The First 2010 Car Show...

Mileage: 88,004

It seems the first car show that pops up every year that I want to enter in is the one at my old high school.  The 11th Annual Thomas Jefferson High School Car Show was held on Saturday, May 22nd.  If you remember last year, this was the very first car show I have EVER attended with the Trans Am.  This year, my brother and sister-in-law would not be attending, they had a wedding to go to later in the day and didn't have time to get their GTO ready.  I spent the evening before the show getting the Trans Am cleaned and detailed.  It was more just dusty.  The weather looked like it was going to be OK this year, much warmer than the 40 degree temperatures from last year.  It didn't appear rain was going to be an issue, most of the precipitation was going to be well north of us.

The morning of the show was very nice.  Some clouds, but the temperatures were a huge improvement over last year.  Dad and I got the car there right away in the morning, and then Shannon, Mom, Maeve, and Will (who is attending his first car show!) all joined us later.  I was able to take the T-Tops off this year and even display one of the replica dealer window stickers (the white paper on the windshield) I had made.  I enjoyed talking with a few strangers about the car, the dealer window sticker, and listening to other "Trans Am" stories.  We all had a chance to look at some of the other cars and get a couple snacks.  We then started noticing how the clouds were getting darker and not moving away like they were supposed to.  Some vehicles started to leave, then some more, then a few others.  The announcer said that we had thunderstorms moving toward our location and that they would have to mail the results to the winners, and that we should all leave.  Dad and I had about enough time to get the T-Tops on the car and get inside and then the rain started pouring.  It was a hard rain for almost 30 minutes straight.  I only had a short drive home, and installed new wipers on the Trans Am last year, so we did just fine in the rain.

I don't seem to have the best lucky so far with car shows.  Hopefully the next couple I go to this year, the weather will be a little nicer.  I still haven't heard anything on whether I won or not, but I think my year will be 2011!

Leftover Housekeeping...

As the true nature of having too many things going on sometimes, once again, Dad and I waited well into May to get the snowmobiles summerized.  We really need to make a point of getting those put away sometime in March, once we are done actually using them.  This year, neither one of us did any major riding, but we did get them started and moved around the yard a bit, so they needed to be re-summerized.  So, one afternoon, Dad and I got both the sleds summerized and washed.  We also got a new trailer tonuge jack installed, which is something we should have done years ago!

The main reason I put off getting the sleds summerized was because I needed to do some improvements on the side of the house where I store the sleds in the summer.  Last year, due to the old tires not holding air, the trailer actually sank in the yard up to the axle.  This made getting it out in the fall a challenge.  I figured I needed to have some kind of hard surface to have the tires set on to make sure they don't sink again.  The solution was a couple 16" square patio pavers and few bags of paver base.  We got the trailer positioned, the holes dugs, paver base tamped, and pavers installed in about 2 hours one afternoon.  So far everything is staying where it is supposed to and the trailer is not sinking.  Dad also fabricated a platform for the new tonuge jack so it won't sink into the ground this way we can keep the trailer more level than tilted forward.

I still need to do some edging around the area the trailer sits in, along with adding some mulch to control the weeds and make it look a little better, but for not, it will be just fine.  I need to switch gears and start getting things ready for the big inside project coming up!