Knoxville by Jim Stocke

Once again, for the 18^th time, Dan and Kaye Laskey led our intrepid group of 13 dedicated car enthusiasts to the NSRA Knoxville, Tennessee Nationals.  Dan and Kaye, our capable wagonmasters, did a magnificent job keeping everyone together on a convoluted route for two days going and two days coming home.  Accolades and Kudos to the Laskeys.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

We all met at the Bowling Green exit off I75 at 9:15 AM. Seven cars filled with Dan and Kaye, Russ Demers, Ann and Phil Reilly, Jim and Sheila Sabo, Bob and JoAnne Nash, Jim and Judy Stocke and Tim and Mary Ann were there.  Does Phil and Ann’s T Bucket count as a car?  Oh, oh, I’m in trouble now.  I didn’t really mean it Phil and Ann.  You have the most fantastic streetrod on the planet.

Away we went about 25 miles south to a Cracker Barrel for breakfast.  Yea!  The very name, Cracker Barrel conjures up images of mountains of fru fru.  Wow!  Garden decorations, Coca Cola stuff, plastic animals, stuffed animals, linens, exotic candles, candies, little statues and the list goes on and on. My favorite place to be. After hours and hours of shopping at my favorite place and, incidentally, eating breakfast too, away we went again.  We angled through Ada to highway 68, a really nice side road which goes directly north and south.  Our ultimate destination for Wednesday was Lexington, Kentucky, but a really high priority first was Young’s Dairy in Yellow Springs for ice cream – applause please.  (What makes the springs yellow?).

After the ice cream indulgence, lets get our butts moving says our faithful leaders. And moving we did, moseying along to beautiful Lexington and the La Quinta Inn. The requisite cocktail hour was by the pool. Cool! And, quadruple wow, we get to go to another Cracker Barrel shopping, yea, and yes, even get some food too.  The morning excitement of the Cracker Barrel shopping experience hadn’t even worn off yet and we were treated to another shopping experience.  The excitement made me swoon.  After all that excitement and all that driving, all of us were wiped out.  We crashed shortly after dinner, making sure our cars were not parked under the famous bird pooping trees.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Twee, twee goes the whistle at 8 AM.  We were forewarned about Highway 89, the infamous curvy road though the Kentucky hills.  And, man oh man, was it curvy.  Wow.  The steering system on all our cars got a helluva workout.  But, it was great fun, scenic and quite interesting to go though the isolated villages in the Kentucky hill country.  There were dozens of yard sales along the way.  Seems like there were one or two around every curve.  Turns out that, in these parts, the first of the month is yard sale day.  And, we saw nice homes next to, well, hillbilly shacks with the required multiple cars in the front yard along with mountains of other junk.  Zoning was totally absent too, with businesses directly next to residential.  Kinda hodgepogey but interesting nonetheless.  We broke out of the curves and entered the quaint town of McKee in which the world famous Opal’s restaurant resides.  Great down home cooking at really reasonable prices.  And that pie!  Whoo!  Opal sold a lot of slices at $1.45 a pop.  After our brunch, we were invited by Jerry Emond of the Jackson County Sun newspaper to park side by side on a nice grassy area for photos.  Well, lots of photos were taken by us and Jerry.  By this time, the sun was out, with mild 70s temperature.  We all enjoyed this fun respite.  But, twee, twee, get on the road again.  Lots of distance to go.  Take highway 421 and 25W.  Gas and potty stops along the way.  We even hit a large station with no gas and one where the toilet leaked all over the floor.  Morristown along this route was a surprisingly big city.  As we traversed Morristown, one million school busses broke right into the middle of our convoy.  Three cars in front, then, one million busses and then, four more cars.  Seemed like it took forever for us to get rid of the busses and join up again but we did.  Keeping 7 cars together is a chore and the CBs really helped.

Ah, at last, the Strawberry Plains Super 8.  Check in and then go register for the show.  But, oh crap, construction all over the place.  Jim Stocke and Bob Nash went in one car and Russ and Jim Sabo in another.  The blind leading the blind.  We saw much more of downtown Knoxville than we really wanted to but, oh well.  Every time we go to Knoxville they have had these major construction projects. But, at registration, the Knoxville representatives assured us that next year there would be none. Oh yeah!  We spread out a little for dinner with some at Ruby Tuesdays and some at Puleos.  Then, even though completely worn out from two solid days of driving, some of us washed our cars.  Off to a much needed good night’s sleep in preparation for what we came, the NSRA Nationals South.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Fannnntastic weather today. Nice temperatures, high of 83 degrees, and clear blue skies.

We all felt really good driving to the site, Chilhowee Park, about a 20 minute drive.  This park is a really, really nice venue for a car show.  Hilly, grassy and trees all surrounding a beautiful lake. Gorgeous.  Not overly crowded and we were able to get our usual site next to the lake at the corner of the perimeter drive.  Ahh, car shows.  Nothing like it especially on such a glorious day as this. Makes all the effort and money worth it. We arrived at our site at about 8AM, set up the tents and plunked down in our ubiquitous folding chairs to begin the day’s work (!)  First, Kaye’s cookies and Mary Ann’s snacks.  Then, Women’s World, the swap meet, reading, snacking, walking or dozing depending on your tastes.  Lots of car watching, lots of vendor visiting and lots of just plain walking around enjoying the beautiful setting and the beautiful weather.  Just a great day to be alive.  This is why we go to car shows so far away.

But, alas, there was a sinister undercurrent going around.  Gobs and gobs of rain predicted for Saturday.  Oh no, God, not on our car show.  Don’t do that to us.

Anyway, around four we packed up, went to the hotel to rest a little before dinner.  Some to Ruby Tuesdays, some to Puleos and some to Wendy’s.  Puleos was a southern Italian place with really good food.  After dinner, a short social time and then to bed.  These days are great fun but are physically draining on us old folks. (What?)  Ahh, sleep.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Outta there at 7AM says Dan and you better be ready at 7.  Not any later.  I think we all appreciate a wagonmaster who knows how to motivate the participants without offending.  Dan and Kaye are masters at that.  We arrive at our site at about 7:30AM, early. Cloudy but no rain but it sure looks like rain.  We drove right in with no wait.  That is unusual but, not unexpected as lousy weather predictions and astronomical gas prices, caused the car count to be was way down. The predictions were for two inches of rain starting late morning and lasting all day.   A few of the girls stayed back planning to ride with Liz, Ann’s daughter, later if it did not rain.  Wishful thinking.  But, to make sure everyone had their breakfast fruit, the girls bought thousands of bananas.  When they arrived later, everyone had 12 bananas each.

Hey, this is okay.  No rain and its 9AM.  Uh, oh comes 9:30 and a few drops. Poo.  Well here it comes we think.  Yes, rain did happen but not heavy and quite intermittent.  By about 11AM it stops but everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop because of the dire predictions.  But, it never happened.  That is the first time I can remember the weather predictions being wrong.  (I don’t get out much.)  Well, the major rain went south of Knoxville leaving only the fringes at the show.  Cool!  About 4:30, we again pack it in for the Saturday night pizza party.  Yea!  And, a bonus, the sun came out.  Double yea!

Saturday nights are always pizza nights.  It’s something to look forward to.  Everyone is together in a quiet setting for pizza and conversation.  And that’s what happened until, POW!  Hey, was that a gunshot?  Nah.  Again, POW!  Boy, it sure sounded like one again.  Some of us went to the side of the hotel to investigate and found two next door neighbors very drunk and loud, firing their guns, fortunately beyond a tree buffer zone next the hotel.  This was downright scary.  All of us hustled back away from that side of the building.  The Super 8 manager called the police who came out and did nothing but talk to the drunks.  Shots fired should be taken more seriously we all thought.  What is it with us?  Seems the cops came with guns drawn to the hotel in Kalamazoo when we were all outside.  Do we attract criminals?  Nah!

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Ahh….. Beautiful morning, clear blue skies, cool temps – what could be better than a car show in a beautiful setting, fabulous weather and the company of great friends.  Life is good.  Sunday is also good for sleeping in a little.  We did not leave the hotel until 8:30, late by streetrodder standards.  Jim and Judy drove about ½ mile from the hotel before realizing that they had forgotten to check out.  They turned back followed by Jim and Sheila who, like good car folk, were concerned that Jim and Judy may have had car trouble.  While in the lobby, up shows Tim and Mary Ann who also forgot to check out. That caused the six of them to be really late to the show, about 9:15.  The show is practically over by that time.  Yes, I exaggerate!

Our campsite was filled with folks reading the Sunday paper or just lolling around.  Its quiet and not very crowded this day.  Nice, comfortable setting.  Some went car looking walking, some went to Women’s World, some went to the swap area and some just stayed around our campsite.  Very laid back day.  The guys went to the awards at 2 PM.  It was quite warm by this time and the bleachers faced the sun.  This is the beginning of our summer tans.  Alas and alack, none of our group received an award and no one won a prize.  Oh well, better luck next time.  By the time the guys returned, the gals had taken down the tents so we were off to Lexington by about 3:30.  We had to make a little time on this leg of our trip, so it was I75 all the way to the same La Quinta and, get this, the CRACKER BARREL.  Wow, wow, wow.  More shopping. Yea!

After a warm fuzzy feeling dinner at which most ordered the substantial Southern Fried Chicken, we retreated to the lobby of the hotel for our evening kibitzing.  Dominos was suggested but all we had were tiny round tables, not good for Dominos.  Besides, we were all tired.  Off to bed and on to home tomorrow.  But, did some of the gals stay up for Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters?

Monday, May 5, 2008

The last day.  A little sad to know that the trip will soon be just a memory. But what a memory it is.  Back onto highway 68 we went.  Horsey country is beautiful in Kentucky.  Very nice ride though the hills, horse farms and middle America towns.  A very pleasant drive.  We stopped for an early lunch at a really nice, hometown restaurant, Lake Manor in Mount Orab, Ohio.  Nice log cabin interior and quite large.  This was to be our last meal of the trip together.  It is comforting to see middle America.  Makes me really appreciate the US.  We get back on our horses to head north stopping at the Dairy Dream in Willmington.  Our obligatory ice cream break.  It really tasted good so it must be bad for us.

Our last stop is not too far up the road, Bowling Green.  There we get our hugs and kisses all around.  What a great bunch of people and what a great trip!  This hobby of streetrods is really great for the soul.  Hooray!

LEGISLATIVE ACTION from SEMA Driving Force

Michigan Street Rods/Custom Vehicles: SEMA-model legislation that would create a vehicle registration classification for street rods and custom vehicles and provide for special license plates for these vehicles was approved by the Michigan House of Representatives by an overwhelming 107 to 1 bipartisan vote. The bill must now be considered by the Michigan Senate Transportation Committee. The measure defines a street rod as an altered vehicle manufactured before 1949 and a custom as an altered vehicle at least 25 years old and manufactured after 1948. The bill allows kit cars and replica vehicles to be assigned a certificate of title bearing the same model year designation as the body of the vehicle it most closely resembles. Nothing was mentioned about the price or duration of the plates.

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Car hop tray $20.00

Hildebrand small window 15X10 mags (2) and 12 spoke American, Spindle mount (2) $500.00

Ford 289 V-8 motor, poked .030 over, wolverine 288/288 lift & duration cam, Shelby lifters, street dominator manifold with a Holley carb, Chrome alternator, starter, oil pan, brackets, pulleys, valve covers, rebuildable C4 trans and Genie shifter. $3,000.00

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