quietly past.
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After the parade they had the usual speeching, which was a minor
struggle for me to keep overlooking the continual invocation
of imaginary friends, but whatever...
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and the expected pseudomilitaristic pyrotechnics from the
Olde Redding Battery folks.
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Then a bunch of people from my neighborhood had a cookout in
the local park, and I got a little bit of bike ridin' in before
the day was over. All in all, a good time. Only downside was
that the participants scattered fairly soon after the parade
was over, so I didn't really have a chance to run around and
get more pictures.
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_H*