Friday/Saturday/Sunday

Arrived at the park for the Lead

sled show early Friday morning, we all three found a nice place to park right on the main street. This way we could sit by the cars in some shade and watch the others all drive by. Friday was a nice day, in the high 90's but a nice breeze. So many cool cars at this show, I walked and looked at a lot of them. Saturday was about the same thing, same spots on the streets even! More cars, more people, but not so crowded that you could not cruise or see the cruising. The down side for Saturday was the heat...108....it was hot. We left about 3;30 and went to the hotel to cool off and then out to dinner. We were not the only ones that left early, many others did too. Steve was picked by Gene Winfield for his Hall of Fame member pick...a cool honor!! Sunday it was up and out off town, enough heat..we needed to get home for family reasons but did not miss going to the park. Everyone I talked to at the headquarters hotel were going home on Sunday morning. Even the ones that lived just a few miles away. The three of us, Johnsons, Hoffmans and us all spent the night in Sioux City Sunday night. Sioux City is half way home, an easy drive for both days about 330 miles each day.

Wednesday/Thursday

We left Omaha Wednesday morning about 9AM. Just a few miles down the road we stopped at a big antique store, spent about an hour there, bought nothing. It was I80 to York, NE then south on 81, that is a real nice 4 lane but not an interstate. Lunch was about 50 miles north of Salina at Taco Johns. As we were pulling out of the lot Steve and Debbie drove by in their truck with the Pontiac in the box behind. We all arrived in Salina at the motel about 4 PM, got checked in and cooled off. It was hot again, 108 on the bank nearby. Later that night we all went to eat at a great

Mexican place that we found last year. It was still good food this year. Just as we got back to the hotel it started to rain, it poured with lots of thunder and lighting for a few hours. ***************************************************************************** Thursday It was off to the car wash to clean the cars. We had a video shoot scheduled at 10:30 for a spot in this years video of this event. That was a fun time. It took a couple of hours to shoot and interview then it will be boiled down to 4 or 5 minutes. Our friends from Wichita all arrived about noon. We all went to lunch and then back to the motel. At 5 PM it was off to the kick off party at Bright Built Hot Rods for a fun time, shop tour and free food! At 8 PM it was the parade thru downtown, lots of locals lined the walks to see the cars. Tomorrow its off the the park for the show.

Off to Salina

We woke up with light rain showers. Of all mornings to have rain! There goes the clean up and wax job on the Buick. We met up with our good friends Doris and Jerry Johnson at their place and then headed down the 2 lane to the south. Its always a great ride to Cold Springs and onto Olivia and Worthington...all non interstate roads. We did get on I29 towards Omaha, a nice 4 lane highway. We are spending the night in Omaha. It was a 400 mile trip, nice ride. Just north of Omaha, when I just passed a cop with a couple of disabled cars on the side of the road, we all got to the fast lane to give them room, I felt the gas pedal fall to the floor...I knew what happened, the cable fell off of the carb linkage. I costed to the side of the road. It was a funny feeling, the gas pedal falls to the floor and the car stops going!! I cruised to the side of the road, the good thing was all the traffic was in the fast lane because of the cop. I popped the hood, it was hot and screwed the linkage back together, it was hot also. Back on the road in a few minutes. We arrived at the hotel about 6PM, the outside temp was an even 100 degrees. Its to be the same or more tomorrow. We had a great dinner across the street at Brew Burgers, they had 2 for 1 beers....what a deal. It was a good day. Sorry no pictures today.

RPU gets a new spring

I replaced the broken monoleaf with a new stacked spring with teflon buttons. I am hoping the stacked spring will handle the road bumps better...or at least won't break in half. The new spring was the same thickness as the mono and the spacers, the ride height should be the same.

While I was under the car I also cut off two rings on the rear frame rubber snubbers, this should give me more rear suspension travel. A quick trip to town and it all feels good, the ride is better than before...front and rear. It only tool 10,000 miles to "tune" it up...LOL. Tuesday we leave for Salina, KS in the purple 50 Buick to attend the Leadsled Spactacular.....be sure to check in, should be a good time

Some more photos of the Cruise

A few more photos of Columbus......then my camera battery died. I could not get the laptop to work....a bad " electronics week" LOL

Cruise to Columbus 2012

Sunday was a great kickoff party at Dave Ruh's shop......good food, drinks, fun times. We met all of the Crusiers and received our maps and instructions. Monday morning we all met at the Headquarters hotel for the start of the cruise. Gary Meadors had his new Chrysler woodie convertable, powered by a Viper...cool car, but it would not start! He drove it from CA and had a some problems, thought it was fixed. The next step was a flatbed to go to the Dodge garage. The rest of us headed for West Branch, IA to visit Chassis Engineering. They had a great lunch for us and a nice tour of the plant. Roy Lewis the now retired founder was there also. He was working on his twin diesel powered stream liner Bonneville car. He signed autographs and posed for photos...a fun time. As we were ready to leave, one of the cruisers need a jump start. Being the good guy that I am, I used my car to jump him. From that time on I had electrical problems. At the next gas stop I changed alternators, still was not charging right. The next stop was the hotel in St Charles, IL. Kevin's Mustang was stalling at almost every stop or light, that held us up and ran us way late. It was only 177 miles to the hotel, we finally got there at 11:30 PM. That night I went to Walmart and purchased a new battery, I was hoping that would fix my problem. Tuesday morning it was off to Tin Man's for coffee and rolls, then onto Heidts in Wauconda, Il for a free lunch and a shop tour. Tuesday night was Kalamazoo. Kevin with the Mustang and Barry stayed in St Charles, Il to work on the Mustang's carb and distributor. Kalamazoo hotel was only 195 miles away. About 150 miles from K'zoo, we passed the 62 Tbird that was with us, looked in the rear view mirror and saw his left front wheel and tire fly off and across 4 lanes of highway. We were just a few feet in front of him...a good miss for us. Four of us pulled over to help Dan with the 3 wheel bird. I called AAA, found parts, some others found the wheel, the flatbed took him to O'Riley's just a couple of miles away. The next 5 hours we spent in the parking lot fixing the bird. All 5 studs sheared off. We left the lot at 10 Pm and had 150 miles to go to get to the hotel...arrived again at 11:30 PM. While we were at O'Rileys, I got my old battery exchanged for a new one under warrenty, had the alternator checked, it was OK so put that back on. O'Rileys was very helpful, used their tools, turned the rotar, used their jack and stand, really good guys. The radio was not working since the jump and the GPS charger cord would not work, I bought a new cord at one of the gas stops, the radio is not a necessary thing but is nice to have working. The volt meter still show low votage, we were all convinced that the gauge messed up at the jump time. Wednesday morning it off to the Gilmore Car Museum, a private museum owned by the Upjohn drug company retired CEO.....I have always said "drugs are good" Next was a tour of Ididit steering column company...neat place and more coffee and cookies. The last stop was Right Stuff Detailing in Columbus, OH. A free lunch, goodie bag, tshirt and fun time. As we were ready to head out to register for the show, my car would not start...got a jump from a guy with a jump box, got to registration and onto the kickoff pary at hotel and worked on the car for a couple of hours.

Recap of Des Moines

The plans were that we would drive the Deuce Delivery and Rodney would drive the RPU. I was checking the RPU over from the CA trip when I discovered why the roads seemed so very rough the last couple of days........the front mono leaf spring had broke in half!! That changed the Des Moines trip plans. I put it in the Deuce Garage and dug out the blue roadster..nice to have a

spare!! The trip was great, was a lot of fun to have son Rodney on a hot rod trip, driving a hot rod and not just riding with me. The highlight of the show was friends Adam and Big Ed B both winning awards. Congrats to both.

Finally some internet service!! I cannot get on Holiday Inn's wifi for some reason, and most every night it was a Holiday. I am on the hotels lobby computer now. All is well, very hot....100+ degrees. We will be leaving about noon tomorrow for the first leg of the home trip. When I get to the hotel tommorrow I will recap the last few days. Lots of fun, a little excitment. A little car problems, friends had car problems, put us behind schedule but we all made it to the show. Goodguys NATIONALS is such a great show. Right now its BBQ time in the parking lot.