C5 Registry Atlanta-Savannah-Daytona 2001

Savannah

The rest of the trip to Savannah was pretty uneventful until we exited I-95 at Tony's exit. The instructions (which 'most everyone had) said to turn left at the bottom of the ramp, go 3.5 miles to the 2nd traffic light and turn left. Gary, our caravan leader, turned RIGHT at the end of the ramp and most of the other cars (sheep?) followed him.

All turned out OK as everyone eventually found Tony's and/or the Red Roof Inn (our overnight resting place).
Well, we arrived in Savannah alright. Here's a shot of Tony and his cousin from West Virginia, Bubba Cartner. They have matching pony tails; ya gotta love them Corvette guys...
Everyone should have neighbors like Tony's. They all let us park our C5s in their yards! Can ya believe it?
Folks started filtering in from all over...
By late afternoon all the folks from Virginia, North Carolina and parts north had made the Petrea Rendezvous.
Here's the crowd as Tony tries to explain how to get to dinner. I think he just wanted to address the crowd..

With a final hello/goodbye/peace gesture from Bubba Cartner we were all on our way (by now more than 40 cars) to dinner at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Heritage Museum.

The Mighty 9th Air Force Heritage Museum was awesome. There's an acre of exhibits including full-size aircraft, film theaters and all. We had about an hour to tour the exhibits before dinner in the main rotunda.
Here's the setup for dinner inside the Museum; very, very nice.
But the best part was the auction to raise $$ for the NCM. Among a couple of dozen items that Tony had scrounged (and contributed himself, truth be told) was the major auction of the evening.

Banana cream pie. To be auctioned to the highest bidder. To be pushed into someone's face. To be pushed into our NCM Ambassador Bob Hardt's face. Truly.
Understandably, everyone rushed the cashier with donations to see this. But the sweetest donation came from this lady. This is Vicky Hardt (Bob's bride)...
The highest bidder got the right to apply the pie. After spirited bidding the winning bid was (surprise!) posted by our own host, Tony Petrea.

And here....we......go.....!

But wait! There's more! It turns out there was a SECOND banana-cream pie. And the highest bidder would receive the right to apply the pie to......TONY!

The winner? Tony's best friend David Reed!

As well has having lots of fun, we raised over $1,800 for the NCM! Atta boy, Tony; great planning! And a big thank you to the Mighty 8th Air Force Heritage Museum:

Atlanta to Daytona

Somebody had the bright idea of leaving Savannah for Daytona (with a stop in Jacksonville) at 7:00am. Yeah, it was my idea....
Gary offered to lead the caravan to Daytona; a quick vote was taken and Tony agreed to take the lead. That may have turned out to be a mistake of a different kind..
Tony isn't all that good at driving slowly. Or driving medium fast. But "very fast"? He's your man. We blasted down I-95, bypassed Jacksonvile, and met up with the Texas/Louisana gang at World Golf Village just above St. Augustine.

And here they are! "C!" "FIVE!"

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