4th
Annual Great Lakes Rendezvous
By Ken Bounds
On the weekend of June 6-8, members of the Northern Illinois Regional Group
participated in the 4th
Annual Joint Tour with the Northern Ohio Regional Group and the Nifty Fifties
Ford Club of Northern Ohio. This
year’s destination: Auburn, Indiana.
Bright and early on Friday, June 6, Ken & Carolyn Bounds, 1950 Ford Crestliner,
met new member Jeff Trilling, 1952 Ford F-1 Pickup and Tour Organizer Joey Novak
& Millie Olds (Mustang) at the Lincoln Oasis to begin the drive to Auburn.
Jeff had just joined the NIRG 17 days earlier and was off on his first
overnighter. After a relaxing
150-mile drive over mostly secondary roads, we arrived at the Auburn Cracker
Barrel and met over 20 of our friends from the Cleveland area.
Ron & Colleen Steck had traveled separately to Auburn and Tom & Madeleine
O’Donnell, 1940 Mercury and Joe & Delice Serritella, 1941 Ford Coupe, would
arrive in the afternoon.
After enjoying lunch and renewing old friendships we checked in to the nearby
Hampton Inn and got ready for our first stop, the Early Ford V-8 Foundation
Museum. We had a great time there
and were pleased to see how the Museum has progressed in the three years since
we had last visited. From there, we
caravanned through the country to a scenic covered bridge in Spencerville, where
everyone had shots of their vehicles taken as they passed through.
Carolyn later provided prints of the photos to each participant.
We even worked in a poker rally over the weekend, drawing cards at
various stops for a neat prize.
Back at the hotel we cooled off, kicked a few tires, and even got in a couple of
car games. Friday evening we took a
short drive over to Avila for a super dinner at the St. James Tavern.
Coincidentally Jeep Iacobucci told us that he once won a stock car race
near that restaurant! We returned to
the hotel and had some fun with a few or our people games before we called it a
day.
On Saturday we started with a visit to the National Auto and Truck Museum, then
on to the fabulous Auburn-Cord-Duesenburg Museum.
There was so much to see that most of us were worn out by noon.
Our own Charlie Kaiser made a surprise appearance just as we were about
to leave for lunch. At lunch we
coincidentally met a group of V-8ers from Michigan.
As everyone knows, Saturday is always yellow shirt day on these tours and
we have the photo taken at the restaurant to prove it.
Afterwards, it was on to a winery where everyone seemed to have a good
time tasting various wines and other treats.
At the hotel we spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying conversation and
friendship, plus a few more car games.
Our weekend began to wind down with a terrific banquet dinner which host Joey
Novak had arranged at the Bridgewater Country Club.
The staff did a great job serving our group.
Before dinner we had trivia contests for the men and the ladies.
Cari from the Nifty Fifties won the ladies quiz and Tom O’Donnell won the
mens. After dinner other prizes were
handed out including best poker hand to Beth Schilling, car games to George, and
people games to Neal Garland. Jack
Bukzar was the unfortunate winner of the traveling hard luck trophy, which he
had created last year, when a rock shattered his vent window.
It is always hard to begin saying goodbyes, but before we did so we handled an
important piece of business – where to meet next year.
Read on.
Sunday morning we began our trip home in the rain.
We decided to take the toll road home and our Crestliner didn’t like it –
the overdrive quit working. We were
able to continue, perhaps a little bit slower.
Then Tom’s voltage regulator decided to cause the battery to overcharge,
so he disconnected his generator and drove on the battery.
Regardless, we all made it home safely.
Congratulations to Jeff Trilling for surviving his first tour with the
club, to Joey Novak for organizing the event, and to all our friends from Ohio
for participating.
Oh, the answer to our 2015 destination?
Dayton, Ohio. We can hardly wait.