It was a very busy weekend, and a busy week at work. Seems like time has slipped into some perverse speed warp and has doubled up on itself. I'm told that it speeds up more and more rapidly the older you get too.

Saturday the 12th was the Poker Run for our airboat club here in Arcadia. We called it the "1st Annual Peace River Valley Airboat Association, Inc. Poker Run and Redneck Luau." Of course rain was forecast for the day, which is nothing out of the ordinary for Florida in the summer, and we were blessed with a few good frog stranglers. As an added bonus to the day we had visitors from the Airboating Magazine who were there to do an article on the event and our club.

The day started out as early as 5 a.m. for some of us, getting things set up, decorated, and arranged for the day. By 10:30 a.m. we were signing boats in and handing out the first card of the poker run. All in all it was a great turn out, and with everyone signed in we started the run at 11:00. One could only wonder what people along the river thought of the thunderous herd of airboats that snaked along the river in a long serpentine line toward the first of three stops.
Of course things weren't all peaches and cream as one would want them to be. Our boat seemed to have developed a problem running for the first time since we've owned it. On the first assessment we thought that it could have been a problem with water in the gasoline that we had just purchased that morning. We ended up at the end of the line of boats, but that was just fine with me. It gave me more time to enjoy the ride on the overcast, and thus cooler day.

While there were a few other problems with some of the boats, we all made it back to the pavilion that we started from by 2:30 p.m. after stopping at our three designated stops to collect our cards. Then we returned back to pavilion to collect our last card and the fun of playing the poker hands began. Since we had so many people there, we decided to have all players sit at a table, and then myself (Secretary), Lee (President), and Greg (Vice President) all went from table to table to record the players hands. A Diamond Flush was the winning hand, with 3 Kings runner up and 2 Pair taking 3rd.

After the prizes were given out, everyone started getting the dinner ready. Some of us brought stuff in coolers, and a few people had to run back home for food, but the dinner wasn't planned to start until 4:30 so we all had time to get it together. When it finally got together it was a feast from heaven. If one good thing can be said about southerners it would be that we KNOW how to put out some good grub. Tony cooked ribs that almost melted in your mouth, and we had all sorts of excellent dishes to accompany them.

By 6:00 I had finished helping with the after dinner clean up, and we had to head home so David (my husband) could get to the local race track. He was scheduled to be the second driver in a 4 Cylinder switch off race. I elected to stay home and watch the NASCAR race, which is somewhat of an obsession of mine. By the time the day was finally over, it felt like we had crammed 3 days into 1.