ChowdaQ

Went to the first occasional ChowdaQ in Warwick, RI last weekend.
The ChowdaQ name comes from the form, other Mercedes enthusiast gatherings have names like IowaQ, OkieQ and RustyQ. In fact Rusty is the one that gave rise to the form with his yearly customer appreciation barbeque.
I'd tried to arrange one of these a few years ago and failed miserably. Dwight did a much better job and I got to be the grill master.
We had 9 people and 6 cars which is a pretty good turnout for our first year I think. I'm not sure we could have handled any more people from a food perspective as the grills at the park were not what I'd have hoped for. Next year we'll be sure to haul along a proper charcoal grill.
Undaunted we spent several hours looking at each other's cars and swapping lies. Some even swapped parts, Fred brought me a new blower motor switch and a seatbelt warning buzzer. Dwight gave me a replacement wheel center cap to fix the one that got blown out with a failed wheel bearing a couple weeks ago.
Goddard Park where we held the event is a really nice place and I wish the weather had been a bit better, we'd have spent some time wandering around. Angie and I got a hotel room for the night so we didn't have to drive home right away. Next year I'll consider a hotel for both nights so we can get an earlier start. Its a solid 2 hour drive from our house to the park and it'd be nice to be able to start cooking sooner.

-Curt