HOT HOT HOT

Since the Princess isn’t herding her big yellow school bus around this summer we decided to leave a little early for VA BBQ on Friday afternoon, we were the first ones there! The Princess and I had gone to the Dr. on Thursday to have an upper respiratory thingy treated and we were both on antibiotics and not feeling to chipper…. The instructions for the meds said we should stay out of the sun….yeah right…but it did give us a chance to try out my new multi angle, multi metal, industrial strength cosmic steam powered umbrella….they worked just fine keeping the Princess and me in the shade.

The intense heat was going to keep the sane people home but the crazy people started trickling in. The green ’39 Chevy coupe got a big block over the winter and it sounded very menacing. A lot of new to us cars spent the evening at VA BBQ. The red ’54 Chevy convertible, the blue ’67 Chevy PU, the orange Chevelle race car that came in on a trailer and the green ’49 Plymouth 2dr. And the newest was Andrew’s blue ’10 Camaro with the paper tag! I see why there are more new Camaros than Challengers or Mustangs….I’m glad the manufactures are competing for the “performance” people’s dollars again, it will raise the bar on what is considered a performance vehicle for the masses. We left about 9PM and had a cool cruise back home.

Saturday we met at the WAWA and cruised to Burger King in Manassas, VA a little early to get better spots (that’s code for making sure we got a parking place in the limited shade, because of the heat). Bill came with us driving his very nice orange ’70 Chevy PU. We set up around 3PM and there were about 10 cars already present! And it was hot! The attendance when we left at 5:30 was ok for such a hot day, many Mopars from the Mopar show up the road were lining up and taking whole rows of parking space….a neat deal. One of the Mopars was Fred and his red/white ’57 Dodge, who went with us to Bruster’s later. An old friend came in with his red C-6 Vette, there is something to be said for not driving a temperamental hot rod….sometimes new is better! A blue & white 789 parked and I got to take a closer look at this one. It’s kinda cool, made on a Vette C-6 chassis and all….it’s not my cup of tea but it sure is an attention getter. Steve and Sally came in around 4:30 and after a little schmoozing 5 cars left for Bruster’s in Stafford. We had a nice lunch/dinner at Sam’s Pizza then mingled with the people at Bruster’s before cruising home, I was too sick to walk around and take pictures.

Sunday we met Dan & Ramona at WAWA and headed north to Occoquan, VA and the Prince William Cruisers Good Ol’ Days car show. The Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) representative, Ray Phillips, was not available that day and he asked us to fill in for him. WWP is our favorite charity so the answer was swift and affirmative. The meds I was taking for my sickness were not working and I was hacking up things I could put a saddle on and ride home….so I was not relishing sitting in heat that was forcasted to be in high 90’s all day. Oh well, ya do what ya gotta do. We set up our camp to focus on WWP and waited to share with anyone who asked about WWP.

The show was down on participants but still had over 170 registered cars, which was not bad considering that the temps were oppressive. The PW Cruisers always manage a great show. One of the things they do is start the judging as soon as you are set up and ready. This means that when registration is over the judging will be done shortly after that because they have been judging for 4 hours already. This allowed them to let us out a little earlier which was very welcome because of the heat. The food was much better this year and the band was like last year….great! Did I mention that it was hot? We collected $100 from $1 & $5 donations and one $50! The Prince William Cruisers donated $600 to WWP too so it was a very good day for WWP. During the award presentations the Princess found out that one of the award winners was a recipient of WWP’s assistance. He came over to her and thanked her for the work we do to raise awareness for WWP. He said that he was wounded and was having complications with transportation until WWP stepped in and helped. That was a great thing for us to talk to someone like him, it made the heat of the day not seem so important.

I was getting sicker by the minute and could not muster the strength to walk around and take individual pictures of all the cars….so I decided to shoot a movie of most of the cars leaving since there was only two ways to access the event. I have a posted the video on YouTube at; http://www.youtube.com/user/502SizeMatters#p/u/2/7suznwNDx4c I have new meds now and they seem to be making me better even though I have lost Monday and Tuesday?

The birds revenge

We arrived at Colonial Beach for their Father’s Day show before 8AM and the lot had 20 cars already parked. I picked out a neat place on the hill under some trees….but I misjudged the size of the space and Dan’s 55 wouldn’t have enough room and the Princess was whining about her car is too low and the headers hang on the grass and she couldn’t see real good because of the shade the trees were providing made it dark and the path in front of her was gravel and we were too close to it and the dust would get all over the cars and and and….I give up! I shut down the RedRat and told them to park where they wanted and when they were settled I would park next to them. Dan parked his ’55 about mid way down the hill near a telephone pole….so the Princess parked next to him on the other side of the pole and I parked next to her….all was well. We had put up our canopies and set out the chairs when Ramona let out a shriek and Dan started using some bad words…. I guess we were acting like deer, we didn’t look up. The pole wasn’t a telephone pole….it was an Osprey nesting site….with an adult Osprey in the nest, screeching and looking at us with a very menacing glare. I guess the bird didn’t like Dan’s nice, shiny, clean, spotless car under her nest. So she did the only thing she could, she bombed the car….really bad….the stuff was all over the car….I mean ALL OVER the car and the sun was out and the heat was up and the stuff was cooking on the black paint, I think I saw smoke rising off some of the stuff. Now those of you that have seen Dan’s ’55 know it looks like a black mirror, nearly flawless….but now most of it looked like that speckle paint on the inside of trunks! Dan & Ramona got busy and cleaned off the mess although some cleaning would have to wait till next week when the door panel could come off and some molding removed to clean behind it, a real mess. We moved away from the pole/bird!

The venue is a town hill, right in the middle of town, what a concept! It has a permanent stage so the DJ worked out well. The bathrooms were porta potties and were new and clean and there is always a little breeze blowing off the Potomac River. The few trees scattered around the site offer some respite from the sun and heat. The event is managed nicelly with no hiccups in the program all day....

There were almost 60 cars registered in the event with some coming across the Potomac from Maryland. This show is usually attended heavily by original cars and this day was no exception. From the 1914 Jeffery Rambler to the ’57 Ford retractable to the Hudson Hornet and the ’60 Chrysler 300….the “original” cars were well represented. There were some late model cars as well as muscle cars and street rods. My ‘Best of Show’ was the copper ’34 Plymouth with the early 392 Hemi. That car had so many hand built custom touches and everywhere I looked I saw more handy work of Dan Costello, the owner. I liked the zoomies and the tilt front group….the car was clearly the coolest car on the lot for me. The judges had their hands full picking the winners and some grumbling was heard about the outcome but that happens at most shows. Dan & Ramona won the best Chevy trophy and the Princess won best street rod….some cars won multiple trophies….I think that takes awards away from other “worthy” cars when that happens. The ’34 Plymouth didn’t win anything!

This show has a very high number of “non car” people that wander in and ask questions and generally make the day more interesting for us. We like to share our hobby with anyone that will listen and Sunday we had a lot of egger listeners…. especially the Princess with her non-stop style of communication …. I didn’t say that. It was very hot and when we left I did my best impersonation of Fred the pathfinder and got us to the Crabby Oyster for a late lunch. We cruised home and collapsed from the heat. We may rethink our priority of going to shows verses cruises during the summer months.

I lost my Mom yesterday to advanced heart disease and a broken femur....she was 88 years old....I will be absent for a couple weeks.