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2012 Sentimental Tour


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The AACA Waynesboro/Staunton Region began their Sentimental Tour today. This is generally a 5 day tour, but there is so much to see in the Shenandoah Valley that optional early tours were suggested today. AACA members today had the opportunity to tour the Skyline Drive, the Bruce Elder Antique car collection, the Buckley Moss Museum, other local attractions, and even the Luray Caverns a little further down the Valley.

The official tour began this evening with the opening banquet, recognition of the Host Region members, AACA Board members in attendance, and ended with a wonderful performance by a local music group. The Boogie Kings played a variety of music related to the earliest automobile and the music that was popular during its time. The Boogie Kings are a 3 piece band with remarkable musicians, the fastest piano player, I've even seen, and the main man, Richard Adams, who performed playing more than 3 instruments at different times. The group got a standing ovation from our club members.

We begin the day tomorrow headed across the mountain to the Charlottesville area. More details tomorrow evening. Stay turned for FUN!!!:)

Wayne

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Wow! What a day guys. We started at 7am with a breakfast buffet that could carry you through to dinnertime, but wait! We had a coffee break at about 9:30. Gee, I'm still full.

We’ll start out with a full house at the Rockfish Breakfast break, then the 3 nice cars outside. Well, actually the first is a nice Studebaker pickup. There were two of them, both very nice. Then we see this nice Hupmobile sedan father and son team.

Wayne

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Let's move on to James Monroe's beautiful home, called Ash Lawn Highlands. This was a side shot, as the front of the home is restricted viewing from very large trees.

Woops, missed Walton's Mountain School, the actual school that Earl Hamner attended, now a museum full of local lore.

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How about lunch at world famous Michie Tavern with famous chicken and blackeyed peas. We could not clean the plate off before the ladies were bringing back platters of more chicken. I still hurt!

A few folks waiting in line for lunch..."Is it lunchtime yet?"

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Monticello was tops for the day, in my opinion. The amount of unique inventions in the home will surprise you.

I will show you the back yard picture of the home that most are familiar with, but also the west side which shows the wings that house the stables plus the underground(cellar) which has wine rooms, liquor rooms, maids quarters and other storage areas. This cellar extended probably 150? yards under the home. You can see from one side to the other, looked like a train tunnel to me??:D

Let me tell you, if you have not attended an AACA Tour, you do not know what you are missing. We have some fabulous folks putting this one on, and everyone is having fun.

Till tomorrow.

Wayne

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Wayne, I'm not sure you were there. A bunch of old car people showed up at Walton's Mountain crashing my honeymoon. Then later in the day they showed up at Monticello. Thanks to Fran Shore for taking the photo of Andrea and I with the Thomas Jefferson statue.

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Wayne, I'm not sure you were there. A bunch of old car people showed up at Walton's Mountain crashing my honeymoon.

A bunch of old car people?? Now, I know for a fact David that we certainly had one or two younger members with us. :P

Well, we left out this morning behind Steve and Brenda Renaldo. As you can see there was a long line of cars headed up the hill to see who gets the breakfast donuts first.

As we got on the Blue Ridge Parkway, Gloria said she just had to have a picture of herself with the beautiful views behind. Then the '56 Chevy had its lips poked out, so I had to add its picture too.:D

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Here's a couple more....

This is a beautiful look at the valley below, where Buena Vista Virginia is located. The lunch stop was a very nice location with this early American mansion. You can see the cars peeking around the side of the home.

Natural Bridge was a sight to behold. US highway 11 passes right over it. We saw a butterfly collection first, and they were live butterflies. We had shuttle service down to the Natural wonder, and it was especially needed on the trip back up. They also had a wax museum there, but Gloria and I were too tired to check it out. Maybe you're right David, maybe we are old!:eek::P

Wayne

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You guys like Studebakers?

These two cool pickups have been with us all week. Its amazing how advanced they are for their time.

Ray Fischer said they should be in his garage.:)

Here is Ed Hilbush in his MG following the other guys. I never thought I'd see Ed in a tiny car like this.

Wayne

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Wayne, as a previous & future Sentimental Tour regular, we love the pictures and narative, keep it coming.

The 1999 Glidden did almost the same Tour, so we're sitting this one out to take care of other area's of life's business. But, we love to see other AACA members enjoying the best part of AACA membership, TOURING.

Keep it up!

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It's catch up time. We're now dealing with Wednesday. We woke up to a drizzling rain on this morning. We were all either dealing with wipers that we hardly use, or Rain X that is not very effective at 40 mph and down. This early Ford coupe was throwing up rooster tails around the turn.

This old feed mill, now called the Silver Lake Mill, in Dayton used to be operated by Rockingham Milling Company, based in Harrisonburg Virginia, back in the 70's. This was the first mill that I used to deliver barley to back in the day around 1978. My first fall from a trailer occurred here. I limped home trying to drive a tall GMC cabover with a very bruised foot. Should have learned from this, but 9-10 years later I fell off big time in Morehead City, North Carolina and broke my foot that time. That's why I now walk "crooked"!:o

We ended up in Dayton Virginia for our breakfast break. Here is another full parking lot looking for donuts.

Here is a beautiful Studebaker shown inside Chester and Nancy Bradfield's garage/showroom. Their collection was almost completely made up of Studebakers and there was lots of early car related furniture and wall hangins...cool!

This very nice 1936 Dodge convertible is owned by Michael Romano of Roseto, Pa. It's pictured at WW Motorcars in Broadway, Va.

We had our lunch this day on the property of the Shenandoah Caverns right after we toured the Celebration on Parade building which had famous floats from New York, the Rose Bowl in the west and other venues that they occurred in. Some still could be activated to the surprise of some of us.

Then, Gloria and I heard this hysterical laughter from the back of the building. I was not surprised to see Steve Renaldo in the middle of it, but I was wrong this time! It was Edna Cross of Leesburg, Va messing around with a "love machine", no not a guy, but this carnival machine that supposedly measured the "heat" of ones hand to describe the uh, uh, ugh, desirability? Well, of course Edna's 25 cents got her the top rating of hot chick?? We all got into it then. So much for our candy money. Our pockets were finally empty, but the smiles would last a long time.

Oh, and Gloria just reminded me that she tested "sexy", but then I already knew that. ;):P

Leaving lunch we headed by back roads to New Market Virginia. We drove through this 200 foot covered bridge built in 1892, touted to be the longest remaining covered bridge in Virginia. Cool!

We then entered New Market and the Battlefield Park. There was a very interesting movie, plus many authentic battlefield weaponry. I saw one display that had a lot of swords in its case. They were all made by a Mr. Froelick of North Carolina for the Confederacy. Naturally, I told Ardie Froehlich to let Charlie know that his family helped the cause. Of course, Charlie came out later and explained to me that, “My name has an “H” in the middle, Wayne!” :o:p

The Battlefield and the restored buildings took us back to May 1864 when the VMI Cadets turned the tide with their battle against the invaders from the North. This day was the last battle that the South won against the North in the Valley of Virginia.

Back to our hotel, we all found our dinner meals around the town of Staunton. Of course David Kontor, Gloria and I closed down the hotel restaurant yet again another night. Who wants to watch cable TV when you sit around with your friends and talk about old cars and tell TALL Tales!:D

Wayne

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Edited by R W Burgess
many spelling mistakes, duh! (see edit history)
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Let me give you guys a little Thursday action.

We left out bright and early this morning. The sunshine was beautiful compared to the rain the day before, but as you can see in the first picture, there was a little fog on the mountains. Yep, not "smoke on the mountains" guys!;)

Leaving the hotel, we were following this very nice '31 Chevy owned by Tom Getz of Wilmington, NC. Tom has been on many tours with us and his Chevy has always been spotless. Our Tour Chairman, Stu Allen awarded Tom the "Hard Luck Award" at the end of the tour, because when Tom arrived last Sunday, his Chevy almost did not. The door on Tom's box trailer was open almost 1 1/2 foot at the top. The Chevy had broken loose and tried to "leave the barn"!:eek:

Tom also had an ignition problem on arrival to Staunton last week. Ken Farley managed to geta new condensor installed in the distributor to allow Tom to enjoy the tour.;)

Someone was looking for a Mopar? How about this cool Desoto. I followed this car for a good while and just fell in love with its beautiful lines and that convertible top.;)

We entered Goshen Pass, and we had to stop with others for a picture of the rapids. The tour book said that many people challenge the rapids canoeing and kayaking. I'd say if they got this far, they may have been in trouble.

Our breakfast break was at Rockfish Baths. Here you see a very nice Packard. There were two of these cars on the tour with us.

We followed these cars from the breakfast break. How about this clean Model A? Looks like a New Hampshire tag.

Will add a little more of our day in a bit!

Wayne

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I forgot to mention the excellent news coverage that Stu and friends had spread about our tour. Seems that everywhere we drove people were either waiting for us at the reserved parking lots, or catching up with us before we'd leave for the next stop. In more than one town, town's people would be sitting in chairs beside the highway waving as we went by. After about 2 days of this, the early morning blowing of my horn was getting on Gloria's nerves.:eek::o

On the way to Walton's Mountain, I noticed two houses on the left of us with women waving and smiling. One person had a cell phone to her ear. I could envision her on the phone with a neighbor up the road...."Hey Myrtle, quick run out on your porch. There are a bunch of old cars coming through here. Never seen so many ever before! They will be over to your hollow before too long, hurry!" :P

On the way to Dayton Virginia on Wednesday, we were in a long line at a stop sign, where we had to turn left right in front of this old farm house. As I waited my turn through the intersection, I rolled the window down and shouted up to the porch that this parade would not cost them a cent! :D

The smiles were worth the heckling. Gotta keep them guessing you know?;)

Wayne

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VMI and Washington and Lee University!

That's where we spent most of the day on Thursday. Stu warned most of us that we certainly needed good walking shoes for the day ahead of us. Stu should have told us this before we left home. My good walking shoes had been worn out on Monday and I was trying to break in new ones before Thursday ever got here. :P

We all parked around the VMI Drill field, and on side streets as we filled up every available parking space. One of the school employees apologized to me for not allowing us to park on the drill field because of wet conditions. They were pleased about our arrival. She also said that lots of people were calling the school to see how long we would be there. Parking on the drill field maybe would have helped a little, but let me tell you, this place is huge. Thankfully, there were many park benches under shade trees around the field to allow breaks. The museums were very interesting, covering the civil war. The George C Marshall interested Gloria a lot and we spend some time there too. Moving on to the Washington and Lee, we observed Robert E Lee's office in the Lee Chapel, his tomb, and the chapel itself. There were a lot of connections back to the Northern Neck, where we live, in that little chapel.

We were served lunch at the cadet cafeteria, and what a lunch it was. We were able to spend some time here visiting those tourers that we had not met. With 150 cars, it takes a while to meet everyone. I enjoyed spending time with Anne Marie Zerega. Anne Marie used to write a lot of columns for the National Capital Region back in the day. Her father was quite famous before I even joined the AACA. I love hearing history about the AACA.

Pictured are the drill field (2 shots) and the 1954 Corvette owned by Robert Williams of Chatham, IL.

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On the trip back to the hotel, we stopped by Cyrus McCormick's Farm at Raphine, Va. I have been stopping at this little byway with its many truck stops for years, but never ventured down the hill to the farm. I could have walked there. To make it even worse, the first farm tractor I learned to drive was a Farmall H!:(

Pictured is the only IH on our tour, a 1949 pickup model owned by John Scott of Media, Pa. This was shot at the McCormick parking lot, how cool is that? The next picture is the McCormick workshop with a working water powered grist mill to the right. The workshop had a replica reaper in the middle of the floor with some very nice models of different variations of reapers that came later.

Also included is a picture of the grist mill stone wheels used to grind the grain.

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Great posts Wayne! Susan and I just got home a bit ago and are yet to unpack, but it was a great tour! There isn't much better scenery that out there in the Valley, and the history abounds. It must have been hard to pick form all the great choices of places to visit. Since we didn't have a car that fit in this era we went out and stuck our thumbs in the air, riding first in a 1932 Desoto with Bob and Sally Murray, then two different "57 Chevys, owned by Lowell and Linda Cooper, and Gary and Barbara Baker, who we also rode with on the Sentimental Tour in Texas. John Stone loaned us his 1929 Model A Phaeton for Thursdays drive and the weather and roads were perfect for that car. Firday we spent time in that great 1931 Chevy with Tom Getz. We found out a long time ago you don't need to own a suitable car if you want to be a part of these great tours. There is usually a back seat available and plenty of AACA members anxious to get to know you better. By the time the 2014 Sentimental comes around we hope to own a car from this decade though.

This was another of AACA's fabulous tours and we enjoyed every mile of it.

Thanks to the hosts for putting together a fabulous event for us.

Terry

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You couldn't have asked for much better weather. I had originally planned on driving an old car on my honeymoon but the forecast as of Wednesday was looking rather warm for a honeymoon trip in a car with no A/C. So..... we drove her Grand Marquis. Now I wish I had taken an old car.

Most everyone seemed to be having a good time when I saw the tour at Walton's mountain (someone seemed to be cooling issues). Then again at Monticello. Fran Shore even took a photo of Andrea and I with the Thomas Jefferson Statue for us.

Andrea enjoyed the honeymoon which I had setup like a point to point tour, so hopefully I'll be able to get her to start touring with the AACA.

Glad the group had fun!!!:):)

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Friday, June 8, 2012 found us all only a short distance from the host hotel in Staunton. We were at the Frontier Culture Museum off route 250. This was a living history museum with many restored colonial style buildings (some moved from overseas to this location) to demonstrate what early American immigrants had for living conditions at the time. There were interpreters at each building to help us understand the times.

This first building was a German building. The interpreter told us to please feel at home. Of course, for me to feel at home, there needs to be a cat or dog nearby. I was about to tease him about that requirement, when I walked by the chair with the feline pictured in the second shot.:o

Kallie is the resident cat. Yes, this is her home, she lives here...all the time. Ruined my teasing moment! :P

Pictured also is the fireplace.

Moving on to the Irish building, we see a really neat construction pattern to this building. The triangular shape of the logs strengthened the buildings. The interpreter said that during the earthquake last year, he felt nothing in this building. A few miles from the site, his own home suffered costly damage. Keep in mind that the building materials here were authentic and cut during the 16th century.

The last picture is an outbuilding under construction. I found the locking pole ends interesting.

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After the Culture Museum, we all headed downtown where we had lunch on our own. A downtown parking lot was reserved for us and we filled it up. A lot of townspeople came by looking the cars over and taking pictures. There were a lot of restaurants in the area, so we feasted while we waited for the next attraction.

That happened to be a play. We found the building for the Center Friars Playhouse next to the Stonewall Jackson Hotel with its unusual lobby area. We all entered through the parking lot and into an elevator. The group I was with toured the floors in the building, going up, down, up, down, until we finally found the floor needed to access the lobby. Fun times, a thrill ride without charges. Gloria and I would have rode anything to prevent walking up another hill.:)

Finally inside the playhouse, the actors entertained us with music and singing before showtime. The interior of this place was fascinating with the natural wood walls and fixtures.We were prepared to enjoy Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"! We saw something just a little different, but hilarious. Preparing for showtime, the stage actors tried to fill the seats surrounding the stage itself. Ed and Ann Hilburn moved up to the stage seating, as did another of our group. The play began with the expected Shakespeare style speaking patterns.

Reminded me of Yoda (of Star Wars fame), " 'told you I did, reckless is he. Now, matters are worse"!

Ok, I never said I was the brightest bulb in the candelabra.:)

The play is beginning to get interesting. Gosh, young girls, old men, should keep all awake. Mentioning this reminded me that Ann Hilburn was the first to get "the treatment"! This young fellow actor suddenly walks up to Ann and winks at her, completely out of character. Later, he gestured at Ed, getting an expected response. (Ed raising his shoulders) What I finally figured out was that the audience was being set up, prepared, for the second act.

After the break, I notice that all of the stage chairs were filled for the second act. :D

Waiting with anticipation, the new guys were seated and smiling. They did not have long to wait. The play story line brought the new audience into the mix quickly, when one young lass sat in Nathan Roth's lap while engaging with her actor partner. This is getting to be fun, right Nathan?:P Between the antics on stage and the crowd action, this play became an immediate hit with all of us. A really great way to end an AACA Tour.

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I want to congratulate Stu Allen and the Waynesboro- Staunton Region for hosting such a wonderful tour. Gloria and I had the most fun, ate the most food, walked the most miles....ok, we are now in good shape Stu. That says it all.;)

Thanks for the memories guys! Well Done!

Wayne

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I want to congratulate Stu Allen and the Waynesboro- Staunton Region for hosting such a wonderful tour. Gloria and I had the most fun, ate the most food, walked the most miles....ok, we are now in good shape Stu. That says it all.;)

Thanks for the memories guys! Well Done!

Wayne

I agree completely with the above quote. Thanks for all the hard work to each participating member of the Waynesboro-Staunton Region.

Earl & Judy

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