Love Bugs - Stay in or out

Love Bugs, twice a year we are reminded how much we hate them, but they are forgotten for about 48 weeks of the year. When then hit, I usually stay in during the day because driving through them for five minutes can take twenty minutes or more to clean. So today I finished a puzzle I started a few days ago. The puzzle has 1000 pieces (apparently only 999 in my version) and is called The Old Hills of Vermont by artist Will Moses. Here is the final product...

 Yes, two pieces are missing, but I was able to find one of the pieces, it was lying on my bed. The cat must have put it there (or it stuck to my arm and fell off on the bed).  It is a pretty big puzzle and was very challenging. Puzzles remind me of my parents. They always had a puzzle going at the trailer. Whenever I stopped to visit, I would spend a few minutes on the latest puzzle.

The puzzle was not my first choice for love bug stay in activity. I was going to redo my Lego VW bus. I put it together in 2012 and I figured it would get me through the latest infestation of love bugs. Here are all the pieces on the table with the two (yes, TWO) instruction books.

Very much like IKEA, the instructions are pictures and not words. Here is the back bumper and the engine. Remember, the VW bus engine was in the back...

I should have stopped here. I had made the same mistake I had made 7 years ago. I used white pieces when I should have used clear ones. When it came time later to use the white ones, they were gone so I use the gray ones. When I needed to use the gray ones, none were left and I remembered my error. Seven years ago I pulled it apart and fixed my error, and completed the van. This time I pulled it apart, annotated the guide with words "USE THE CLEAR PIECES NOT THE WHITE ONES", put everything back into the box and brought out the 1000 piece puzzle. I was half done when the mistake was realized...

Oh well, maybe in seven years I will do it again or I just need to give it away to a relative. BTW, it has 1,334 pieces, more than the puzzle. I am thinking of getting the LEGO Millennium Falcon, 7541 pieces. Maybe in the fall when love bugs come back, I will make Han Solo proud.

This past Saturday, Hemingways in Melbourne hosted their fourth annual Hemingway look-alike contest. I recommend the restaurant for some nice Key West food.

This year they had a street party with entertainment including a juggler and crab races. Of course there were drinks to be had. Fire....

 Knives...

HERMIT CRAB RACES

Judges for the Hemingway contest

There were 24 entrants but not all showed up at 5 pm. The weather was not looking good, I did get photos of some of the entrants, they have numbers on their shirts.

The last guy, #24, has actually placed a few times at the contest in Key West (that is what the medals are around his neck). The winner of this contest gets a trip down to Key West and an entry to the world Hemingway look-alike contest.

The storm was approaching...

As I was leaving, I stopped at the JJ's Maple booth. The couple were from Vermont but spend winters on the Space Cast. They had syrup, candy, sugar, popcorn and my favorite, cotton candy. I bought some sugar, popcorn and cotton candy. (did I say that was my favorite?) They lived in Alburg Vermont, which is in Lake Champlain and near Canada. I asked where did the kids go to High School and they said most go to New York State which is closer. The other choice is Saint Albans. I never knew this! You can see the cotton candy on the left...

I left with my camera, the Vermonters had given me a plastic bag for it but the weather was looking way bad. As I got to the car it was sprinkling and within a minute it was pouring. I drove home in the storm and it helped knock off the love bugs...