The caravan is supposed to pull out at 7 a.m. and head for Bowling Green. Around 6:30 I decide I better make one last pit stop - oops! There are TWO porta-potties and about 5500 people!!!! The line is about 125 people deep - and the word is out that the 1st john doesn't have any toilet tissue left and the other one is down to about 25 squares. What are my chances???? ZIP. Back to the car. Tough it out!

Meanwhile - back in Bowling Green - which is one hour (Central) behind Louisville (Eastern) time - the rest of the NGCA group is still asleep! Except for Roc, we all know he gets up REAL early all the time :-)

It's 7:05 a.m. and we head out onto the highway with our police escort - the first thing we notice is that we have just driven past the Route 65 south entrance ramp - what gives???? It turns out there is ANOTHER truck accident - that makes three for three!!! If I was a major league batter, I'd be worth a million bucks!!!

The highway is shut down, so they are leading us around the beltway to pick up Route 65 farther south of the accident. It's 7:15 a.m. on a beltway around a huge city - RUSH HOUR - they have us crawling at 22 MPH to try to keep us together. The horn honking and tire screeching is almost constant. It takes us 1 hour and 25 minutes to actually get on Route 65 - and we are at mile mark 112. Just for a reference - the Fairgrounds we left from are at mile mark 117 - - - which means we've only gone 5 miles of our 110 mile trip to Bowling Green!

Meanwhile, back in Bowling Green - the rest of the NGCA group is enjoying a private VIP tour of the factory that John and Dianne Liebe arranged with a friend of theirs who works there. I'll let someone who went on that great tour tell you all about it. The Louisville caravan participants behind us are getting antsy - and all control is lost. They are passing us in droves - which worries me because we are no longer near the front and I'm concerned about missing our escort around to the Nashville side of the caravan. We are running at about 85 mph and Corvettes are blowing by like we're standing still! Finally we get to the Cave City exit - and surprise, surprise - no escort in sight! We wait at a gas/food station at the end of the ramp and are joined by a dozen other perplexed VIP & Evolution Display cars. No one can figure out what to do. We now learn via cell phone that the accident was cleared from Route 65 about 15 minutes after we left the fairgrounds - and the cars who were supposed to be behind us were lead straight down 65. They are now 1 hour AHEAD of us - some having arrived at the Museum already!

Meanwhile - in Bowling Green - Dianne Liebe is standing out in the hot sun for two hours watching Vettes arrive. She skipped the VIP factory tour and was trying to take a picture of our arrival for us! God Bless you, Dianne. We owe you big-time for trying!

Back at Cave City, we discuss matters - if we continue down 65 we'll be on the wrong side of the road AND we could be stuck behind a bunch of Corvettes still trying to get off the highway. We buy a local map and find the probable route the escort was supposed to take us on. When asked, I REFUSE to take point - this is NOT my job anymore!!!!! Another car that ran with the New Jersey caravan - a 78 pace car - takes point and we head toward Bowling Green. When we get there - we find that all of the cars are already off the highway except for the stragglers who were behind us on the long detour. The police no longer have the road in front of the museum blocked - there are no crowds up on the overpasses waving signs and flags and the media is certainly gone. We quietly slip into our reserved parking space and go inside the museum to get out of the heat.

We quickly found our first club members and learned that Harry Becker was in the hospital. He started having severe stomach pains on Thursday night, and by 6 a.m. Friday morning Elaine had decided to take him to the Emergency Room. I'll let the Becker's tell you all about their hospital stay - it sure is a far cry from what we are used to here in New Jersey. As the day went on - we found most of the NGCA members. Nancy, Joan, Dianne, and myself volunteered in the gift shop. We spent hours refolding T-shirts and polo shirts that the shoppers would flip open to check the design and/or size and then toss back on the counter. The business was brisk all day long. Roc was outside in the 97 degree heat manning the ice cream truck. No, he didn't get to drive it - just sell ice cream out of it :-) By 3 p.m. we were all wiped out and headed back to the hotel to take a cool shower or a swim in the pool.

Friday night was the Hall of Fame Dinner - 18 of us went to that - the food was nothing special, but we enjoyed each other's company a lot. Joe Horn had driven down to the Nashville airport to pick up his son, Eric, and they arrived just as things were getting started. Gwendolyn was with us and managed to get herself into several of the photos. We had 2 tables - and the Linkov, Wickersham, Summers, Kaupp, and Liebe table seemed to be an orphan - no one was waiting on us most of the time so we kept flagging down any server we could find. Joan Kaupp and Kathy Wickersham got the giggles during the speeches for the three new inductees - we thought they were gonna get us thrown out!!! The Horns, Carneys, Scott Ressler, Joe Smock, Mike Ennis, and Grace Conrad were right next to us - and we swiped some of their rolls! Neither of our tables ever got served coffee!

Finally time to go catch some shut-eye.