Are you saying I’m a monkey? No, don’t answer that, I don’t want to know.
The chili cook off was a blast. It was totally different than I was expecting heading up there.
On the trip, just like somebody who owns a Corvette, or some of you guys with your big charge for the woods vehicles, or somebody with something like an MGB, it may not be practical to others, but I like my truck and I like to drive it! But because it’s a little bigger, I can’t usually drive it a lot with the trailer.
It was a brisk morning when I got up. I had coupled the trailer up yesterday, so I gave it a real quick wash this morning (25°) and then I hit the road with my copilot Lincoln. It was about 1/3 interstate, and then 50% was very good 4-lane divided highways, and the last 20 miles or so were skinny, twisting up and down country roads. I loved every minute of it.
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I didn’t realize the museum was in an old mill building, or I didn’t grasp that in my mind. Very, very nice little country town. The rest of the mill was a flea market. Now I hate to use that term “flea market“ because it might imply something cheap or sketchy. This was more like a very, very nice antique mall. So that was an unexpected treat.
In my international career, one of the things I loved was meeting all the different people of the different cultures and finding out their story, etc. And you guys know that I hold my own when it comes to telling stories. What surprised me when I got there was the cross-section of people.
The Tesla dealer in Roswell, which is closer to me than that little town, had a tent set up and they had 4 or 5 cars that you could test drive. I have no idea why they were there. But they had a couple of those cyber trucks. I’ve never seen one up close, except for when I saw one upside down on the interstate. They are incredibly weird, but they are incredibly cool.
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They parked me right next to them, so I couldn’t help but hang around with them. The best part of the trip, this young pretty (30ish?) brunette sat down on my second stool, and pretty much stayed there for the whole show. Pitter Pat my heart, more on that later.
The Tesla guys and groupies were kind of the jacket and tie crowd, not that they were wearing that, but I think you know what I’m talking about. And this is a little country town, right where Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina come together, so of course I expected a lot of country guys and gals like a lot of you folks. That was a treat.
What I didn’t expect, is about 25% of the folks who cruised in, who were all great, interesting people, but they were more like what you see out of the movie Deliverance! When I say that, I don’t mean any disrespect, and I don’t mean to belittle them in any way, when I was chatting with them, they were fascinating, it’s just not something you don’t see every day and it was just kind of a shock to see a bunch of them. I’m just trying to convey the experience to you folks.
I never got into the museum to see the cars inside. It was kind of a bustling little crowd, and as usual, the Road Ranger drew some interest. Either that or the brunette.
Outside, the museum had some big vehicles. These two fire engines were my favorite.
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On that older one, I have to teach him about rustoleum, and a roller.
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They were probably 50 or 60 cars and trucks there, maybe more. A lot of them were 60s vintage muscle cars, but not the typical Chevelles and Mustangs although there were a couple of them there. There were Novas, there was a 50s studabaker bullet nose that looked like brand new that had been modified, some stuff from the 40s. I see that stuff around the car shows around Atlanta, but with these, you could tell that the guys who had them had done all the work themselves. They didn’t take it to a body shop or a customizer. Talking to those guys was off the chart cool.
There was a row of 50s and 60s vintage trucks across from the cars. I don’t think any of them were polished up and repainted. From chatting with some of the guys, and gals, half of them were granddaddy‘s truck that they have now. The rest were the same thing, it just wasn’t their personal granddaddy who had it. A couple of them had pretty hot running gear, but most of them were all original, functional, with a great patina. Unfortunately, I don’t know what happened, I took three or four pictures, but they didn’t come out.
The chili ran from pretty good home recipe, to some stuff that was pretty wild. A couple of folks who were cooking it and serving it were even more wild! I didn’t want to be left out, so I grabbed a can from the closet before I left, and I put it on RR Jr in the back.
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It was sunny upper 40s and into the low 50s when I arrived about 10:30. Nonstop fun. About 2 o’clock, a weather front came through, and it clouded over. No precipitation, but the temperature dropped about 15° in less than 30 minutes, so we were back in the low 30s again. That thinned out the crowd pretty quickly.
Apparently, there are some pretty good riding trails in that area. I talked to the guy who ran the auto museum about it, but of course he was very busy with the event, but I’m going to follow up with him and get some information for TRS.
Scary Baby and Lincoln got the usual attention, mostly from the ladies. One thing that was fun for me personally on the way back, when I got to the interstate, is one of the truckers noticed Scary Baby’s eyes lighting up with the brake lights. That started a whole lot of chatter on the CB, and it had these tractor trailers jogging around me for the last 40 miles. That was a hoot.
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I pulled in about 6:30. Lincoln decided to share his happiness getting home with the pink bear….
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I sat down in the recliner, and Lincoln jumped between my legs, and we both went out like two river boulders!
I woke up to write this, I’ve got to brush my teeth, and then call it til Sunday.
Some of you guys need to come join me on these things. I posted it above, but the big cruise in is in June. It’s supposed to be the same cool stuff and people, but 10 times as big.
EDIT: afterthought, there were some nice jeeps and four-wheel-drive trucks, but I was the only Ranger. We need to fix that…
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