The Home Stretch (Thursday)

We are up this morning with just over 200 miles to drive today. We'll be glad to get to Auburn so we can get the car off the trailer. Barrie says he will have it on the field on Saturday. Josh & Betty take off early to be in Auburn in time for a meeting. Gail & Joyce opt to sleep in and take a leisurely start. That leaves the Wohlwend's and the Hutchinson's traveling together this morning. We head for the tri-state and hope to get around the bottom of Chicago without finding any real traffic jams. Our morning commute is amazingly smooth. All that worry about Chicago traffic turned out to be for naught.

Don calls on the cell phone and says he forget to fuel up. The needle is on EMPTY and we are on the freeway. We look up gas on the GPS and head for a fuel stop. If it isn't one thing on this trip, it is another. We decide to take the northerly route so we can stop at the Studebaker Museum in South Bend. We spend an hour or so. The museum is quite terrific. Then we walk 3 blocks to have lunch at the Studebaker Mansion. An amazing place that has been converted into a beautiful restaurant. Three of the four stories have been lovingly restored and the restaurant rambles from room to room on all three floors. After lunch we walk back to the cars (well - Don's car and our "rig") and head off for the last 100 miles. Yikes, what should have been an easy afternoon turns into a relative nightmare. First we find bad roads, then miserable detours and tons and stoplights. We are ever so glad to reach Auburn at 4:00. The first half of our trip is over.

We first stop at the Holiday Inn Express where Don & Arlene are staying. We bring in the infamous traveling box of wine and raise a glass to toast the "success" of our trip. At least we are all here!! We head over to the private home where we will be staying for the weekend. Ahhhhh. Finally an opportunity to relax. We end the evening at a birthday party.

Tomorrow is the swap meet and then Barrie has the challenge of tearing the car apart and putting it back together again. Cross your fingers, we'll need some luck.