We’re new in town, and haven’t yet encountered every annual event that comes up in the calendar. As it happens, this weekend was the annual street wheelers/hot rod/classic car weekend. It’s a weekend-long event; on the Friday night, the main drag is closed down for registered cars to cruise (and bleachers are set up etc. on the sidewalks for folks to watch), Saturday involves some sort of judging at the fairgrounds, and Sunday is a static exhibition in a local park.
Those are the official events. Unofficially, it’s a weekend full of these cars everywhere–you don’t need to have the main drag closed off to drive your wheels anywhere you like; and even without the main drag closed on the Saturday night, the bleachers are still up and people still line the street to watch the cars go by.
This is the situation my wife and I found ourselves in last night (Saturday). Our newness in town meant that we were unaware of the extent of this event. Saturday found us going out for dinner; and when we finished, our route home took us along the main drag. So there we were, driving our 2000 Chevy Blazer along in traffic–only the traffic consisted of classic Mustangs, Camaros, and Challengers, and the like. I was driving, so I was keeping my eye on the road, but I could have sworn I saw a Deuce Coupe (as in American Graffiti). The paint jobs were superb, the customizations were fascinating, and the engines! It was nice to hear eight cylinders of Detroit iron burbling away as I remember from my younger days when these were new cars.
There were all kinds of cars on the road–we weren’t the only non-classic vehicle out there–but we were certainly with them. We got to where we needed to turn, but my wife suggested that, just for fun, we keep driving the main drag with the others. She was having a great time with the windows down, listening and watching; and frankly, I was too. Together with my buddies, I had cruised the main street in the city where I lived when I was in my teens, but my wife informed me that this was the first time she had done anything like it. So we reached the end of the main drag, turned around, and did it again.
Kind of nice to cruise the main drag on a Saturday night. No, we didn’t really have the kind of vehicle that belonged, nor did we have the right kind of music pouring out of the car. But it had been years since I had done anything like that, and I’ve gotta say–it was a blast!