Our 1953-2003 Commemorative Edition Corvette Story
I drove from Atlanta to Bowling Green for the C5 Birthday Bash and Gael flew up to join me on Saturday, April 24th. Buzz and Jackie drove to Bowling Green from their home in Lithia, FL. And on Sunday, April 25th, we four took off on our adventure, driving to Indianapolis and on to Chicago to start our trip Tuesday morning, April 27th.
That whole story, with words and pictures from each of the seventeen days of our fantastic trip can be found by clicking Kicks on Route 66.
But, when the trip was done, we had to make our way home again. Gael chose to fly (she's no dummy!) up to Santa Rosa, CA to visit with our daughter Kristyn, son-in-law Matt and grandson Spencer (don't know much about Spencer? Try clicking HERE).
That left me to drive the 2000+ miles home alone. Thankfully, I whined about this before the trip and my best pal Pete Butler:
On Friday we drove to Redondo Beach for a cruise-in at Ruby's diner. You can see that story by clicking HERE.
On Saturday about mid-day I took Gael to LAX to fly to SFO and on to Santa Rosa and then met Pete's flight. We left directly from the airport and drove to San Diego.
San Diego? Wait! San Diego isn't on the way from LA to Atlanta; is it?
Why, no, it's not. But we (Buzz and Jackie and Pete and I) had been invited down to San Diego to exhibit our (now quite dirty) CEs at arguably the best Corvette-only show on the West Coast, the 27th Annual Plastic Fantastic hosted by the North County Corvette Club (NCOCC). AND we have friends in San Diego (Rich Wolf and Ina Thompson):
That's Pete
Including one of my all-time dream cars, the '58 in Panama Yellow
Since we had quite a way to go to get home, we pulled out of San Diego about 3pm on Sunday. Our original plan was to get home on the following Saturday with Sunday as an "oops" buffer.
The Garmin Street Pilot III mapped out our route and off we went. We made the outskirts of Phoenix on Sunday evening.
I-40 parallels (and/or obliterates) much of Route 66 so the scenery was familiar. On our Route 66 trip out we missed (somehow) taking a picture of a significant Route 66 landmark, the Twin Arrows (located, not coincidentally in Twin Arrows, AZ). But we made up for it now:
In planning for the Route 66 trip I ran into (on the internet) a Western Swing/Jazz band from San Francisco called "Cow Bop" who was planning a trip to Chicago and then a "Route 66 Challenge" to LA on Route 66. They wanted to see if you could still sing your way across the country with no money and no planned gigs. Their plan was to leave Chicago on May 7th with a tank of gas and $100 and see if they could make it all the way to Santa Monica depending on the kindness of strangers to let them "sing for their supper". When I got to know them and observed that we'd have a ten-day headstart on the road, I printed up some cards that I could leave at business establishments along the way -- sort of like an advance man for the circus. Here's the card:
I watched their website (they documented their trip daily as we did) and found that they would be playing in Santa Fe, NM tonight. Pete and I stretched a little to get there and meet them at their gig at Cowgirls Bar and Grill. We walked in and I went over and introduced myself (we'd only met on the internet). I got a big hug from Pammy. It was awesome to meet them all!
Bruce Forman on guitar
Dan Robbins on bass (Dan is known as "Cozy Dog" on this trip)
Mike McKinley on drums/Huggies box
Da Band
Bruce and Pammy Forman
Bruce, Pammy and me
A Ford dealer in San Francisco donated the use of a tiny pickup
for the four band members and all their instruments. They
named her "Clementine" and this decal is on the doors.
Dick lost his sight in WWII and met Marie when he was recovering in the hospital.
They're great folks and were so hospitable.
We spent a couple of hours just driving around Little Rock while I took pictures I'll use to illustrate the autobiography I'm writing (I know, I know; it's the height of presumtuousness to write your autobiography -- but I have some interesting and funny stories to tell so I'm doing it. "And that's all I have to say about that" - (Forrest Gump, 1994)
We checked into a hotel and contacted my cousin David. We'd arranged to go to dinner tonight with David, his wife Donna, his brother Richard and my aunt Charlotte (their mom). She's 93 and I hadn't seen her since her 80th birthday. We had a grand visit at dinner (she thought Pete was "cute").
Since we're ahead of schedule we decided to motor on home to arrive on Friday instead of the planned Saturday. Today we drove to Tupelo, MS and had one of our very best night's at the Holiday Inn Express -- along with dinner at Outback.