Prucellville madness....again!

Our little group of three intrepid cruisers left Stafford at noon for the 66 mile cruise to Purcellville, VA and the 10th annual Summer Thunder cruise.  The cruise is hosted by the Western Loudoun Community Volunteers, a nonprofit group of….volunteers…. (what else?) that raise money for local charities.  One of the charities is C. S. Monroe Technology’s Automotive Program, a nice fit for vehicle enthusiasts!   This is a ‘cruise’ not a show, no trophies, no entry fee, no hassle or stress!  They play music, have good food vendors as well as a race car or two on hand.  The restrooms are clean and well stocked; some are permanent inside of buildings!  The parking is all over one end of a community park, mostly on grass but some asphalt parking spaces too.  They ask for a donation to register for the door prizes….we were parked in the outland area by one of the baseball diamonds and could not hear the announcements for the door prizes but it was so hot it didn’t matter to me.  This is one of those shows that feel comfortable for me….I like it!

The weatherguessers were covering their bets….sunny & hot with a “chance” of violent thunderstorms!  So….it’s going to be a nice day….but….it might rain and blow hard enough to float us clear to the Chesapeake Bay!  I am really growing weary of the rain and hot weather….but I have to be glad we are getting some rain when I think of much of our Country is suffering from drought.  So when we were on Aden Rd. near the one lane wooden RR bridge it started to rain.  Not a nice gentle rain but drops that were so big five of them covered our windshield!  And it rained till we got on Rt. 66 near Gainesville, VA.  On a positive note I got to try out the new wipers on the truck and do another water leak test….fun.  The rest of the trip was mostly uneventful….even with those two traffic circles on Rt. 15. 

This is a late or early starting event, depending on your perspective….it ‘officially’ begins at 2PM and runs to 7PM.  When we arrived around 1:30 there were over a 100 vehicles already parked!  The last few times we have attended this event we arrived around 10AM….I think we will go back to arriving a little earlier.  After we parked I had to clean the truck from the above mentioned unscheduled rain mishap.  I think I am discovering a flaw in our family ‘TEAM’ system.  I would keep the vehicles roadworthy and the Princess would clean/dust the cars when we arrived at an event, two cars!  Now she won’t help with the truck?  It’s actually easier than the cars but she muttered something about ‘she only does red cars’….hmmmm  Maybe I need to find a painter?  Anyway after setting up camp and I finished cleaning all the road spray and water spots off of a black truck, in the atomic blast from the sun….I was thoroughly pooped.  I sat under our canopy a while to recoup and noticed the vehicles continuing to arrive.  A lot of vehicles we know but some that are new to us.  We kept asking people how they made it through the rain….rain? What rain? 

I liked the dark green ’68 AMC AMX and the 70 something silver & copper Nova….it sounded real nice too!  There was an intimidating dark maroon ‘50 Buick sitting under a tree, a retro display!  There were about 200 vehicles in attendance with about half 1970 and newer.  I was just too worn out by the heat and didn’t take pictures of everything early enough….oh well there is always next year.

On the way home I made one of those ‘Oh Nooooo Mr. Bill’ turns and had to be rescued by Jim & Linda in the blue Vette with the GPS (I hate it when that happens)….  We had an uneventful cruise to Stafford till we started running over wet roads….from the rain…..that no one else had to run in….I think it’s the weatherguessers revenge!  The good news now is that I don’t have to clean anything under the truck….just the shinny part and under the hood, whew!

Be sure to check out the images at; http://rides.webshots.com/album/583180102yHXlKr