We arrived at 7:30 this morning at the SS Badger. We were fourth in line. Two cars in front of us we're Model A's. By the time we went aboard, there were about 20"A's" and only one was on a trailer. There was even a bicyclist. People were from Canada and Pennsylvania and all over Michigan. The boat ride was pleasant. We played Bingo and Tom & Betty watched a movie. We watched cars & trucks loading. There were two semis on board. The SS Badger can carry 600 passengers & 180 cars. It is a much bigger ferry than the one we went on last summer from Whittier to Valdez, AK.

When we docked, we were on the road in no time. We then drove about two hours to Oshkosh, WI. The Wisconsin countryside is very scenic with rolling hills and farmland. The only problem we encountered was all of the road construction that led to detours.

We checked into our hotels and went to the main hotel to pick up our information for the MARC meet. There were lots of familiar faces from other meets. We met up with Jim & Jackie Johnston & Jackie & Mike & Gywneth Shotwell. The eight of us had a nice dinner at The Charcoal Pit. I learned that broasted chicken is not broiled & roasted. it is like KFC. I was trying to eat healthy. Oh well!

Tomorrow is the official first day of the meet. We are all looking forward to it.
Tom & Betty have done a great job so far of leading us on our Midwestern adventure.

In Ludington; Ready for Wisconsin

This morning, at 8AM, when I checked out of the hotel, I asked the clerk if it was hot outside. She said that is was hot. I asked her what the temperature was & she said " 63 degrees." It is all relevant to what you are used to.

Today we arrived in Ludington around 1PM. We ate lunch at a microbrewery/restaurant. It was a breezy day. We ate outside overlooking Lake Michigan. We made a couple of stops today at antique shops. Ray found a couple of things... Car related. We also made an additional stop for Teri. Michigan strawberries are in season & she wanted some. So we stopped at a road side stand & the man there started talking about his father-in-law who at the age of 85 still owns a Model A.

After lunch, we got our tickets for the SS Badger, the ferry we are taking to Wisconsin. We will leave at 9AM & will arrive there noon Wisconsin time. We took a lot of pictures of our cars at the beach with lighthouses in the background and then walked a half of a mile out to one of the light houses. It was really windy & occasionally you could feel the spray from the waves hitting the rocks. It reminded me that I need to dress warm tomorrow for our boat ride. All is well with the cars. We have driven a little under 1,000 miles now.

Ray, Teri, Tom, & Betty

Ray discovered the second day of the trip that the alternator wasn't charging. Periodically it would charge but most of the time, it did not charge. Ray read on Ford Barn that you can run a week on the battery if you are not using headlights. The elves did not fix it so Ray had some extra time today at the hotel & he fixed it.   Then he adjusted the third brush to high output.  It is charging fine now.  So all is well with both cars.

We were at the Gilmore Car Museum when it opened this morning. It is out in the country, & a very pretty drive.  The museum is bigger than we thought. It only cost $9.00. It was really nice how the buildings are divided up by car types. There is a pedal car, motorcycle , hood ornament, in addition to the cars. We were allowed to take the "A's" into restricted areas. We took car pictures at a vintage gas station & a 1940s diner.  At the end of the day, we went to the library. It proved to be very informative. They just quadrupled the size of the library and are always looking for more literature about old cars. The librarian talked to marketing dept. and got permission for us to take the cars into the museum area.The last picture is of the Model A Museum under construction that many of us in the Southside A's donated money towards.

We met my brother, Tony & his family tonight for dinner. Tony & his wife, Sharon have 5 boys & they made our dinner conversation lively, ages 10 - 23.   Tomorrow we will drive to Ludington & spend the night. Sunday we will take the ferry to Oshkosh.

Ray, Teri, Betty, & Tom

PS: We thought you'd like seeing the picture of Tom wearing Betty's hat!

Inside the museum.

            A side view mirrow showing Tom & Betty's car and the pretty Indiana countryside.

Replacing the 3 lug nuts that Tom lost on the road

We spent the morning at the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Museum.  The museum has many unique, valuable, expensive cars. It was well worth the visit.  It has become  our traveling tradition that the Besch's choose the lunch restaurant and the Miller's choose the dinner restaurant. We ate ate another good restaurant for lunch, Sandra D's.  Dinner was a good choice in Kalamazoo at Brewsters (NOT ICE CREAM!) We drove through the farmlands of northern Indiana and Southern Michigan, traveling state highways & county roads.  We were in Amish Country. It was a beautiful day with temperatures in the 70's.

As you can see, we had to make an unexpected stop.  Somehow the right front wheel on Tom's car lost three of the five lug nuts.  Ray had some spares so it didn't take long for us to get back on the road. Betty supervised the job & Teri directed traffic around the cars.  You can be sure that the guys checked the lug nuts on both cars to make sure that they were tight!  Tomorrow we will spent the day at The Gilmore Museum.  We are looking forward to being there. 

Life is good.

                                                 Ray, Teri, Tom & Betty                                                  

We left again at 8AM today.  We crossed the Ohio River into Indiana on an old bridge.  There were temporary roads leading to and from the bridge.  It looked like they were raising the bridge up several feet. After we made it to Indiana, we thought it was amusing that there was a Damn Movie Theater in the little town.  We were going through the county seat, little farther down the road, when we saw the courthouse with a tree growing at top of the clock tower.  The last picture is interesting because we were in a town that boasted that they were the home of the Trojans.  We saw Trojan Street & ate lunch at a diner called "Mikes."  We found it amusing that Weenie World was next door to the diner.
We are in Auburn, IN tonight and plan to tour Duesesberg - Cord Museum & maybe a truck museum too before we head to Michigan to the Gilmore Museum. No serious problems with the cars. Ray plans to work on our alternator (sp?)  tomorrow.   We have now travelled about 780 miles. All is well.

Ray, Teri, Tom & Betty

This was another great "A" day.  We left at 8AM & enjoyed the cool temperatures and scenery.  Betty & I decided to drive for about an hour. We traveled through the rolling hills of Tennessee and into Kentucky.  We stopped at Abraham Lincoln's birth place. There is an inn there, named after Lincoln's mother, Sarah. It was built as a tourist attraction in 1928.  We were asked to park our cars in front of it for some vintage pictures.  This was in a private area so we felt privileged to be there. We are close to Louisville now. The plan is to be in Auburn, IN tomorrow night for a day or two of touring the museums there.

Our total mileage is a little under 500 miles.
Ray, Teri, Tom, & Betty

Day 1

                               The odometer reading as we were leaving home in Peachtree City.

                                                         The meeting place in Newnan.

                                                  The first couple of hours on the road.

                                                        Checking maps at lunch time.

The pretty Tennessee countryside

We met Tom & Betty at 8AM in Newnan.  It started to rain just as we were leaving.  At times, it rained hard. By the time we made it to Huntsville, the rain stopped but it was overcast.  We had lunch at a great sub place, Stanlieo's. They asked permission to take pictures of our cars for their Facebook Page.  We planned to spend the night in Shelbyville but went an additional 30 miles to Murfreesboro. Our cars are running great. All is well. We travelled a little over 260 miles today.

Ray, Teri, Tom, & Betty