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jaybird
Yoda
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Most of you know dahubby and I went to Grand Rapids this weekend for John Twist's MG Party. Here's a Reader's Digest version.
Left McDonald's at 7:30 am Thursday morning. Rain threatening, so tops were up. 7 couples from our MG Club went. There were 3 of us going up Thurs am, 3 were already there, 2 were heading up Friday morning.
We drove I-70 East to Terre Haute. Only carincidence up to that point (3 potty stops) was that I pulled out of a rest stop, car was VERY hot, died on the entrance ramp to the highway. Dahubby is a TERRIBLE 'back seat driver' and was telling me, get a move on, shift, what are you waiting for? I'm like, HELLO, car is dead in the water. Coasted to the side. Wouldn't start. (we're maybe 1 1/2 hours out of St. Louis) The guys pop the hood, I keep trying to start her. Told them to let her sit a minute. Temp came down very fast, she fired up and away we went.
Ditched the interstate at Terre Haute IN for an interesting assortment of 2 lane highways north through Indiana. I'm fairly certain that there was not one town in Indiana west of Indianapolis and north of I-70 that we didn't go through. And if we missed one, it was an accident!
Fast forward...(because I don't recall - and no one really cares - exactly how far into the drive milewise or hourwise)...weather clears, we pull off, tops go down. Cruising quite nicely on some very pretty roads. Getting darker and darker. Lead car (we had walkie talkies) says, think we should put the tops up? I said, nah, weather is all ahead of us and to the left (by that point, I had NO idea where N S E W was) 10 minutes more...it rains. We stop, get soaked, get the tops up. Ended up running the rest of the way to Mich top up because of either rain or threatening weather.
Fast forward...Amish or Mennonite country. Car 3 calls, you might want to check that left rear tire, looks pretty low. Get to a station 5 minutes away, it's nearly flat. Air it up, off we go. 10 minutes later, Car 3 calls, you may want to think about changing that tire. I said, can we make the next town? No. We stop by a stinky cow farm, unload everything in the trunk (and that's a lot) and it starts pouring again. Jack doesn't work. (yes it worked before) So we unload Car 1's trunk too, get his jack, change tires, put everything that is now wet back into the trunk and off we go.
From that point on, things went rather smoothly other than Car 1 was missing out off and on (see 'trip home' for that carincidence) FINALLY get out of Indiana, into Michigan, tooling right along. We stopped 45 minutes outside Grand Rapids to grab dinner with Car 1's friends, guy (and his last name escapes me) nameed Ted that builds some amazing cars.
Check into hotel at 10:30pm Eastern time, 14 hours after we left. Loooooooooooooooooooooong day.
Friday we grab our registration pack and ask John Twist where we can get a tire repaired. I assumed that Joe Bozo pinched the tube or something when we took the car back over (trip 2) He sends us to Lowell to the tire shop that does his work, they put new tube in, balance tire, give us a bill (for me to hand to Joe Bozo at Dobbs Tire tomorrow) I asked him to add a $100 stupidity charge to the bill but he wouldn't.
Only other carincidences that happened over the weekend was a broken U-joint on a '59 MGA V8 that one of our members had just finished (He and his wife were on the 24 hour/1000 mile rally around Lake Michigan) But that was fixed in Milwaukee and they finally made it back Fri night 11pm -- left like at 10am Thurs morning!
The weekend was amazing. Great. Perfect. Weather was cooperative, nice crowd of 300 or more cars. I was like a little kid in a candy shop. The wives gave me a hard time all day because I wanted to stay at the show Saturday instead of going 'shopping' with them. I was shopping, for an overdrive and a carb!!!
There were such a great showing of the MG marque. From pre-war on. TC's, TD's, TF's, MGA's, MGA coupes, B's, BGT's, C's (oooh I like those a lot) I wandered about most the day just looking and oohing and aahing. And bleaghing a couple of them that had been turned into some riceburner looking mutants.
I'm getting an overdrive, I'm getting an overdrive, I'm getting an overdrive. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif And it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Especially when all the other husbands are sitting about and telling dahubby how wonderful they are and how they would never have a car without it etc.
Left at 7:45am today Michigan time. Pulled into my driveway at 5:45pm central time. And we drove interstate for the most, except a leg on 24 for awhile. Was top down all the way baby. 7 of us caravaning got some great looks! 6 MGs and our support vehicle (one guy had to take his kids along because wife was out of town on buz) ... a Land Rover with the license plates "MG RES Q" Bill rain tail all the way home. Only carincidences on the way home was some problem with Car 2's points again (were too close, weren't arcing) and yes...take a guess...ANOTHER FLAT. Same tire, 3rd flat.
So. For the most part, the B ran GREAT. Always just a little hot, which it was doing before dahubby put the new thermostat and did something to the radiator (could my carb be a bit too lean?) but otherwise performed spectacularly! Sans tires. It was great to get her first long trip out of the way. Now I'm ready to start planning the next!!!
OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH! Forgot the very best, most important thing! Out of 7 cars, 6 won awards in various catagories. Everyone except *alas* yours truly. And it was, in part, because there were a bejillion rubber bumpers, half were 'red.' But is okay. I don't expect to win, I don't go to win or be judged/voted on. But was really excited for everyone else. Two guys had never won anything with their cars before. Was pretty cool.
Did I leave anything out? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devilgrin.gif
Left McDonald's at 7:30 am Thursday morning. Rain threatening, so tops were up. 7 couples from our MG Club went. There were 3 of us going up Thurs am, 3 were already there, 2 were heading up Friday morning.
We drove I-70 East to Terre Haute. Only carincidence up to that point (3 potty stops) was that I pulled out of a rest stop, car was VERY hot, died on the entrance ramp to the highway. Dahubby is a TERRIBLE 'back seat driver' and was telling me, get a move on, shift, what are you waiting for? I'm like, HELLO, car is dead in the water. Coasted to the side. Wouldn't start. (we're maybe 1 1/2 hours out of St. Louis) The guys pop the hood, I keep trying to start her. Told them to let her sit a minute. Temp came down very fast, she fired up and away we went.
Ditched the interstate at Terre Haute IN for an interesting assortment of 2 lane highways north through Indiana. I'm fairly certain that there was not one town in Indiana west of Indianapolis and north of I-70 that we didn't go through. And if we missed one, it was an accident!
Fast forward...(because I don't recall - and no one really cares - exactly how far into the drive milewise or hourwise)...weather clears, we pull off, tops go down. Cruising quite nicely on some very pretty roads. Getting darker and darker. Lead car (we had walkie talkies) says, think we should put the tops up? I said, nah, weather is all ahead of us and to the left (by that point, I had NO idea where N S E W was) 10 minutes more...it rains. We stop, get soaked, get the tops up. Ended up running the rest of the way to Mich top up because of either rain or threatening weather.
Fast forward...Amish or Mennonite country. Car 3 calls, you might want to check that left rear tire, looks pretty low. Get to a station 5 minutes away, it's nearly flat. Air it up, off we go. 10 minutes later, Car 3 calls, you may want to think about changing that tire. I said, can we make the next town? No. We stop by a stinky cow farm, unload everything in the trunk (and that's a lot) and it starts pouring again. Jack doesn't work. (yes it worked before) So we unload Car 1's trunk too, get his jack, change tires, put everything that is now wet back into the trunk and off we go.
From that point on, things went rather smoothly other than Car 1 was missing out off and on (see 'trip home' for that carincidence) FINALLY get out of Indiana, into Michigan, tooling right along. We stopped 45 minutes outside Grand Rapids to grab dinner with Car 1's friends, guy (and his last name escapes me) nameed Ted that builds some amazing cars.
Check into hotel at 10:30pm Eastern time, 14 hours after we left. Loooooooooooooooooooooong day.
Friday we grab our registration pack and ask John Twist where we can get a tire repaired. I assumed that Joe Bozo pinched the tube or something when we took the car back over (trip 2) He sends us to Lowell to the tire shop that does his work, they put new tube in, balance tire, give us a bill (for me to hand to Joe Bozo at Dobbs Tire tomorrow) I asked him to add a $100 stupidity charge to the bill but he wouldn't.
Only other carincidences that happened over the weekend was a broken U-joint on a '59 MGA V8 that one of our members had just finished (He and his wife were on the 24 hour/1000 mile rally around Lake Michigan) But that was fixed in Milwaukee and they finally made it back Fri night 11pm -- left like at 10am Thurs morning!
The weekend was amazing. Great. Perfect. Weather was cooperative, nice crowd of 300 or more cars. I was like a little kid in a candy shop. The wives gave me a hard time all day because I wanted to stay at the show Saturday instead of going 'shopping' with them. I was shopping, for an overdrive and a carb!!!
There were such a great showing of the MG marque. From pre-war on. TC's, TD's, TF's, MGA's, MGA coupes, B's, BGT's, C's (oooh I like those a lot) I wandered about most the day just looking and oohing and aahing. And bleaghing a couple of them that had been turned into some riceburner looking mutants.
I'm getting an overdrive, I'm getting an overdrive, I'm getting an overdrive. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif And it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Especially when all the other husbands are sitting about and telling dahubby how wonderful they are and how they would never have a car without it etc.
Left at 7:45am today Michigan time. Pulled into my driveway at 5:45pm central time. And we drove interstate for the most, except a leg on 24 for awhile. Was top down all the way baby. 7 of us caravaning got some great looks! 6 MGs and our support vehicle (one guy had to take his kids along because wife was out of town on buz) ... a Land Rover with the license plates "MG RES Q" Bill rain tail all the way home. Only carincidences on the way home was some problem with Car 2's points again (were too close, weren't arcing) and yes...take a guess...ANOTHER FLAT. Same tire, 3rd flat.
So. For the most part, the B ran GREAT. Always just a little hot, which it was doing before dahubby put the new thermostat and did something to the radiator (could my carb be a bit too lean?) but otherwise performed spectacularly! Sans tires. It was great to get her first long trip out of the way. Now I'm ready to start planning the next!!!
OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH! Forgot the very best, most important thing! Out of 7 cars, 6 won awards in various catagories. Everyone except *alas* yours truly. And it was, in part, because there were a bejillion rubber bumpers, half were 'red.' But is okay. I don't expect to win, I don't go to win or be judged/voted on. But was really excited for everyone else. Two guys had never won anything with their cars before. Was pretty cool.
Did I leave anything out? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devilgrin.gif
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