Picked up Elvis at the airport and headed to Auburn, IN. Staying at a neat hotel, The Auburn Hotel, its a victorian style hotel. Free snacks and drinks at 5 each night and at 8 PM....free cookies and milk!!!
We will head for Dearborn in the morning after shopping at some "cutsie"shops she spotted going to dinner tonight. Easy day tomorrow again, 180 miles or so.

We got Reggie's car to the tranny shop at 8:30 this morning, picked it up at 3PM all done. The trans cooler rubber line had split and pumped the fluid out and burned it up. They had a 350 built on the shelf, swapped pans (his was shiney chrome) swapped it out, also found rear u joint was burned up, dry and stuck so replaced that also. The bill came to $695.00, paid him off and Reggie is good to go. What a great trans shop, clean, big 7 lifts, he is a street rodder too.
He will leave in the morning early to beat some heat, really hot here, 99 degrees with heat index of 105.
Elvis flies in tomorrow at noon at Indy, we will head north to get out of some heat. Dearborn is only 300 miles away. We will stay some where south of Dearborn, the deal does not start until Thursday.

Well the Nats are history! its all over for another year. The three of us, the Aussie Ute and the two couples in the suburban from Australia took off together heading north. I planned on spending the night in Seymour, IN about 60 miles north of Louisville. About 50 miles out
Reggies transmission in his 34 Ford roadster, decided to konk out! Spewed some fluid, smoked and started to slip. We all pulled over, added some trans fluid....did not help. A young guy and his wife from Northeast Indiana in their pickup with his car on a trailer (a rat rod type, really crude, rusty, etc) pulled over and offered to take his car off the trailer and load Reggies on. We took him up on that in a minute. We decided that it would be best to trailer him into Seymour to the same body shop that had Ralph's car last week. While we were unloading it in the lot, the owner showed up and offered his home garage that was next door. He then gave us a trans shop name and number. I to;e the rest to go on, I was staying here any way, Reggie can hang out with me, I can drive him around, hopefully they can get the trans fixed in a day or two. Reggie then can drive on home to Staples. I am here until noon on Tuesday when Elvis flies into Indy. More bad luck that turns into good luck!
Alan with the 38 Ute from Australia won long distance...beat out a 32 5 window from Sweden and friend Jack from Hawaii.
It was so hot today...101 on the billboard at the fairgrounds. I was not outside much, spent most of the day in the vendor building and of course the awards arena at 3 PM.
I bought extra long battery cables and a grounding strip for the Buick, and a steering column trim for the Deuce Delivery. Got a real cool t shirt and poster from Holley carbs featuring 32 fords...what else!
Hopefully we will get more good luck tomorrow at the trans shop, then it is off to Dearborn for the Deuce Deal.

Saturday is over, the time goes so fast. It was hot today like the other days, high nineties with high humidity, the AC in the big halls felt really good. They gave the car away today, they drew number 5078, my number is 5028...close but no cigar! There were 11,441 registered participants...big show!
I will go back out in the morning, but will wait until about 9 AM, enough of the 6:30 arrivals,I am tired. too much fun!!

Wow, another fun day at the Nats! It was hot again, but such a great time. We arrived there at 6:30 this morning and left at 7:30 tonight! Walked the lot and the cool vendor building the whole day. Had the deuce weighed at the UPS scale......guess how many pounds.........3205 !! The side is lettered GWT 3200. We sat at the gate for several hours early this morning and watched them drive in....just never stops....a solid stream of hot rods for hours. I saw a window sticker today for 10941, a big number. Time for bed, its 11:30, 5AM will come early again.

The first day of the Nats is over......we arrived at the fairgrounds at 6:30 AM, Ray had marked out some spots the day before, set up the ez-ups and went to the swap meet. Lots of neat stuff, I bought a lokar t400 kick down switch, Ralph scored a nice Moon air cleaner. Lots of cars today, A friend told me his registration number this afternoon was 10,540...cool and this is only Thursday!
It was HOT, like 102 degrees, so after walking and looking at cars, I went to the big vendor bldg to cool off, then back outside again.
Tonight we had dinner with the Aussie friends (6 of them) and John and Julie from IN, had a great time and lots of laughs. The Aussies are fun people!!
Plans for tomorrow is the same....6:30 at the grounds, then take the chairs to the front gate and watch 1000's of hot rods cruise in......funny how easy it is to get in the show....nothing like the 50's.....they should take lessons!!
Pros pick parking is tomorrow, always neat to see the big buck "Queens".
I think I will purchase the American Autowire panel tomorrow for the Buick.
Talk to all tomorrow night............................Dale

Made it to Louisville today about 1 PM. Last night we were 5 miles from the T&T Body Shop party when Ralph's car at a red light take off, suddenly went full throttle, he hit the key to stop it. The throttle was stuck open and the radiator hose was split. After a trip to the parts store we thought it was all fixed. He started up and at the next red light the same thing. At that time it was almost 10 PM, so a rollback was called and it went to the body shop for the night.
.This morning the inspection showed up a broken motor mount was the problem, so fixed that, new radiator hose again, fixed the throttle cable again and we were good to go.
In the morning we will leave the hotel at 6:30 AM...no sense in wasting time!! Looking for a great day and week end. The roll back driver was the son of the body shop owner, the use of the shop and the rollback was a big "no charge"......aren't hot rod people great?!!