Ohio Valley Filk Festival 19 Page 3
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Sunday around 9 EST, I think
   Back to the hotel's breakfast buffet, I wound up this time with a couple from North Carolina whose names are eluding me as I compose this, though I know the gent from r.m.f. Howard Scrimgeour wandered in presently and joined us. Afterward, I headed back to my room to get my repacking organized into That Which I Wanted With Me For The Jam Session and That Which Could Be Loaded Into Bruno Whenever Gerry was Ready. Gerry and family had wangled an extended checkout time, so I was able to stash my packables in their room and go on about my TM'ing duties.

Sunday 12:30-ish EST
   I got to introduce another filker I already knew! I first heard Renee Alper at a Rivercon some years back; had not encountered her since except in a tape I bought from Juanita.
   Following Renee's concert there was another song contest, on the topic "Six Degrees of Separation". This batch ran a bit more serious, IMHO, than the Saturday night group had.
   There seems to be some confusion on the winners for this contest; apparently the third-place winner, Eloise Mason for "Mongol Post," was also the ovff.org webmaster, and in the excitement of having won never learned who placed second. Enquiries are being made on r.m.f even as I write... The first-place winner was Cat Faber for "Moontage" (I think she said she was going to enter it in the "Blue Moon" contest but missed the deadline, but it fit the other, too, so she entered it there.)
   After the last song contestant had finished, I realized I needed to eat something, so wandered over to the consuite and grazed for a bit.
   I stopped in at the Pegasus Awards Q&A Session being run by SteveMac on the way back. Very interesting. Besides adding a 6th category this year, Steve will begin research in February toward possibly converting the voting to a "rank your choices from first to fifth" system from the current "just vote for your favorite" system. The Peggys had originally BEEN set up with that system, but too many voters had neglected to read the fine print apparently. Steve is not sure whether the 2004 Peggys will be voted preferentially, but the 2005's very well could be.
   After picking up a copy of the printed rules for the Peggys, I wandered back to the main room to catch the end of the Farewell Jam Session and hug various folks goodbye.

Sunday 4:30-ish EST, Columbus
   Joe and I were the only ones of our carpool who really had our teeth up for the Mongolian Barbecue place; fortunately there was a steakhouse just around the corner where the rest of the bunch could chow down. It turned out to be Ginny Eigel's birthday this weekend, so we trotted out the Birthday Dirge at the instigation of Seanan McGuire.
   Next thing we knew, Seanan was folding the tortillas into origami cranes.
   Since our carpool had no extra riders to return to the hotel, we opted to hit the road directly from the end of the meal, once we got re-connected. This put us on the road about 3 hours earlier than we had originally figured.
   Having come from Little Rock by the southern route through Memphis, Nashville, Louisville, and Cincinnati, we chose to go back by the northern route, through Indianapolis, Effingham, and Cairo. We swapped drivers from Gerry to Don just west of Indy, and from Don to Joe at Mt. Vernon. Unfortunately, we were much too late going through for the GenKota winery store to be open. Maybe next year...
   Somewhere in Indiana on I-70 we passed a weigh-station sign where the C and the L had burned out. It said the weigh station was OSED. (Cue Carla U., "The Guy Who Changes the Light Bulbs"...)
   And in crossing from Indiana into Illinois we made our third and final time change, from Eastern Standard to Central Standard. Meaning my recorder was now an hour ahead of where it should have been. Oh, well, it was nice while it lasted - maybe I'll find the instructions for setting it at home somewhere...

Monday 1:30-ish CST, Southern Illinois
   Southern Illinois on I-57. I was driving. Everyone else was asleep; I could hear several snores. (I've never quite been able to get the hang of sleeping in a car; the whole trip I think I slept all of an hour en route. Everyone else seemed to manage at least four or five hours all told.)
   The night was moonless, and the woods, running right up to the edge of the interstate, were lovely, dark and deep.
   That's why I didn't see the deer in time.
   Out of the woods, over the guardrail, right there in an instant. I yelled some expletive or other, twitched the steering wheel left (You're going to hit, it's too late to avoid that, some voice inside me said. Just minimize the damage and don't roll the truck oversteering.) - the whump came, and then it was easy on ther brakes, don't lose control, just ease it to the shoulder - and somehow I managed...
   It woke the rest of us up quite suddenly.
   Joe brought us to a stop on the shoulder in about 5 seconds, amid a strong smell of overheated tire tread and RIGHT next to the 23 mile-marker. Gerry dug out the Maglight and inspected the damage. The bumper had been crumpled back into the tire, gouging the tread some and producing the smell. The headlamp on that side was kaput, and the quarter panel was bent and jammed against the passenger door panel on the right.
   Gerry's cell phone had a dead battery so we used Sandy's to call the 911 people, while Gerry hiked back up the road to see if he could spot any fallen-off parts and/or the deer carcass.
   He brought back the antler rack: 8 points. Probable dress-out weight 150+ lbs.
   While we were waiting for the State Trooper and the tow truck to arrive, Gerry called the insurance people and got THAT started.
   The cop that showed up looked not a whole lot older than Rhiannon Tyra. The tow truck guy was more mature, and turned out to be able to do a good M.A.S.H. job of un-crumpling the bumper using the hydraulic winch and tow hook. The tire tread was gouged about a quarter of an inch deep, but nowhere near punctured. So we could drive back home, cautiously.
   As we started rolling, with Gerry back at the wheel, we found various bits that wanted to flap in the wind, so we pulled back onto the shoulder and Gerry twisted them loose. There was still the wheel well liner that wanted to rub against the tire, so as soon as we found an exit with any kind of floodlighting, we stopped again and Gerry used the family's Swiss Army Knife Saw Blade to amputate enough of the liner material to stop the abrasion.
   The comedy of getting Rhiannon out of her seat in back became a full-scale farce now that whoever was in the front passenger seat also had to undergo contortions in order to get out, since the right front door was now stuck. Fortunately, the door just behind it - the one Rhiannon got out of - still worked.
   Gerry spent much of the rest of the trip saying he was going to hit the next person who chided him for driving a gas-hogging SUV. Had it been my Geo, I suspect it might still be in Illinois. Come to that, I suspect I might still be in Illinois...
   I knew from previous trips along this route of a BP truck stop at the Cairo exit, so we turned in there to make personal pitstops and get some coffee/tea/biscuits/toast into ourselves to load the butterflies down a tad.
   I also knew that the gas was cheaper on the Missouri side of the river, so we proceeded to the Charleston exit, where Reeves Boomland and the Pilot Truckstop just across the road have the cheapest gas in the central part of the continent.
   It was at a pitstop in Missouri somewhere shortly after that that we encountered this cat. Apparently the station owner had been feeding him for some months; he was still a little leery of humans, but let one of the regulars who'd been sitting at the restaurant table skritch him some.
   Gerry continued to drive until it got light; then I took over at a rest stop just north of the Arkansas state line.
   Funny thing; every time I changed lanes to merge for a construction zone, everybody in the back seats woke up..
   Folks started waking up seriously hungry just after I made the turn from I-55 onto I-40, so we had breakfast at the Ole South Pancake House in Forrest City. Same concept as Waffle House, only locally owned so the cooking is better for the same price range.

Monday morning, Arkansas
   Gerry took the driving back after breakfast, with me in the navigator seat. We got back to my place around noon, unpacked my stuff and retrieved Joe's CD box. What with all the swapping-around of drivers nobody felt the need of a stationery nap before heading on to Ft Worth, so after pitstops and hugs all-around the Texans headed west and I headed for the La-Z-Boy chair for a long nap.
   Not a whole lot to tell past this point. We managed to get back to Fort Worth in one piece, around 8 p.m. as a beautiful crescent Cheshire-cat moon hung over I-20. Don and I settled up with the Tyras, I repacked, we headed home...
   My cat wasn't very happy with me, but he got over that.

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Updated 11/02/03 by Fax