It's a sunny day, for now, at the farmette. Rain is forecast for later. Seems like we can't get through 24 hours without the clouds opening up. Oh well. Last Sunday, we took in the classic car show at the Grey Roots Museum (clever name, eh?) just south of Owen Sound. We started out a bit late, and it was, per usual, a misty-moisty day, so there wasn't much to it, but we had fun anyway. The best part was a gentleman who was hanging around the vintage garage that they have on the site. He was a mechanic, volunteering at the museum, whose age equalled or bettered most of the vehicles they had parked around the premises.
Clad in a traditional jumpsuit, he enthusiastically chatted with (mostly) Rob and I even though it was wet, others were packing up, and there was a persistent drip-drip-drip coming from the sky. Here, he's explaining that this woody station wagon was a kind of bus that would transport vacationers from the train station or port to hotels in the area. While it was re-built recently, the details were accurate.
Among the gems that were hanging in there were a few oldies with rumble seats. I went a bit nuts snapping pics with the iPhone, because I just love the thought of bumping down the road in the back of a classic car, wind whistling through my hair and bugs doing a kamikaze into my teeth (okay, scratch that last bit).
Being a relative neophyte when it comes to the ins and outs of operating rumble seats, I had to ask our tour guide what the heck the rubber projections were on the skirted fender of a baby-blue ragtop Ford from the 1930s. I thought it might have been a gas tank head, or a something, but he pointed out that you can't get into rumbles from inside the car, so they had to build steps on the outside. Clever. He also said, that, try as he might, he could not get the seat on this car to open, so we had to settle for admiring it closed.
The classics were not limited to cars, and this ancient oil-burning tractor was making its way around the grounds at the lightening speed of about one kilometre an hour. No seats on these behemoths in those days, because most of the room was taken up with engine parts. Must have been brutal having to stand all day during harvest...
Finally, as we were finishing up the tour, Rob had to stop at this gorgeously-restored mid-fifties Ford Mercury for a glam shot. Doesn't he just look like he belongs with it - fuzzy dice and all?
Now, it's time for a ride in our very own classic Miata - before it bloody well pours again. Until next week...