The Touring Club

2012

May 13-17, Muscle Car Tour, Branson, MO  

Jun. 17-22, One & Two Cylinder Tour, Jugville, MI 

Jun. 21-25, Chrome Glidden Tour, Billings, MT  

Jul. 15-20, Heritage Tour, Homestead, IA    

July 15-19, Great Lakes Regional Tour, New Castle, Indiana. 

Underlined items are direct links to registration information. 

Newsletter of The Veteran Motor Car Club of America

December, 2011

The Touring Chronicle

The first of the Great Lakes Tours, hosted by the Upper Mississippi River Region and held Sept. 4-10, 2011, was around Lake Superior. We enjoyed beautiful scenery, blue skies, great lunches, and lots of water. We left Hotel Chequamegon in Ashton, WI, on Monday morning and returned on Saturday evening, after driving about 1300 miles.

Ken briefs the tour group

Lake Superior is the largest fresh water lake in the world by area, and holds 10% of the world's fresh water. We enjoyed two boat trips. The first tour was through the Sault St. Marie (MI) Locks, where we were told how the local economy is tied to the Great Lakes and international shipping. During our tour we saw only one freighter in the harbor, however the locks attract thousands of visitors each year so tourism is a large part of their economy. The second boat trip was a luncheon harbor cruise from Duluth.

Mopars well represented

During the 6-day tour, we saw Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and Miners Castle, Tahquamenon Falls State Park, the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre, Ouimet Canyon, Kakabeka Falls, Gooseberry Falls, and the Great Lakes Aquarium. Since light houses are a large part of Lake Superior's history, we made stops at Iroquoise Point Lighthouse and Split Rock Lighthouse.

Sault St. Marie locks

Lake Superior has earned the reputation of being the most treacherous of the Great Lakes, therefore ship wrecks are also a large part of its history. At the Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, we saw exhibits telling stories of sailors and ships who braved the waters and those who were lost to its menacing waves. Most of you have heard the "Ballad of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and some may even remember when it occurred.

Lighthouse looms over the beach

The "Big Fitz" sank in a November 1975 storm with 29 crew members, none were ever found. Today Whitefish Point is the oldest active light on the lake.

Freighter passing through the locks, tour cars in the foreground

Another highlight of the tour was Fort William at Thunder Bay, which is one of Canada's top ten attractions, and rightly so. It was once the largest fur trading post in North America and it's a magnificent re-creation of the North West Fur Company's headquarters, and the days of the North West Company and Canadian fur trade.

Ken and Shirley Cvikota, tour organizers

Ken and Shirley Cvikota did a fantastic job of organizing this tour. Thank you.

 It's only a few more days until the December 15 nomination deadline for 2011 National Awards and Mike Johnston has received few nominations. 

A Corvette collection seen at the 2008 meeting in Punta Gorda

Also Don Royston, the organizer of this years event, is concerned about the relatively low number of reservations made so far. He has a great rate arranged at a top notch hotel but we could lose the hotel block and the rate. Don has some great sights and entertainment lined up so let's get those reservations in. Click the link in the left column for more info. Do it now before you forget!

Another image from the 2008 Punta Gorda meeting

You will all remember the recent article about Wayne and Pat Young who lost everything in the devastating Bastrop, TX fire this summer. Below is an update from Pat. 

Dear Friends and Family,

The saga continues and along with it the learning! We have all heard it said that it is a good thing we have our children while we are young and able to keep up with them. Well, it is also a good thing we usually build and furnish our nests when we are young, energetic, and able to keep up with a lot of things. Did you know that setting up a new home requires removing itsy bitsy stickers from the bottoms of glasses, bowls, cooking utensils, well...everything you buy? And did you know nothing, absolutely nothing, comes packaged in material that is meant to be opened? And I have no idea how much soap to add to the new type washers. We are replacing and refurnishing our lives by hit or miss and you know which prevails. I found a great buy on wine glasses from a consignment shop so we have wine glasses. No salt and pepper shakers (I am picky and want the type with screw on tops), but plenty of wine glasses. Between us we consume one glass of wine per day. It doesn't compute. Which may indicate a deeper problem here.

  Also, we have no living room furniture and use patio and folding chairs to set on in the den, but we have a fully furnished dining room. (yep, I found a deal). We have a bed to sleep on but no bedside tables, etc. The "second" bedroom has twin beds in it but no mattresses. We did buy a bedroom set from the previous house owners so we can have overnight company now. But be forewarned I lost my recipes and the guest shower is curtainless.

   Well, at least we are in a house. The remodeling company that was recommended to us worked wonders very quickly to pull up carpet and install hardwood floors, rework the master bath, and install some tile and some new appliances. They did most of the work while we vacationed at Lee Ann's home in San Antonio with friends from Albuquerque, Don & Barbara Gunderson. We drove with them to the Houston Quilt Show and escaped the stress for a while, leaving Sharon & Dan to oversee things in Melissa. Now we have actually spent 5 nights in the house and the last 2 nights in our new bed. Things were delivered or hooked up all last week. We have been lost among the disconnected, without Internet access for so long that I am afraid many of you won't remember who we are.   The connection was finally made Saturday and I have spent too many hours entering a stack of receipts into the bookkeeping program I use. We have charged enough since Sept. 4th to give a hiring boost to the paper and ink industries and Lowe's is our new biggest booster. Home Depot runs a close second. The affection is grudgingly returned.

Wayne is feeling great from the surgery now and handling things far better than I. He and Dan put up a new fence in the back yard to provide a place for our two Schnauzers (Lee Ann will deliver them Thanksgiving) and Wayne has mowed all of the yard.   It is soul-soothing to him to go round and round on his riding lawn mower. I go round and round in the house but in a less controlled manner. We have very nice neighbors here and last Thurs. one of them took Wayne to the local Rotary Club to which Wayne will transfer. He liked it very much and even met a pastor who is starting a new Methodist Church in Melissa. How about that! Currently his only problem is finding a shirt to wear as his wife keeps forgetting to buy an ironing board.

    Okay, all nonsense aside, we are making progress. People continue to be kind and helpful and being near Sharon & Dan is a blessing. We will have Thanksgiving with them, along with Dan's family, and then will decide where to celebrate Christmas. We still have many things to pick up from Bastrop and I hope to go there the first week of Dec. and attend the Austin Area Quilt Guild and personally thank them for so much help. They, along with the Co. Valley Quilt Guild in LaGrange, have been wonderful. There simply isn't room, or time, to list the groups and individuals who have helped beyond any expectations. I wish I could set with each of you and tell you the many examples of kindnesses and Faith building experiences that have come our way. Many of you know I love the book "The Will of God" by Leslie Weatherhead. It tells of the Intentional Will of God, the Circumstantial Will of God, and the Ultimate Will of God. We are now experiencing the Circumstantial Will and it reinforces our faith in the Ultimate Will. If this doesn't make sense, read the book. You will love it and you will see how it has shored us up through these recent events.

Our new address info is:

47 Country Ridge

Melissa, Texas 75454

Phone 972-837-2866 (as of tomorrow we hope)

Cells remain the same for a while 512-718-8835, and 512-718-9945

Pat and Wayne at the 2010 AAA Glidden in Holland, MI

Do you know what it is? See answer below. 

Facebook has become an extremely popular social networking site, reportedly having more than 500,000,000 users. That is something like one in fifteen people on the planet! There is no doubt that it is a great tool for keeping in touch with people and organizations in a way that was undreamed of and impossible just a few short years ago.

 We try to keep up with the times so we have created a VMCCA page within Facebook. Join! Contribute! Make it a forum for all things VMCCA. Click on the "Find us on Facebook" box below. Then click Like!

Whatsit answer: 1947 Lincoln sedan