Two Great Thangs
Here’s an opportunity to have the experience of a lifetime… I am involved in organizing a trip to include the Big Kite Festival in Adelaide, South Australia and an Outback Buggy Safari to Lake Gairdner. Dates? March 23rd to the 5th of April 1999.
The Adelaide Kite Festival drew some 60,000 spectators last year and they are expecting similar numbers this time. It is an awesome international kite experience in an exotic land… Guaranteed. The Adelaide festival site at Semaphore Beach is an urban kite beach in town and offers plenty of room for all kinds of kite exhibitions, even buggying! What an opportunity to show off before huge, appreciative crowds.
Capping off the trip will be an Outback Buggy Safari featuring a return to Lake Gairdner, South Australia, the gigantic dry salt lake we visited in 1995 after the World Cup Competition.
Lake Gairdner is the 4th largest dry salt lake in the world (3rd largest in Australia) and presents a suitable place for beginner as well as experienced buggy pilots. This buggy site is over 100 miles top to bottom and so wide that the other side of the main lake is lost in the curvature of the earth.
Tons of wildlife will be observed at no additional cost including ‘roos, emus and bloody gullaws. Native Australians will provide daily entertainment for us as we will for them. The local beers are delightful and the language is close to English.
Airfare should run around $1000 r/t. Accomodations in Adelaide are being negotiated now with an eye to frugal costs without too much sacrifice. Room, food and transportation to Lake Gairdner will run about $400-$450 AUS (Aussie dollars) for the week. Last time, we each tossed another $50 AUS into the kitty for all our beers and sodas. Quite a bargain.
Plans are now being made so contact me to get on the Safari List and start saving for the trip of a lifetime. A passport and visas will be required. The dates for the trip will be 23 March-5 April 1999 (early fall in Australia).
If all this sounds like a great time, well it will be. If you have wanted to travel to an international kite festival but were unsure which one… Consider this trip as a way to see a lot and keep the costs reasonable. Exchange rates are favorable for the U.S. dollar vs the Aussie dollar right now. As your tour guide, I anticipate a good time and great parties. Come join me for this outstanding kite adventure.
While the import of such an epic undertaking as the Adelaide/Lake Gairdner Buggy Safari sinks into our addled little brains… Harken to me now…
Y2K? Y Not?
Announcing: The Next Big Thang!!! For the buggy fanatics worldwide… I am organizing a Millennium Buggy Thang!!
Part 1: The “Pre-Roll” is scheduled for December 31, 1999 at El Mirage Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert in Southern California. With the potential for a ‘pooter meltdown looming at the turn of the calender to the year 2000, we will be safely buggying across the dry lake. While others endure the joy and tribulations of having many electronic services fail, the desert will remain operational.
The Pre-Roll event will commence before the 31st, and continue on after January 1, 2000… Giving the infrastructure time to reboot and come back on-line. Mostly we will wait for the gas pumps to resume operation so those who drove out can get home.
I submit to you that sitting at home waiting to see if there will really be a Y2K problem is the wrong place to be. If the systems do fail… What can we do? And if they don’t fail, why waste a great opportunity to come buggy the high desert?
Additionally, and especially for our European buggy brothers and sisters, the KTAI Trade Show will be only 2 weeks later in San Diego (tentative location) and handy for any interested individuals who wish to attend. Come early for the Millennium Thang, buggy your buns off, hit the KTAI show, then return to Elmer’s for the regularly scheduled Buggy Boogie Thang happening right after KTAI.
Elmer’s Garage (El Mirage) has no services or facilities to fail so we will be completely safe. The Millennium Buggy Thang will have a nominal registration fee of $15 (reduced to $10 with t-shirt or sweat shirt order) that will fund a hospitality tent and port-a-johns.
Part 2 of this twice-in-a-lifetime extravaganza will happen at the actual turn of the millennium on December 31, 2000. But we will talk about that later. Let us focus our attention on the first one first.
Even if you cannot attend the Millennium Buggy Thang, you can own the event logo on a 1st quality t-shirt or sweat. Included with event registration will be a gorgeous neckcard laminated with YOUR picture and racing number. You heard right!! YOUR picture and racing number on a souvenir laminated neckcard.
WOW!!
Don’t delay… Place your order today!!!
See ya there.