The Third National Corvette Caravan

The Georgia Caravan
June 24-30, 2003

June 29th -- Bowling Green!

Met Fred & Fran in the hotel checkout line.  Seems the ZZ Top concert was either:
1. Wonderful or
2. A disaster

Apparently it depended on the seats you were assigned and/or your affinity for the music of ZZ Top.  Many folks left during the concert and many stayed to the bitter end.

Gael and I were not upset that we missed it.

Fred and Fran headed on back home to Charleston (it's a loooooong drive from Nashville) and Gael and I checked out and headed on back to Bowling Green.  We were staying Sunday night at the Country Hearth, a popular motel adjacent to the NCM and the headquarters for the Georgia Caravan.

We had to get there (BG) early because we'd hastily arranged a photo-op for all five of the 53-03CEs that were in Nashville/Bowling Green. Unfortunately, one of the owners, Craig Stater, had to leave on Saturday so we only had four:





Left to right, they are Mo & Rich Waller's #8, Dino & Lynn Salvatori's #36, my #11 and Tom Robbin's #7.

Luckily, our parking spot was still available so we parked this time adjacent to Cindy & Dennis' beautiful Marina Blue '67 big block.

We were done with all our photo duties in time to see the Heritage caravan arrive from Nashville. All 50 cars in model year order drove onto the property and parked on the grass in front of the building. Here are friends George and Vicki Hicks with their 1972 Steel Cities Gray beauty:


Inside the NCM it was crowded with shoppers, museum tours and folks just trying to escape the heat. In the atrium was this scale model of the planned expansion to the museum. 60,000 additional square feet and $6M additional to build it:

I was also happy to see one of the three surviving 1963 Grand Sports in the rotunda:

Today, Dennis Gage from "My Classic Car"..


.. was in town documenting this once-in-a-lifetime Corvette event.  The show is scheduled to be broadcast early in 2004 on the Speed Channel.  I saw him interviewing a bunch of people and then he came over to ask about our 53-03 CE!  Pretty cool!  I was all puffed up and ready for an on-camera interview when he asked if he could drive the car ten feet.  I told him he could drive it ten miles if he wanted to.

But, no.  All he wanted was to close his segment by driving "away" in it.  Sigh.  Car gets airtime, none for me.  Sigh...  Anyway it took ten "takes" to get it right.  When you see the show, that tag "53C5" on the nifty white car is mine.  Oh!  I did get a T-Shirt and a "My Classic Car" license plate.

Yay.







The day passed uneventfully. I think Gael burned out on the process about noon. Sitting in folding chairs, even under a very nice marquee-tent and talking about Corvette can stullify all but the most fanatic Corvette freaks.

At 5pm we wandered down to the amphitheater for the "Hot Dog, Apple Pie and Corvette" happening.

The color guard came in a trio of Corvettes; red, white and blue (of course:


It was just too far down that slippery slope and too darned hot to stay. Here are some of the hardier early arrivals. Notice the clustering in the two possible shady areas:






We stayed long enough to enjoy Bobbie Joe Lee singing the National Anthem. That's her 'way down there on the stage:

We moved the car over to the Country Hearth and got one of their few handicap spaces. Out front were a bunch of Corvette-ers having adult beverages and I finally got to meet Hib Halverson (famous Corvette writer).

Not wanting to lose our space, we persuaded friend Kent Cartner to drive to dinner with us with me and Gael stacked neatly in the passenger seat. No problem. Could have driven 500 miles with my sweetie on my lap in an Electron Blue Z06.

We joined friends for dinner at Mariah's, one of Bowling Green's lovely restaurants and one of the few open on Sunday. I'd have thought the others would have gotten the word and opened for business when, oh, I don't know, 13,000 extra people were in town -- but, no.

Fully bellies, off to bed..