Back in the late 1970s things came together for a trip to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. More than one person, on hearing that I was from Cincinnati, said "Oh, you must go to the Indy 500" or "Bet you go to the Derby". I was kind of embarrassed to admit that I had never been to either of those big parties in my own neighborhood and attended both that very year. Last fall I had a similar experience in San Bernardino although it was me asking myself, "Why, when you're 2000 miles from home at the San Bernardino Rendezvous, have you never gone to the Woodward Dream Cruise just a couple of hundred miles up the road?" I had no answer and decided right then that I would get to the Cruise just as soon as I could.

That turned out to be this year but this year turned out not to be the best choice weather wise. Rain moved into Detroit on Friday night. There was talk of it ending around noon and I filled the wet morning with a visit to Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. MMMM is stuffed with things that flash, beep, toot, whir, guffaw, dance, sing, and make some honest music. Cool place and, before I knew it, an hour and a half and five bucks worth of quarters had disappeared. The rain hadn't. But I headed over to Woodward anyway and found at least one cruiser was prepared for even more water. One of these Amphicars sold for $124,000 at this year's Barret-Jackson Auction. I think I had expected mostly muscle cars and street rods and there was plenty of those but the Woodward Dream Cruise, at least the Woodward Wet Dream Cruise, seemed to be all about variety. Even the roadside attractions were a mixed bag. It's no surprise that outfits like General Motors and Saleen were there but the "AARP Road Show"? Demographics, man. It's all about the demographics. I'm sure that the original owners of the two Chrysler products being refueled never dreamed that their purchases would one day be fed something called "unleaded" that would sell for around three bucks a gallon. Rain continued past noon but steadily declined and by 4:00 the sun was occasionally peeking out.

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