Penny's Birthday Bash

After a long and blessedly uneventful winter, Bob and I are back in traveling mode. Our first adventure this year is a trip to Bowling Green, Kentucky, Penny’s birthplace for the annual Bash at the National Corvette Museum. We’ve been to the Museum previously, but this is the first time at the Bash. The Bash is a three-day event at the Museum that not only attracts a huge collection of Corvettes from all around the US, but offers the opportunity to meet with General Motors leaders, technicians, and other Corvette nuts. There are several group tours, meals and classroom sessions offered, and Bob has been looking forward to this all winter.

Bowling Green is about 750 miles from Norfolk and although we can make the trip in one day, it is a long day and neither of us were excited about doing that. So we decided to make it a more leisurely trip over a two-day period. We selected a route through West Virginia, planning to stop for the night in Huntington, the home of Marshall University. Our daughter Jessica spent a semester here after high school, so we set the GPS and headed out. Penny is in fine form with her brand new transmission, and I did a lot of the driving. I love driving Penny on a road trip. This time, we decided to listen to an audio book to pass the time, and we went with a legal thriller by Michael Connelly called The Brass Verdict. We had watched the movie, The Lincoln Lawyer, which was based on his first book in this series, and enjoyed the characters. It was a good choice. The trip was uneventful until we got to Staunton, Virginia, when the sky suddenly darkened, and I do mean suddenly. This is a fairly mountainous area of Virginia, and as we descended into a valley, we thought it might be a good idea to stop, get something to eat, and get under cover. And were we glad we did! No sooner did we get into a restaurant than sheets of rain, grape-sized hail and a brief but insistent snow squall leaving a good inch of snow on the ground ensued! This began in 80-degree temperatures, and fell into the low 60’s in minutes. When we got back on the interstate we saw cars that had slid off the road in the unexpected snow storm and we felt lucky to have dodged the whole thing in relative safety. And Penny’s film and ceramic coated paint job was undamaged.

We stopped for the night in Huntington and went to dinner at the Huntington Ale House. One of Bob’s favorite things to do is to invite people to take their pictures in Penny. She has always been a big draw on our trips as people continue to wonder what kind of car she is, and fuss over her looks. The Ale House was no different. The restaurant staff was young, mostly college-age kids, and once we were seated, we noticed the staff taking pictures of Penny though the window. So Bob offered our server, Kaylee, the opportunity to go outside and get her picture taken sitting in Penny. Soon after, Griffin, another server, sidled up to our table and Bob took him out as well. It really is one of my favorite things about Bob as most owners of cars like Penny are very touchy about people getting too near. Bob is thrilled to share his love of his awesome toy with everyone. Sticky fingers wash off, but there are tons of kids with pictures of themselves in Penny with big smiles on their faces, and I can imagine Bob as a kid thinking himself so cool to have such a picture.

Our hotel was a Fairfield, which is a Marriott resort and after our trip last fall we have tons of points so we often stay at those. They are reliably clean and comfortable, and offer a basic breakfast so we can get back on the road. This one was no exception, but the breakfast did have something we had never seen before. Bob and I are big JRR Tolkien fans, and I would happily go to Middle Earth when I die. So we are pretty knowledgeable about all things Hobbit. We were amazed to discover that the breakfast buffet included something that looked for all the world like Cram, a biscuit-like food made by the men of Lake Town and Dale, which they shared with the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain. Cram is nutritious, keeps fresh on long journeys, and will fill your belly, but is not very flavorful, and certainly not as wonderful as the elvish Lembas. You Hobbit fans know what I’m saying here. Since there were no bagels or toast, we loaded up on Cram and joked about how we would take some to sustain us on the rest of our journey. Bob, being the extravert that he is, began joking with the breakfast attendant about how he was taking extra Cram with him, and I was certain that she wouldn’t know what the heck he was talking about. Until she said, “That’s enough out of you, Frodo!” which cracked us both up and reminded me there are Hobbit fans everywhere.

We arrived at our AirBnB in Bowling Green around 1 pm and it was a little early to check in so we had lunch at the nearby restaurant, The Mellow Mushroom. This is a pizza place that shares a parking lot with our AirBnB, and we shared a pizza which we had made into a calzone. It was delicious and huge. We then checked in. Our place was billed as a Modern Industrial Loft in Historic Armory, and it was really perfect for our trip. Full kitchen, washer/dryer, bathroom, living room, queen comfortable bed, plenty of parking, and all on the first floor. Significantly less per night than any of the local hotel rooms, about 4 miles from the Corvette Museum and in a safe neighborhood. Score! We went over to the Museum and got our registration package, and wandered around looking at all the Corvettes. The event starts tomorrow but there were several 2023 Z06’s and Bob is in line to buy one of these once they become available. He says he’s going to sell it, but since I’ve never seen him sell any of his treasures, I am skeptical. We headed back to our home away from home for a good night’s rest.

The next day we were scheduled to go on a tour of the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville. You might recall that we had planned to do this at the end of our road trip last year, but completely forgot about it while in Nashville and didn’t remember until we got home. So we decided we would join the Corvette Caravan and do it this trip. This was to be a caravan of Corvettes making the one-hour trip from Bowling Green to Nashville to the Lane Museum. I was curious to see how a string of about 20+ corvettes would manage to stay together on a busy interstate and one under construction. The leader was well-prepared and had printed paper maps, and gathered the group around to give lots of instruction. He and his wife as the navigator had driven the route the day before, knew where all the tricky parts were and assigned middle and end cars to keep everyone together. Despite his obvious and intricate planning, the whole thing fell apart rather quickly due to the varying skills of the drivers in the caravan. A few were clearly anxious about keeping up, and the group quickly broke up into several smaller groups, but we all made it to the museum safely within just a few minutes of each other.

The Lane Museum is billed as being primarily European cars and one-of-a-kind curiosities. It did have lots of interesting cars, and it was easy to kill a few hours wandering around. We were provided a box lunch and saw a few demonstrations of the cars. There were two elementary school tours in the museum as well and the kids seemed to be having a great time. Our trip back to Bowling Green was uneventful although I think almost every road in Tennessee and Kentucky is being worked on right now. Infrastructure! That evening, we had a dinner at the Corvette Museum, which was a panel discussion led by Tom Peters, the former Director of Design for the General Motors Performance Car Studio. Tom assembled a panel of experts from interior and exterior design, engine design, communications and public relations for the mid-engine Corvette and they discussed the development of the model. What struck me about the discussion was that it seemed Tom led a model of collaboration between all areas to address the development of the car rather than working in a more isolated model. This allowed the Corvette to develop as a sports car that is as comfortable on a track as on a road trip—something Bob and I can attest to. The group shared how they came together as a team to identify and solve problems and consumer issues and were clearly very proud of the work they had done. They took questions from the audience, and the most pointed was whether they might be willing to meet with Congress to teach them how to work collaboratively. They wisely dodged that question. Bob and I sat at a table with one of the Corvette Museum Board Members, Mike, who proved to be a true gearhead from New York, and talked about racing not only Corvettes, but Teslas.

Next day, we had breakfast sponsored by the MidEngineCorvetteForum.com at Wild Eggs. John Elegant, the Founding Owner runs the Forum, and there were around fifty or so members there. It was interesting to hear from each of the members who went around introducing themselves and their forum names. I don’t follow the Corvette forums, but I do follow other forums, and social media sites. I was especially interested to note that many of the members at breakfast noted that this particular forum is known to be a place where members feel safe and appreciated, are able to ask questions without ridicule, receive valid and useful information, and have met and even sustained friendships through the forum. Anyone who uses social media these days knows that ridicule, rudeness and even cruelty run rampant in the age of anonymous ‘free-speech’ where anyone can say anything without accountability, and it was nice to see that this site maintains its mission.

Later we went on another tour to the Western Kentucky University Hilltop Creamery and Chaney’s Dairy Barn. The Creamery at WKU was really one of the highlights of the trip for me. The Creamery is in the Department of Agriculture of Western Kentucky University and is a fully functional working farm run by the students working on various degree programs. Our hostess was Nikki Roof, the Creamery Technician, who was very engaging and really knew her stuff. The Creamery received their seed money from a state tobacco grant. They have Holstein cows (they call them ladies) who each provide around 25 pounds of milk daily from the 3 am and 3 pm milkings. They have numerous students who provide the care for the ‘ladies’. Their primary focus is cheesemaking and they make some terrific cheese, which we were fortunate enough to sample. I was intrigued to learn that around 70% of their students are women. When asked why so many more women than men are involved in the agricultural classes, Nikki told us that in her opinion, women were closer to their feelings and more stubborn. She told us that the students get very close to the ‘ladies’ and that in fact, the school kept one Holstein alive longer than necessary until a student close to her graduated before sending the cow to the beef team. She also says farming requires serious stubbornness and that actually agritourism is becoming an important value-add to keep a farm financially successful. Hence the tour we were on. After we finished the Creamery tour, we went on to the Chaney’s Dairy Barn. Here they have Jersey cows that produce milk with a higher fat content and make some seriously good ice cream. We had our lunch here and while the sandwiches were good, the ice cream was everything it was marketed to be. We returned to the Corvette Museum where Bob was able to chat with several General Motors representatives about the Z06’s, sit in one, and take several pictures. He is leaning towards the Diamond White Anniversary Issue, and while I am partial to the Mist Red, we will see what seems best if we can even get one. We were waitlisted for a Showboat Tour on Saturday but there had been no cancelations, so we decided to get a good night’s rest and head home a day early. We have Morgan and Jake’s Radford Graduation at the end of next week and then a trip to Great Britain, so we have plenty to do.

We took the entire 700+ mile trip home in one day and it really wasn’t too bad. We finished our audio book and went on to the next one in the series, The Reversal, so the time passed pretty fast. We had a minor rain storm during Bob’s turn at the wheel but again, I did a lot of the driving. Driving Penny is really a lot of fun. We’re certain that Penny enjoyed the birthday Bash.