Coral Gables RotaryGram: The Great Grove Bed Race

Get Into Bed With Coral Gables Rotary Club

The Most Important Message -- Service Above Self!

Sunday dawned cool and beautiful. A perfect day to go down to Coconut Grove and get into beds with a bunch of weirdos who were racing their marketing message down South Bayshore Drive for charity. Our Club willingly joined the fray! Says something about us, don't you think?

We got into this thing at the urging of Gloria Burns (Community Newspapers was one of the sponsors this year) and because of the unbelievable dedication of new Rotarian, Jesus Guzman and his guys at Shell Lumber, we entered a really cool bed in this year's Great Grove Bed Race V.

Set up team included President Donald, Past Presidents Walter Alvarez and Sally B and our Exchange Student Danilo Masson. Terry Long was there along with Dr. Phil - the club's two shutterbugs - documenting our day as bed-racers. The Championship Runners were Andrew Dixon, Past President Abe Horowitz and two of the best from Shell Lumber. In order to "weight" our chances at winning we coerced the smallest Rotarian - Lan Nghiem-Phu to accept the position of Bed Rider, so long as he was equipped with a crash helmet.

We did really well in the two time trial runs against Scotty's Landing, but we lost in the first heat against the Tattoo Parlour (embarassing, huh?). We were ahead at one point but the wheels of the bed were not properly aligned and we had to make an adjustment and so lost to Scotty's. PP Abe could not endure and so was replaced by Jesus from Shell Lumber.

So we didn't win for the best looking bed. We didn't win for the most clever theme. We didn't win for our speed and agility. But we had tons of fun and word has it that we will make a return appearance at the Great Grove Bed Race VI. Especially since now we have the bed AND we know how it all works!

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