Thursday November 22nd 2018
Happy Thanksgiving
It was cool overnight. The temperature got down into the fifties with clouds arriving before day break. It slowly warmed into the mid seventies, but rain is in the forecast for tonight.
I went to the Central Florida Auto Show today. My thought was that it wouldn’t be crowded on Thanksgiving Day. I was wrong. It was very busy. I guess the planners knew what they were doing scheduling the first day of the show on the holiday.
The show was at the Orlando Convention center on the south side of town near the theme parks. My second wrong assumption of the day was that traffic through Orlando wouldn’t be bad today. It was terrible going through the lane changes of the construction zone. Impatient drivers jumping lanes and passing in inappropriate places were all over the place. I made it down safely, but took the toll road around to the east side of Orlando on the return trip. That road is a lot longer and probably cost seven dollars or more in tolls, but it was worth it.
My third bad assumption of the day was finding a place to eat Thanksgiving Dinner. I thought that if I stopped at one of the chain restaurants that don’t take reservations before noon I wouldn’t have a long wait. When I approached the Cracker Barrel restaurant in Sanford I started seeing cars parked on the grass along the road. The parking lot was overflowing and there was a line of people around the side of the building waiting to get inside. Down the highway a ways at the Golden Corral buffet restaurant I saw another line at the front door. I ended up cooking a pork chop on the grill after I got back home.
One front and one back wheel off the ground. 
Jeeps on the obstacle course.
The auto show had all the new model cars from the major car companies. It also had a number of old and exotic cars from the local museums and enthusiasts. Three Batmobiles and a dozen or more Model A Fords got a lot of attention. There was also an obstacle course for 4×4 Jeeps in the exhibit hall. Watching the vehicles traverse the course was fun. There were professional drivers taking people around the course. The line was longer than I wanted to wait.
I accomplished my mission of sitting in all of the possible cars to replace my current toad. I have to spend a significant amount of money on maintenance items on my current Honda CR-V or replace it this winter. There aren’t a lot of cars with Automatic Transmissions that can be towed with four wheels on the road, but even if I spend the money on my current car it won’t be any lighter and might still break down. I leaning toward replacing the CR-V with a small car. Reliability is my big concern.
