Made it to Gettysburg!

6/17/2018

Another beautiful, cool, clear morning.  After a brief driver's meeting, we left Lynchburg, VA and drove to Gainesville, VA for lunch at Blue Ridge Seafood restaurant.  After lunch it was on to Gettysburg.  It clouded up and we had a few sprinkles before our first rest stop, so we decided to put our top up so we wouldn't have to do it along the way.   Of course, after a few minutes of light, scattered rain, which we could have driven through with the top down, it stopped and there was no more rain the rest of the way.  When the sun came out, it was hotter in the car with the top up then down!  Traffic was terrible through Maryland and Pennsylvania, sitting in traffic made it even hotter!

At one of our gas stops, we ended up next to a Suburban.  I took a picture to show how big a Suburban is!

Our detour to see the covered bridges of Frederick County, MD was a bust as the road to them was closed for repairs!  Everyone just decided to go on to Gettysburg, but we were determined to see one.  The last one was only about 0.1 mile off of our route, so we took the back way to it.  This is the Roddy Road covered bridge, built in 1856 and is the smallest covered bridge in Maryland.

We finally made it to Gettysburg and checked in.  Will register tomorrow and check out some of the historical landmarks.

Day 2 MG 2018

6/16/2018

Another beautiful driving day - cool and clear this morning, hotter in the afternoon.  After lunch in Martinsville, VA, we stopped in Lynchburg, VA for the night.  Tomorrow we'll make it to Gettysburg!

Driving to Lynchburg, VA

Lunch at Wild Magnolia in Martinsville.

The adventure begins!

A group of 12 MGs met in Clayton, GA this morning to begin our trip to MG2018 in Gettysburg, PA.  There were 9 MGBs, one MGC, one MGF and one Midget.  We pulled out about 10:00 AM and had a beautiful drive along the backroads of north Georgia, and South and North Carolina.

We stopped for lunch at Hannah Flannigan's in Hendersonville, NC.  After lunch, it was on the road to Wilkesboro, NC where we will spend the night.  Today was about 210 miles with only a couple of minor problems, the worst of which was a broken fan belt.  We will all sleep well tonight!

Almost time for MG 2018 - Gettysburg, PA

Only a couple more days until a group of about 12 MG's leave the Atlanta, GA. area on our way to Gettysburg, PA for MG 2018.  This is the national event for NAMGBR, the North American MGB Register.  We'll be taking back roads and will try to document the trip here.  So, stay tuned...

Just getting the Midget all buttoned back up after having the transmission rebuilt.  Hopefully, if we have any trouble, it won't be with the tranny!! 

Going home!

October 9, 2016

We had breakfast with Kyle, who stayed over last night, at a local bagel place.  After saying our goodbyes, we were off to Atlanta.  We traveled down Hwy. 41 through Murfreesboro where we passed Todd's Auto Service where we had stopped about 5 years ago when we had a problem.  We waved to Todd, but being Sunday, he wasn't there.  We continued through Manchester, TN, home of the Bonaroo Music Festival.  Here we passed the car wash where we pulled into one of the bays 5 years ago to work on the car.  Luckily, this time we drove right on by.  Must have been the blessing we recently received!  We then continued on to Mont Eagle where we got into some real twisty roads, first going up the mountain then down the other side.  Coming down the other side into Chattanooga, we could see the Interstate, which paralleled the road we were on, and it was a parking lot!  As far as we could see, the traffic was stopped, while we motored right along.  We were afraid that the road we were on would get jammed up with people getting off the Interstate, but we never encountered any traffic and were able to get through Chattanooga with no problems.

We passed one of our favorite landmarks - a uniform company with a gate in the rear with a sign that reads, "Caution:  automobiles will not fit through gate".  I guess this is to cut down on cut through traffic, but our car fit though with no problems!

We were looking forward to going through the tunnel in East Ridge, but I took a wrong turn and we went a different way.  We started looking for a local establishment to eat lunch but found out that on Sunday, the only thing open is fast food chains.  So, we continued on through Rossville, Ringgold and on to Dalton.  We finally found Marisco's Puerto Vallarta restaurant which was open.  This was a cool little place, a Mexican seafood restaurant.  Even though it was about 3:00 pm, it was busy.  I think we were the only non-Spanish speakers in the place!  Very authentic and popular.  We had shrimp tostados and a cerviche cocktail and they were very good.

We continued on through Chatsworth, Talking Rock and stopped at the QT in Jasper for gas and coffee.  It was getting late in the afternoon, and we remembered that we have a club meeting tonight. We decided to just go to the meeting and we would arrive just a little late.  So, we reset our GPS and the traffic was light and we finally made it to the Harp Irish Pub in Roswell about 6:00 pm.  We enjoyed the meeting and then we out to eat with several other people to Emidio's, a very good Portugese restaurant.  We left dinner about 9:00 and finally got home about 10:00!  

So, after 11 days, 3 car shows, 4 states, 5 hotels, a Mardi Gras parade, our car getting blessed, a hole in the exhaust pipe from bumpy roads, meeting new friends and seeing old ones and travelling 1778 miles, we had a blast, but are glad to be back home...until we go on the road again!

Nashville British Car Show

October 8, 2016

This morning, we drove about 10 miles to Centennial Park, the site of the Nashville British Car Show.  We parked the car in our designated spot, cleaned it up and then went to eat breakfast at Rotier's Restaurant.  This was a little hole in the wall place that was nothing special, but was filling and cheap.  We then spent the rest of the day looking at cars and talking to people at the show.  It was beautiful weather, but a smaller turnout than I expected.  (In fact, there were only 11 MGBs).  Also, our son drove down from Ft. Campbell, KY and spent the day with us.

Why not just place a sign that says, "Please don't sit in my car"?

Range Rover Evoque convertible - it was even uglier with the top down.

The Good Humor man was there in his 1953 Chevy truck selling ice cream

A nice Lotus Elan and MG-TC brought over from the Lane Motor Museum

A very nice Marcos GT -won its class and Best of Show

An MGA Twin Cam

View of part of the show field with the Parthenon in the background

Tomorrow we will head home!!

On to Franklin and Nashville

Oct. 7, 2016

We left Tupelo this morning and drove up the Natchez Trace toward Franklin, TN.  This section  of the trace is in very good condition, and it was a very nice drive - cool, clear and very little traffic.
We eventually had to exit the Trace and continued on through the town of Summertown, TN where the entire town was participating in a yard sale.  For miles, all along the street, people had piled their junk to try to sell.  We even saw some Amish shopping,  driving up in their horse and buggy.  We were doing well until we hit Spring Hill.  Here the highway is also main street and goes right through town.  So, you have local traffic, highway traffic, and lights that are not synchronized, resulting in a crawl from light to light.  Was very slow, but we finally made it out of town and to Franklin.  We stopped and walked around the historic downtown and ate lunch at the Franklin Mercantile Deli. Good, fresh, homemade sandwiches.

We then drove to the hotel and checked in, and then freshened up for the get together for car event participants at JD's British Car Service.  This was a very nice event, with food donated by the  Nashville British Car Club.  J.D.'s shop is like British car nirvana, with many different examples, in various states of repair.  We got there a little early and JD was nice enough to provide me a jack, jackstands and a creeper and I was able to temporarily repair the exhaust pipe with a patch I picked up at an auto parts store.  Took about 5 minutes with the proper tools!  Car sounds normal now and this will hold until I can get home and get a proper fix.

Workshop at JD's British Car Service

We also got to see my nephew's business, Greener Roots Farm, which is right down the street from JDs.  Here, he grows various leafy greens and herbs indoors, hydroponically, year round and supplies them to local establishments.  The whole process is quite interesting.  If they ever legalize pot in TN, he will be ready!!

Growing veggies and herbs hydroponically at Greener Roots Farm

We then returned to the hotel, enjoying the cool Nashville night.

(Pictures coming)