Mecum Car Auction, Indianapolis, Indiana

Wow, this was a busy week.  We altered our original plans of visiting friends and family in Ohio (actually just changed our dates) and since we still had 9 days to kill before we had to report to our Spartan Chassis adventure, we decided to camp at the Indianapolis State Fairgrounds.  Our motive was to attend the Mecum Car Auction and maybe tour a little of Indianapolis while there.  The rate was terrific, $30/day including taxes.  We ended up having a great site and was positioned right where the action was!  We arrived on a Friday just in time to see almost all of the cars for sale being off loaded.  It was a hubbub of activity right through opening day (May 12) and beyond.  There were so many awesome cars, new, old, reasonably priced, super expensive as well as other automobile memorabilia.  Les registered as a bidder and received a Guest pass for me as part of the package.  It was $20/day pp for admission so it was less expensive to register as a bidder.  I know he thought he could weasel a buy from me but I held strong!  After all where would we put it!  So I am posting some photos of some cool cars and a photo of us with Rutledge Wood (NBC-SN and TV car guy for those who don't know him).

Les, Rutledge, Pat

Wish Joshua was here as this was his "heaven"!

Baby Bird photo we took for Tony

Extra bonus the Indianapolis Speedway was having practice runs in preparation for the Indy 500.  We decided to go to practice one day to change it up.  The best things happen when you least expect it.  There were very few people there and most were sitting in the "bleachers in the sun" so while we were scoping out the opposite side of the track one of the track security workers started talking to us about the history of the track.  Before we knew it he was giving us a private tour of the old press box and suites no longer in use for the public.  The famous announcer Tom Carnegie's (now deceased, famous for his words "a new track record") press box and the original Western Union sticker preserved on the eye beam by Tom's broadcast booth.  It was really cool and we were happy we had an opportunity to do this.  He sent us up further in the stands to the Penthouse level and another guy continued to regale us with the history of the track.  While this was happening we look out and Helio Castroneves had an horrific crash during practice.  We missed seeing the actual crash live but saw the aftermath.

On our tour of Ton Carnegie's Broadcast Booth at Indy!  Note the Western Union Sticker.

Les at Indy Photo Op!  Oops we are on wrong side of "ndy"

The auction ended on Saturday and of course there was much hustle and bustle to get all the vehicles back on transporters and either to their new home or back to their original home if unsold. Again we had a front row seat.  I was napping and awoke to a fire engine siren, Les was nowhere to be found and I saw smoke pouring out of one of the haulers across from us.  Turns out that there was some type of mechanical issue with a 1957 Corvette that had just been loaded onto the hauler on the second level and you guessed it, it caught on fire and was destroyed. This had just sold for $140,000...oh my....here's the aftermath.

Anyway now we are in Charlotte, Michigan to learn about our chassis.  Today was beautiful, although a bit windy, but the forecast for the week includes some mighty low temperatures, brr, on with the heat again!

Indiana...Elkhart, Shipshewana, Auburn, Florence

Well it's been a little bit of time since we've reported on our whereabouts. We made our way fairly quickly out of the dangerous storms. We headed to Elkhart Indiana to prepare for our visit to the factory. We caught up on some errands, laundry and shopping. Then we went to the factory to have some warranty work done. They schedule you to stay for one week, on their property, and encourage you to get as much done as possible in that time. They have between 8 and 10 coaches that they regularly service. Your tech picks up your coach at 6:30 AM every day and returns it to your spot sometime between 2:30 and 3 PM. We met some very nice folks, after all you hang out in the customer lounge a good deal of the day!  Tina was in charge of the time, Ruth of the day, Pat of the date and Val's dog was the head of protection! The guys were in charge of Quality control of the work being done, and deciding what was for lunch!

We left the factory on Friday afternoon, leaving Don and Tina who were staying into next week, Ruth & Charles waiting until Saturday to roll, and Val probably staying much longer! We headed to Shipshewana to meet up with our friends Carl and Jane (RV friends from Kentucky). We explored the area, as it is a heavily populated Mennonite – Amish area, sampling foods and getting the lay of the land. Of course, there was the obligatory Studebaker car museum, the Hudson car museum as well as some unique shops to explore.  After a few days we headed over to our current location in Auburn Indiana. Yesterday we toured the Auburn Cord Duesenberg car museum, and today we will complete the museum circuit here with the military and transportation museums. In between we have learned how to play Mexican dominoes and LRC (left right center). I say we have learned but I did not say how well we did!  As an example I will tell you that I scored the highest that Carl had ever seen in the Mexican train game!  I thought it was a good thing to be at almost 1000, until I realized that Carl won the game with the score of less than 100. I'm going to need some more practice!

In any event I will be posting a couple of pictures that will give you a sense of where we are. Tomorrow we will be heading to Florence Indiana for a week before we head back through Indianapolis to attend the Mecum Auction. Stay tuned!

Studebaker Museum

Jane, Carl, Pat, Les in front of Amish Farm

In Studebaker Museum

The simple life in Shipshewana