Thursday through Saturday was the local "34th Annual St. Ignace Car Show Weekend" (for info see here - [link] ). I'm not usually too big a fan of it, it just brings too many dumb tourists & annoying traffic hassles . But I do enjoy watching the Cruise night or the Parade; this year I caught the cruise as they went from the Casino through town, then back. There were a lot of cars this year! I was hoping to see this cool red & blue "Spiderman" one that I missed last year, but it didn't come this time.

However, there was still something exciting about this year's Show!

'This years honorary chairman will be John Schneider, best known for portraying Bo Duke on, "The Dukes of Hazzard" television show and drove an orange 1969 Dodge Charger named General Lee. A replica of the car will be at the show...'

Now, there's usually a General Lee car at the Show, I've seen them many times (I would love one myself, too!). But John Schneider ('Bo Duke' on "Dukes of Hazzard" & 'Jonathan Kent' on "Smallville", among being in many other shows/movies) in our little Podunk town's Car Show?!

How awesome is that?

So we went down yesterday (Saturday) morning to see him, he was supposed to be at the Casino tent from 7am 'greeting fans' and signing autographs. We got there at about 10am, didn't see him anywhere and asked, and they said he was having issues because he's on California time and that he would be there in about an hour. So we sat down and waited, and about only 20 minutes later we heard an engine rumbling somewhere in the distance... and here comes John Schneider driving then General Lee down the hill beside us and onto the main street!

And no one even realized it was him at first! I was trying to get pictures of the guy in passenger seat, then we saw that wasn't him; was going to run across the street to get some shots, but didn't have time. Which turned out to be a good thing, because he backed up right next to us and climbed out of the General Lee's window right in front of me It was so hard to get good pictures, there were 100's of people and they were all swarming the car, but I was going to get some shots even if I had to be all pushy like everyone else was being! lol

So then John Schneider and the guy who was with him, probably a manager or something, went up under the tent and started setting up the table. He was very down-to-earth, friendly and talking to everyone, hugging/touching people, etc.

It was great. I was so excited! lol I usually miss things like that, and I've never been 2 feet away from a TV/Movie actor or anyone close to it. I was really hoping for an autograph, I had brought a little notebook for the purpose, but as they were setting up the manager-guy made a little sign that said "Signed Shirts, $20; Signed Pictures, $20; Signed Anything-You-Brought-To-Sigh, $20". So anything at all, even his name on a piece of paper, would have been $20! I wasn't going to pay that much for a piece of paper to be autographed. They had all kinds of photos, from Dukes and Smallville and a couple other shows, but $20 for one little photo print? But it was really a once in a lifetime thing, especially around here, so we decided to get me one of the T-Shirts (that they only had about 20 of). After all, I had my own photos of him, and I'd rather have a new shirt for $20 bucks then pay that for him to sign a scrap of my paper! Me and my Mom, who was with me (as who can pass up John Schneider!) put our money together, and we had only $19! Gah! And any other time, someone you know or a relative is bothering you around here, but of course this time, there was no one! And I'm always broke when a cool event or a sale is happening lol. So my Mom, she has worked in a local Camp Ground for 11 years now, went over to one of the tshirt/hat vendors, Bill Gallencamp, across the street who was staying in that park to beg for that $1! She didn't want to at first, but he's been coming to that park every Auto Show long before she started to work there, and he's a really nice guy; we had just been over talking to him about how we were waiting for John Schneider! And like I said to her... "John Schneider... in St. Ignace! ONCE IN A LIFETIME!". So anyway, with a roll of the eyes, Gallencamp gave us the dollar (which I paid back today! lol).

So I got my tshirt size picked out and stood in line for about an hour. When I was about 4 people away from him, I heard him saying "I went to see them in concert, they were awesome", and I looked up and he was talking to me! I was just like "Huh?" I was too happy and excited and busy drooling that it took me a minute to realize he was talking about the ACDC shirt I was wearing! Then while he was signing some other people's stuff, he was telling me how he saw them in concert and how awesome they were, that his son wanted to go but couldn't, then he went to Metallic too and their songs sounded all the same but how ACDC's were so good, and how great their guitarist is... I was too shocked that he was conversing with me to actually say anything but "uh-huh" and smile in reply! LOL

Well, anyway, to make my long story still not very short lol, I got a hand signed "Dukefest" t-shirt It says "To Jennifer; Yee-Haw!; John Schneider -Bo-". I love it. Going to get a frame for it. It's a bright, pretty orange, with the General Lee bursting out of an '01' and says 'The Dukes of Hazzard' on the windshield. And after he signed it, I got a picture of me and him!

I still can't believe I actually got to see, meet, talk to and get a photo of myself with John Schneider. It just seems unreal to me! I look at the picture, and it's like... I've seen him on the TV, and there I am with him! It's cool. It made me terribly happy. Made my year lol.

So I have some photos of all this to upload, I hope to do it soon, I just have a lot of other things to do too. I only got photos of 6 other cars from the Show besides the General Lee (not sure I'll even post those ones) As I said before though, not really that interested. Plus it was about 90F degrees with no breeze whatsoever, bright & hot sun right overhead, and hundreds of tourists walking around. Any cars that did interest me, the real cool looking ones, were too hard to get pictures of because of all the people clumped around them, and the other people walking around in front of the camera or bumping you out of the way so they could get pictures!

But I got enough photos to make me happy I had old photos of the General Lee in the parade, but they were taken years ago with an old 110 film camera, so I had wanted some of it for sure - him being in it and crawling out the window was a real bonus Some of the photos aren't of the greatest quality, I couldn't stand still with all the other people who were pushing/bumping/walking in front of me and if I wanted any at all I had to keep moving and shooting as I went, and the light conditions, etc. But I think they turned out great

Happy happy!