Ah, sunny Florida. Beautiful beaches, green grass, blue skies. Too bad we had to drive through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia to get there! For those of you who don't know, we went to Florida last weekend for a car show called Blood Drag.

The plan:
Was to meet up with the NoVA guys Thursday night, drive to Fayetteville, spend the night with a buddy, get up early Friday morning and make it to West Palm Beach around dinner time.

What really happened:
About 9pm Thursday night Jeff and I met up with the guys coming from NoVA: Dan, Ricky, Jake, Lauren, Pip (NJ), Andy (MD), & Keith (NY). The first few hours on the road were incident free. It started to flurry shortly after we crossed into North Carolina. I'd heard there might be some bad weather, but wasn't sure what to expect.

Our caravan slowed down quite a bit as the flurries turned to sleet and the ice began to build up on the road. By the time we reached the first Dunn exit around mile marker 76ish, traffic had slowed to a crawl and we were being routed off the interstate. Luckily, immediately off the exit was a truck stop.

Turns out Jake had had some problems and was stopped on the side of the interstate 10 miles back. Dan & Ricky had stayed with him, but told the rest of us to keep going, they would catch up. Well, it was by chance we had to stop and it's a good thing we did.

The thing they thought was the problem, frozen air lines (it's a bagged truck), turned out not to be the problem at all. But that was discovered after trying to unfreeze them with hairdryers, curling irons & a trip to Wal Mart for a blow torch. And this was all still happening on the side of the interstate, in the sleet, with cars whizzing by at 70+ mph.

Around 4:30am, Jeff, Jake & Dan showed back up at the truck stop where the rest of us were waiting. No luck. Nothing they did was going to get that truck moving. Instead of sleeping in the truck and probably freezing our asses off, Jeff and I decided to drive down a few exits and get a hotel for oh, about 4 hours. Everyone else toughed it out in the truck stop or in their trucks.

When Jeff and I got up at 9 we called up Dan and he told us to keeping going, there wasn't much we could do. Keith & Andy had already left. So back on the road we went. The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful. The weather continued to improve the further south we went. It was about 8:30 when we arrived in West Palm Beach. If someone hadn't made a mistake with the directions we would have found our hotel, and been hanging out with the guys by 9. Instead, we drove in circles for 2 hours, stopping for directions 3 times, looking for the hotel. But we did find it. Sheesh.

A quick dinner at Taco Bell filled our empty bellies so we could meet up with the rest of the gang without passing out. Since it was so late already and with everyone wanting to get up early to get their trucks ready for the show, we hit the sack as soon as possible.

Saturday morning Jeff and I slept in some to make up for the lack of sleep Thursday night. By the time we arrived at the showgrounds, Dan, Jake, Lauren & Pip had arrived. Turns out Jake's air compressor had died. Sometime Friday they had had a tractor trailer service truck come out and fill his compressor, thereby filling his bags, with enough air to make it off the interstate and to a Goodyear. The shop did a patch job of sorts that got it working long enough to go the 20 miles to Fayetteville to Marcus' house. The ended up leaving it there and carpooling for the rest of the trip, making it to West Palm Beach about 10:30 Saturday morning.

With that drama now (mostly) over we were able to relax and enjoy the rest of the trip. The weather turned out to be a little cooler than expected. Long sleeves and pants were needed on Saturday. Sunday was a little better in the morning, but got too windy for shorts later on. But somehow we went all weekend without having to deal with much rain.

The show was a slight disappointment for most of us. We had originally thought it was one of the biggest on the east coast. Not so much. I guess it's just one of the most widely known and highly advertised. But it was cool seeing vehicles we'd never seen before. There was a pretty good turnout of CustomTacos members so it was nice to finally put faces to the screen names. I won't post a bunch of pics, but if you want, you can see them here.

Jeff and I, along with Pip, headed out around 8:30am Monday morning. With no major incidents, good weather, and a steady speed, we were in Richmond by 11:30pm. And, surprisingly, not exhausted. It was definitely a nice weekend get away, despite the long drive. I'd do it again. :)