The Great Race

I survived volunteering!  Just kidding: it was fairly easy - I sold cold beverages a majority of the time and passed out maps for the first hour.  I'm going to let pictures show you how fun and awesome my afternoon/evening was.  I wish I could have seen more of the event, but I'm happy to have helped my sister out and to have given back to our community a little.

I didn't really know much about The Great Race before I showed up yesterday afternoon.  Basically, it's a controlled-speed race of antique vintage cars from Traverse City, MI, through Ontario to New York, Pennsylvania, and then through Ohio to get to the Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI.  There is a prize (sum depends on number of entrants) but I think many do it just for fun!  What a cool (and expensive) hobby!  Here is the write up they made of their journey yesterday - the first and last three photos are all of my hometown!  [you can tell I'm excited because I've been using too many exclamation marks]

And now, parts of the event from my perspective:

Pre-event setup; taken as I rode in on my bike.

Local car clubs had their cars set up for people to check out.

They don't make rims like this anymore!
So beautiful!  It's art!

Flag City Corvettes had a nice assortment of new
and vintage models.  I refer to this as "Corvette Lane".

"Furious" :)  He parked next to "Grumpy7" :)

Vintage Cars

People started lining the road quite early.
The Great Race cars rolled in around 4:45pm.

The Hancock County Convention &Visitors Bureau
even hired clowns & a magician to entertain along the sidewalks!

One of my favorite shots of the day: vintage cars & the cutest old man.
What really made it for me was this sea of vintage, antique cars
with the old man - holding a cell phone! :)

Vintage police car!

Prepping the hot air balloon.  It was supposed to
give tethered rides but it was too windy. :(

The Great Race cars lining up as they came in.

The Great Race car parking.

A really good barber shop quartet was also
entertainment for the evening.  So proud of
Emily for hand-selecting this group!
They were SO GOOD!

Filling the hot air balloon.

This is getting to be a super long post, but that's ok!  These last pictures are of the Dirty Car Artist.  This is the reason why I had to get the van downtown by the deadline - so he could begin his work on it.  Pretty amazing work!  And now that my car is down for the count, I have the pleasure of driving this around [until Kyle makes me get a carwash].

My mama's mini van, all "dirtified" as Emily called it. :)

He started with some basic sketches on the "dirt".

Mind you, my mom's van wasn't actually dirty...he made it dirty first.

I was trying to get a pic of everything, and I ended up including
the artist while he was eating lunch.

Scott Wade at work!

His tools.

Final Product: back windshield.

Zoomed in.

Final Product: left side.

Zoomed in.

Zoomed in.

Details on the back.

My dad would really have appreciated this aspect of the event.  I'm sure he would have videotaped clips of Mr. Wade "painting" and he would have asked more than a handful of questions about his technique.  Hopefully these pictures are enough to suffice my father when he gets back from his extended out-of-country vacation!

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Oh wait, did you think I was done?  When I got home last night, I was so exhausted I changed back into my non-volunteer shirt, hooked up the VCR to my parents' TV, grabbed a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, and watched Newsies - alone.  I wanted to see the movie again because we might be seeing it on Broadway in a few weeks and I didn't remember the whole storyline.  I sang along with every song and loved it even more than I did all those years ago when I watched it with Shamsi, Asi, & Zarrin (my sisters from my 'other mother').  Since I was so tired, I spent the night at home.

When I woke up this morning, I played around on our iPad (I brought it and my computer with me, and my computer died yesterday afternoon since it hadn't been charged in 3 days), read the Tablet of Wisdom (homework from my class at the Wilmette Institute), and then finally decided it was time to head back to our apartment.  I'm so happy everything worked out wonderfully!  This is what I came across when I was nearing our home:

Car from The Great Race!

Passing car #2.

Car #3!

I saw one car but didn't have time to get my phone ready for camera action.  I really hope they were watching my car because it still had that awesome Great Race art on it and I hope it brought a smile to their faces. :)