Day 14: July 2, 2013 Enjoyable Repeats and a Great Museum Comment via blog

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The auto tour ended Sunday. The anniversary was yesterday. The conference starts today with a bus tour. There were two busses and these folks are boarding the other one.

The first stop was at that original seedling mile behind Kensinger's Station. After being here exactly once in my entire life, I've now found myself here three times in the last four days. As we pulled in, two old cars sat on the newer pavement looking as if they could have just driven off that seedling section. I snapped a picture through the bus window before the whole area was filled with curious conference attendees. I beat the crowd to the station by a little but it wasn't long before Dick was surrounded by fans.

And for the second time in four days, I was back at the Duncan Bridge. Mark wasn't there, the bus did not drive over the bridge, and no one took home any of the local foliage -- AFAIK. The bus, like most of the auto tour participants, did not enter Duncan but tour narrator Bob Dieterich did point out the town and the trees as we passed.

This is Brian Butko going after a tick while Cece Otto supervises. By virtue of having grown up in Minnesota, Cece is an expert on ticks. Brian is not. Brian says he had never encountered a single tick prior to Monday when he spent a lot of time sitting on a chair in the grass at the Arch. There's a great story involving a cake, a camera, and a tick but it needs to be heard (from Brian) rather than read. He felt this one, which presumedly climbed aboard during the bridge stop, on his leg while eating lunch at Dusters. Yes, that's another repeat location for me. The tick initially escaped but Brian soon saw it climbing up the cord of his phone charger and the hunt commenced immediately. With Cece's guidance, that creature crawling up the wall was quickly turned into an ex-tick.

I'd taken plenty of pictures of the former car dealership building that houses Dusters but I put on a longer lens and took some more.

At last there was a new stop for me. The Museum of American Speed is next door to "Speedy" Bill Smith's Speedway Motors and houses Bill's collections. Besides the 1935 Miller Racer, I've included the 1937 Christy Miller and the 1969 Gerhardt Indy Car. The Christy Miller was built for Lyle Christy but was also driven by Mauri Rose, Duke Nolan, and others. The Gerhardt won the 1969 race at Dover Downs for the "only Plymouth-powered win in an Indy Car race". A proud moment for all us Plymouth owners. Among the mostly race related displays on the first floor is a Tucker of a different color. This car's Waltz Gown Blue paint was Mrs. Tucker's favorite.

The first floor was impressive but, while it certainly contains some unique items, my overall sense of the place was not all that much different than that of other automotive museums. That changed when I went upstairs. There are some real car items, such as the 1918 Chevrolet V8, among them but most of the items displayed on the second and third floors are playthings. All six pictures in this panel are of "toys". There are even a few lunch boxes.

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