Home again

We left Madison about 8:30 this morning, just Nystrom's and us. Eddie stayed back with Ralph and Barb to wait for the dreaded trailer. We were stopped on I94 for almost an hour, a van hit the wall in a one lane construction zone. Ralph called me about noon and said he was on the road, in fact just 30 miles behind us...until they got stuck in another wreck stopped incident. They were there for over an hour and had to detour back to go around the wreck. That one was a car that rear ended a semiand a fatality. A hard day on I94.
We arrived home about 5 PM...had a good trip. My car and Terry's ran flawlessly...that always makes for a better time.
As I said last night I will be home now until the Deuce Reunion in Texas. I will be leaving Sept 16th...that will be a fun trip...like they all are!

Louisville Nationals

It was a fabulous 4 days at the Nats. The weather was great, mid 80's. Sunday was a bit muggy and warmer. There were 11,003 registered vehicles there. We left about 2 PM on Sunday, four cars of us, Nystrom's, Maki's,Eddie P. and us. We spent the night in Lafayette, IN. Monday night was planned for a stay over in Madison, WI. We arrived there about 5 PM, sat in the parking lot on chairs and had a cocktail or two. Then it off to Friday's for dinner. After dinner on the short drive back to the hotel, thru a street under construction, Ralph's car snagged a small but tough and strong man hole cover....it won, he lost. It tore the transmission cross member out, ripped the trans wires apart, really did a number. A roll back was needed to get him to the hotel. The plan is for a friend from "up north" bring his truck and trailer tomorrow to pick him up. It is 400 miles from here so he will not be here until noon at the earliest. Kind of a blunt end to a very fun week!
Terry N and us will leave about 9 AM to get home, I think Eddie will wait for Ralph and Barb. I hate to leave them but nothing we can do now, we helped with what we could tonight.
The show was a lot of fun, we saw so many friends...vendors and rodders. I really disagree with the new year cut off thing, there were many many unhappy people there. I am planning on not going next year or renewing my membership that expires this month.I have been a member since 1975. There were many form letters filled out, but will make no difference. The only way I can make a difference is not to show up. If enough rodders don't show it will drive the point home. I'm going to miss the fun....may be go to the "Frog Follies" instead.
If all goes well, we should be home tomorrow evening. One more trp in September to Kerrville, TX for the "Deuce Reunion", hard to believe the trips are almost over.

Tuesday

We arrived at the Indy 500 museum at 9AM when they opened. We took photos of the cars in front of the big gate and the museum building, then went inside. In minutes the skies opened up and it poured for the next 2 hours. It slowed off a bit finally and we jumped into the cars and headed south towards Seymour. Within 20 minutes we had driven into the storm again. We pulled off and took shelter under a gas station canopy, it was like driving thru a car wash! After about an hour it slowed so we left again, same thing happened. We did make it to the antique store where we spent the next several hours. We finally arrived at Seymour around 5 PM. We went to the party, had some great food, meet old friends. It was a fine evening.
We will leave in the morning for the short drive to Louisville. Hopefully all of the water will be down by the time we arrive there. They had 6 inches of rain in an hour, some terrible flooding.The car is quite wet inside, carpet, door panels, rear panels....it will dry out this weekend I hope.

Monday

We left Madison about 8 AM, drove to ElPaso, IL stopped at an antique store for a while. The next stop was Fairbury, IL. We dropped the wives off for some shopping and Terry and I went to see my friend Tom, he runs an auto repair shop. I needed the AC recharged on the delivery. He took care of that and then we found the heater valve was stuck open.....got that fixed, now it blows ice cubes! Elvis has to cover her feet and legs, she was cold.
We arrived in Indy about 7 PM, checked into the hotel and had dinner. We are just 120 miles from L'ville. We will go to the indy 500 museum in the morning, the big antique store and then the kick off party tomorrow night in Seymour, IN

Saturday was a fun day at the flea market. We left about 3 PM for the drive to Chippewa Falls, a good drive. We had a quick supper then went to the fairgrounds to drive in the cruise. The drive had about n60 cars, went on for 1 and 1/2 hours, very scenic, good time. We ended at the Culvers for half price dessert. From there we were invited to Paul Oman's private collection...wow what a collection. He had four buildings full of cars, parts and cool stuff. I think there were something like 33 cars and tons of parts...all old Ford stuff. There was a Lincoln Zephyr, several Model A's, a couple of shoe box Fords, several 40's, a convert, 4 door, pickup. Several 37's a 36 a 40 Chevy, a 58, 55, 56 chevy, a F100, Ford tractor, 35 p/up, a sprint car, Henry Ford's 35 school bus and more. Several 34's one Deuce...finally! Tons of parts, just hard to describe it all. We were there almost 2 hours!!
Sunday we went to the fairgrounds to the swap and show, over 400 cars, lots of vendors, another fun day.
At 3 PM we drove to Madison, 170 miles, nice drive. Both cars are running great. It has been a good trip so far, I think Nystrom's are having a good time too. We are in a La Quinta tonight, a really NICE hotel. Tomorrow we will be heading to Indy, staying at another LaQuinta there, plans are to go to the Indy 500 museum and take some photos by the front gate.