Caravans, BBQ Salmon, National Meet & PWD AfterTour

[Mark Shaw]

What a great time we all had in the last couple of weeks!

It all started with the BBQ on Tuesday evening for the Buick caravans traveling through Portland on their way to Seattle for the National Meet. There were over 40 people for a Salmon BBQ dinner with salads, chips, and other side dishes supplied by our local BCA Portland Chapter members. Everyone enjoyed the salmon, except those who preferred hamburgers or were over an hour late. (I’m not mentioning any names here, but it was evidently a longer way from Texas than expected.) The only glitch was that all the corn-on-the-cob that was prepared in advance and placed in the oven to stay warm was still in the oven when everybody was gone! So it all went into the freezer until we got back from our Buick adventures 10 days later. We have had corn with every meal for the past week!

We had quite a showing of beautiful Buicks on our street. Some of my neighbors were driving by just to look at the cars. (Please email any photos you have so we can include them in the PWD newsletter.) One neighbor found a neat tire gauge that was left on the street. It was run over, but it still works. Let me know if it is yours; if someone doesn’t claim it, my neighbor wants to keep it.

Wednesday morning almost a dozen cars departed Vancouver for the scenic Pre-War caravan route to Bellevue. We all missed a turn before our scheduled stop at Kelso, but everyone caught up to continue on for lunch at a great little park just north of Centrailia. Fred and Ann Sears brought us buckets of hot KFC for lunch, and Ann (the cookie lady) made homemade cookies for everyone. They are guaranteed an invite to all our tours and caravans after this….

We continued on back roads until we got to the greater Seattle area where we had to use freeways for the last 30 miles to Bellevue. Many of us found the diamond lanes were moving at our speeds, so we used them without holding up traffic flow to arrive about 3:30 PM. Unfortunately, those without passengers arrived about 30 minutes later, not bad for a total distance of over 180 miles.

The meet was well organized and everything went as smoothly as could be expected. We enjoyed the evening cruise on Elliott Bay with exceptional views of Mt. Rainier on a clear night with the moon in the background, and the Seattle lights & sights. I am sure everyone has their own stories about their experiences at the meet, so I will only say that there was too much to do on Saturday with all the judging, tallying results, etc. So, as usual, the banquet program did not get done in time for a trial run through. I have suggested that the BCA board should review the scheduling for future meets to help resolve this repeated issue. But I think the host clubs did a great job!

PreWar Division AfterTour:

The PWD After-Tour left Sunday morning with just enough drizzle to make stopping an adventure in a 1913 Buick with two wheel mechanical brakes and skinny tires! Our tour leader stopped abruptly at a yellow light to keep everyone together. So when I did my slide around him into the left lane just in time to stop next to him, I leaned over and suggested that he shouldn’t do that again! He didn’t, and everyone spaced out and used walkie-talkies to stay in contact for the rest of the tour. The rain stopped before we arrived to tour the Boeing Aircraft manufacturing plant and museum. We had lunch at the museum and continued north to spend an hour or so in La Conner to visit the antique and boutique stores. We arrived in Anacortes to check into our hotel before meeting at a local restraunt overlooking Puget Sound for a beautiful sunset dinner.

Monday morning we drove to Sedro Woolley to visit Pat & Merrily Ferrell’s museum and car collection. Pat had his Stanley Steam Mountain Wagon ready to take several passengers on a ride to our lunch stop on Chuckanut Drive. We had a beautiful drive, but at the first Chuckanut turnout, the Stanley made a bad noise and stopped working. Pat had to trailer it 26 miles home for repairs, but was glad it didn’t happen a week before when he was hundreds of miles away from home. After lunch at the Oyster Creek Inn (where the food was exceptional) we toured the Taylor Shellfish Farm & learned all about clams, mussels, & oysters as well as the mud races held there a week earlier. Then we all drove back to Anacortes via the scenic route on bay-shore roads for dinner.

Tuesday was an early 7 AM departure for the ferry to Friday Harbor. Starbucks Coffee and bagels were provided because our favorite breakfast place “The Calico Café” didn’t open until 7 AM. After a wonderful ferry ride through the San Juan Islands, we arrived at Friday Harbor at 10 AM to circumnavigate San Juan Island with stops at Roche Harbor for lunch, English Camp for a history lesson, Lime Kiln National Park for whale watching and a lighthouse tour, American Camp for another history lesson, and finally back to Friday Harbor for shopping & dinner before another ferry ride back to Anacortes. It was just getting dark, so we turned on our lights and drove into town for ice cream before returning to the hotel.

Wednesday morning we all checked out after breakfast and went south across the very impressive Deception Pass Bridge to Whidbey Island and on through the quaint little town of Coupeville to Fort Casey. We took time to see the lighthouse and gun emplacements overlooking Puget Sound & continued south to have lunch at the Beach Fire Grille on a golf course at the south end of the island. We then caught the Mukilteo ferry back to the mainland where everyone said their goodbyes.

The weather, people, and cars were all great! I can hardly wait until we get to do it again!

[Centurion]

Mark, thanks for the excellent report. I had been thinking about your tour just yesterday, and was eager to learn how everything had worked out.

As I saw you all heading out from the National Meet host hotel on Sunday morning, I was more than a little envious of the great adventure that lay ahead of you.

I hope that some of the tour participants shot some photos that can be shared here.

[Mark Shaw]

Brian,

Yes they truly were adventures, and I hope some photos will show up too. I was so busy for the last two weeks I just now had time to post this. We also went to the Buick Oldsmobile, Pontiac Picnic (BOP) at Rooster Rock. We had a good time and I won a new multi-tester in the raffle.

Buicks numbered more than others again!

[Guest imported_Thriller]

Great report...good to hear the adventure went well. Since the '41 is hard starting, it is just as well it stayed on the trailer after we finally got it on Sunday.

There was another thought in my head, but it didn't make it out to my typing fingers...sigh.

Edit - oh yeah, we did see a couple of cars in the area as we drove by Rooster Rock, but we got a bit of a late start and wanted to try to make Coeur d'Alene that night.

Enjoy the corn!

[Bill Stoneberg]

Hamburgers, after we were so looking forward to the Salmon. You forced me to buy some the very next evening for Dinner.

You're correct, its a long ways from Texas especially when we went off looking at waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge.

We enjoyed the cars and the company that evening though. It was nice to know that we were almost there. BTW, thatks for arranging the Fire Truck drive by. 6 engines for one small house fire was quite amazing.

We really enjoyed the Pre War tour to Boeing, it was one of the best parts of the trip.

What you may not know is that we left early to get back travelling to Texas, so we didn't join you all for Lunch.

As we went out to the cars, we noticed a Tour bus stopped and everyone were off the buses and looking at and taking pictures of all the Pre War cars in the parking lot. There was quite a crowd.

Anyway, thanks again for the hospitality that you and your group showed us vagabounds from Texas.

Bill & Dee

[Mark Shaw]

Bill,

Glad you made it. Here are a couple more photos I just got today.