Hey Dan, If you're going to head to the West Coast anyway.... And you want to see a HUGE Collection of Bonsai, Check out Eve's Garden. They have plants from as low as $5 to as high as several Thousand! They ship and supply (commerically) all over. Eve's Garden Gifts 5602 Land O Lakes Blvd Land O Lakes, FL 34639 http://www.evesgardengifts.com/ Real Easy to get to from Orlando. Take Route 4 West (65.8mi), Take Exit 9-Route 75 towards Ocala (14.4mi). Get off Exit 275, route 56/54 and go left towards Tarpon Springs/Land-O-Lakes (5.3mi). Make a Right on Route 41 (Land-O-Lakes Blvd) and you'll see it about 3 miles down on the right. If you grow your own bonsais, you can get all the supplies you need there! It's about 3.5 miles from where I live and I've been there many times... Very impressive the first few times... but once you've made you're own bonsais, it's just ok :) Take lots of pictures for us all, where ever you end up.

I also used to travel to Orlando on business frequently. My stays were usually in the Sand Lake area, which wasn't far at all from International Drive, which can be a mad house itself depending on the time of year, but is full of hotels and restaurants within walking distance and not a bad drive from Disney. I don't know if you've driven into Disney, but once you've actually entered the property itself, it's still quite a drive to get to any of the hotels. If I recall correctly, there were several chain hotels being built up along John Young Parkway, also a quick access to 528 or the 417 (Central FL Greenway), which intersects with I-4 to Disney. The Sea World area is also full of hotels and closer to Disney. Also has shopping (we stayed in a Hilton-run condo across the street), a Publix supermarket, an outlet somewhere nearby, and restaurants within driving or walking distance depending on where you stay. Both of these areas will likely be pretty busy with traffic, etc. Not as much so if you avoid early morning and late afternoon.

Marsha, the machine I got last year for classes is a small Brother (can't remember the model #). My "fancy" machine is a Brother sewing/embroidery one, so when I found this smaller machine on Overstock I bought it! LOL It seems like it was less than $150, and it's very similar to Big Brother so I was comfortable with it right off. It came with 5 or 6 feet and it does something like 70 different stitches. I'll be honest with you guys - I set up this Juki machine last night and played a little bit. I found it online for $200 - $250. If I'd paid $200 for it, I would take it back! It's noisy, the knobs are hard to turn, and it just doesn't seem like very good quality for that asking price. It only came with a regular foot and a buttonhole foot, and it only does 22 stitches. It sews fine, and the light is good, and it has a needle threader, which are all good things, but I think you can get a much better quality machine for less money from a different brand. Anyway, my DH has a coworker who has an ancient machine and I think we'll probably give the Juki to her. Donna

I can't say I get the idea of an online shop hop either. However, the real life one in my area starts next week. It's fun. It goes from the southern part of SoCal below San Diego out to the desert, way up in the mountains and north not too far below Santa Barbara. Aside from finding a lot of interesting quilt shops, I saw a lot of SoCal that I had previously missed out on. This year I'm doing it in a hybrid car with navigation. Can you say YAY?! I can -- YAY for not getting lost and YAY for saving gas! I got the new car because last year I took out the bumper of my old car in a crowded parking lot at one of the quilt shops. Fortunately the Cash for Clunkers deal came along at roughly the same time and this year I have navigation! AND this year I'm on the hunt for a particular color of blue batik to finish my lambies quilt so the hop comes at a particularly convenient time. The real life shops have interesting things like demos, games, prizes, food and each gives you a free pattern with a small package of fabric for assembling it. Each of the sub-areas (our huge area is broken up into 4 sub-areas) designs a themed little wall hanging size quilt from the free patterns.