2003 Rhody Festival Florence, Oregon


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Friday May 15th, 2003

Dear Diary,

It’s 11:00am and my glass guy hasn't’t called to tell me Titanic is Ready. 18 Hours till the Rhody Show & Shine – Imperial Meet and I don’t have a car. Good thing I waxed the Ford Ltd Wagon Last night. 11:30 my car has glass…. YAY! Noon, Mikey and the clan Sutton arrive from Yakima, finish up at work and head to pick up Titanic. Pick up Titanic and run home, Mikey’s wife Linda & rest of Clan Sutton arrive. Mike and I go to work on the interior of Titanic. No interior window trim is on, and I still have two door panels to put together. Nothing wants to go back together properly. 3:30pm Rick Pennington from Coos Bay and his Friend Evan from Port Orford arrive. We do around of introductions and continue to work on the car. Evan goes for a walk takes some pictures of the car, while Rick entertains Mikey and I with Imperial Stories and Trivia, and helps where he can. Ok the interior is back together time for a much needed break! Mike, Evan, Rick, Chris(oldest Sutton Son) and I pile in Titanic to go for a ride. She’s happy to be driven, first a quick stop at the gas station to mix in some premium with the year and a half old gas … Then it’s up the Coast to Cape Perpetua, 15 Miles of Windy, Switchback, Shear Cliffs and gorgeous views of a rugged Coast Line, to our Destination of a leftover World War II Look out! It’s a gorgeous sunny day, and the view’s are stunning. We hike around take some pictures of Titanic and pile in for the drive back. Back at just after 6pm and Erik still hasn’t arrived he called 3 hours ago and said he’d be here at 5pm. We say our farewells to Evan and Rick who won’t be staying for the rest of the festivities.

 

Cape Perpetua Looking down the Cliff New Bridge
Looking South Towards Florence
Looking Straight Down the Cliff
Road Construction project on Hwy 101 as seen from lookout
Titanic @ Cape Perpetua
Lucy, Me and Titanic
Titanic - 1967 Imperial Sedan
Titanic - 67 Imperial Sedan
Leslie, Lucy & Titanic
Titanic @ Cape Perpetua
67 Imperial Sedan
67 Imperial Sedan
67 Imperial Sedan
Back end of Titanic
Mike & Son Chris
Titanic w/ Heceta Head Lighthouse
7:00pm we pile into two Imperials and start to head for dinner, I back out first and park in the center of the street to wait for Mikey, I look in my rearview Mirror just in time to see him park it on a log, while trying to maneuver on our narrow street, well now this is the pits, I don’t even have my camera with me to take pictures, and there’s no way to get my own car out of the Street to go back to the house, as Mikey’s car is Blocking the WHOLE thing. Bob and Chris finally are able to help him get it off the log, and we’re only a few minutes late for dinner. We find Lee & Caroline Dillman (70 Dodge Coronet) and Mike, Cindy & Nicholas Becker (67 LeBaron) waiting for us. We all go ahead and order and start getting acquainted, lots of good stories and laughs and when were almost done eating Erik finally arrives. He didn’t make it out of Walterville with his first car, wound up having to go back and get his Studebaker, but hey at least it’s something he can enter in the show. 9:30 pm Bob, Chris and I are back in Titanic and the rest of Clan Sutton is following in the 62, when we look back and Chris says that’s a cop behind my dad, and he’s pulling them over. We circle back for a closer view, yep he’s being pulled over (we have no camera) so we head for home in case he needs to call so we can BAIL him out ;-) They were only a few minutes behind us, it was the infamous they’re working/not working 62 tail lights. Mike got them working while the officer was talking to him, might of helped that he dropped our name as we clean all their uniforms. But anyway he was off without a ticket and everything was fine.

10:00pm Erik and I start cleaning up our cars, I wash Titanic in the Dark, and then pull her into the garage while Erik is washing the Studebaker. I vacuum, I scrub, I polish and it seems that I’ll never get the paint dust off the inside! Finally around 11pm we give up, did some chatting with the IML gang and we all headed for Bed around midnight.

 

Saturday May 15th, 2003

Dear Diary

6:00am rolled around too fast, did I even fall asleep? I slosh down some coffee and check my email. Load some stuff into my car, dang it’s raining, hope it stops. Hit the shower,
the sun is out when I’m done.. The Day is looking promising. 7:30am Erik, Mikey and I all head for the meeting space. Erik stops to pick up Donuts so that leaves Mikey and I talking and joking in the parking lot. Here comes a Finned Car….. Hey it’s Roger Van Hoy in a Marvelous 58 Desoto, we weren’t sure he was coming. He had a rough trip didn’t get in till Midnight. Mike Becker pulls up in his stunning 67 LeBaron, Gold on Gold, it makes more of a statement than my Green on Green. Then Lee rounds out our group with his 70 Coronet, and Erik arrives with the Donuts, we’re a ROAD SHOW. We take the quick jaunt to the show and park in Chronological order and then the rest of the Mopars start showing up, people that we’ve talked to every year, all come and park with us instead of being scattered in between the Chevy's& Fords. So we wind up with a 68 Charger, a 65 Cuda, a 67 Polara and then Mark Hash show’s up with his FANTASTIC 57 Fury, there went Rogers Trophy.

Desoto & Charger
Mike & Mike 62 68 Charger & Desoto
Rogers Desoto Mike & Mike Check out the 62 P/S Pump  
Desoto Tail Lights Rear Glass 62 Rhody Days or Bust
Rear Glass
62 Coupe - Rhody Days or Bust
65 Studebaker Comander
67 LeBaron & Sedan
1970 Dodge Coronet
Erik was Imperialless this year but he brought his trusty 65 Studebaker.
Mike Becker's 67 LeBaron & Leslie's 67 Sedan
Lee Dillman's 1970 Dodge Coronet
Hoods
1938 Packard Straight *
1938 Packard

 

Purple Mopar Wild Ford Wagon Wild ford Wagon
     

We all get our literature, chairs etc out and set up and Erik got out the donuts, we’re all sitting in the sun and enjoying ourselves when after about an hour this big black cloud rolls in… Quick toss all the stuff in the trunks and all of us hopped in the 2 67’s and spend the next 45 minutes in dry comfort until the sun came back out. We dried all the cars off and the rest of the day was fantastic, Sunny and Warm. We once again block voted and it must have paid off as Mark Hash’s Fury won an award. Lee’s Coronet was no match for the Purple Cuda but at least some Mopar’s won awards. One of the highlights of the day was Simo & Päivi’s visit. They came all the Way from Finland to attend the Imperial meet. Well not quite actually they were on vacation and it just happened to be on the route, so we all had a nice visit with the 2 of them, and got to see pictures of all of Simo’s marvelous Mopar’s. Before we knew it the show was over and it was off for a visit to Jim Burn’s place our local Mopar Guru & Collector.

This time not only did we get to tour the Front Lot, we got to tour the inside of his building where the good stuff is, and the Back where the extra stuff is. He’d never had that many Mopar lovers at one time so we lined them up and took a bunch of pictures for him…

1955 300 Desoto Mopar Stuff
     
Misc Misc
Misc
Miscellaneous Mopars
Desoto Wagon
Desoto Wagon
desoto wagon
 
58 Desoto Wagon
 
Old Chrysler
The Gang in front of Jims Bldg The Gang
 
1970 Dodge Coronet & 67 Imperial Sedan
Group Shot
1970 Dodge Coronet
1970 Dodge Coronet & 67 Imperial Sedan
The Group
1970 Dodge Coronet
67 Imperial Sedan
62 Imperial Coupe
1958 Desoto
Titanic - 67 Imperial Sedan
1962 Imperial Coupe

1958 Desoto

Front Ends 58 Desoto Fins & 62 Fins
67 LeBaron Backend & 67 Sedan
Front Ends
58 Desoto Fins & 62 Fins
67 LeBaron Backend & 67 Sedan
57 Fury
the Group
57 Fury Fins
   
57 Fury Fins
57 Fury, 58 Desoto, 62 Imperial, 67 Imperial LeBaron, 67 Imperial Sedan, 70 Dodge Coronet
1970 Coronet Lots of Mopars
57 Fury, 58 Desoto, 62 Imperial, 67 Imperial LeBaron, 67 Imperial Sedan, 70 Dodge Coronet
Caroline & 70 Coronet
57 Fury, 58 Desoto, 62 Imperial, 67 Imperial LeBaron, 67 Imperial Sedan, 70 Dodge Coronet
Mark & 57 Fury Suttons Suttons
Mark Hash 57 Fury at the Beach
Mikey's 2 youngest boys Evan & Ryan
Sutton's on the Beach
After our visit at Jim Burn's place it was back to my house to see if we could polish off a 6ft Sub from Subway, gave us some more time to visit, gave the kids a chance to run of some excess energy on the beach and before we knew it, it was time for the cruise.
67 & 62
62 & 58
 

So we made a few loops through old town checked out all the Harley's. Then we drove the 5 miles back to my house swapping cars so we each got a chance to drive the others car. Mike Becker & Mike Sutton Drove Titanic. I drove Mike Becker's 67 LeBaron & Rogers 58 Desoto (very COOL, I'd never driven a car from the 50's) Erik Drove Roger's and I'm not sure anyone drove the Suede wonder (AKA Mikey's 62 coupe) Then it was back to my house for the 2nd Annual Bonfire and Marshmallow roast, the kids & adults both like this one, and the weather once again cooperated. So as you can see it was another successful and fun event. For those of you who chickened out because of a little rain, How can you call yourselves REAL Oregonians??? :-)

 

 


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