We’d been seeing the Painless Wiring truck for three days now, and it looked, well, different from others of a similar body style.

Come to find out, it’s a ’36 Ford Panel which used to belong to a laundry service. What’s different is that (aside from it being all steel instead of a fiberglass replica) the roof hasn’t been chopped like most of them out there. Sure looks tall, doesn’t it?

Justin, our very own generation X’er, must have left his watch on California time instead of adding three hours. Our departure time (along with that of every other Power Tour dude and dudette) came and went with no appearance of the Justin. While I watched cool cars like this ’65 Max Wedge

and this ’69 Camaro Pace Car vacate the hotel,

Justin was a no-show. I called to let him know we were leaving, and 20 minutes later we actually drove away, one grumpy X’er in tow. Unfortunately, we were 45 minutes behind the pack.

Thanks to Gary’s heavy Vista-Cruiser foot, and Jim’s desire not to miss a free lunch, we caught the Tour near the last rest stop in Michigan. Jim and Gary cleaned the cars.

I did my best job ever of supervising. Clean and shiny, we blasted off toward the Hoosier state.

Question — How do you hunt trains?

Answer — You follow their tracks!

And that’s really easy to do when the train (built in 1950 by the Santa Fe Railroad) stands taller than anything else on the Tour. It’s even easy to see in a wide angle right hand mirror.

One of our valued customers, Lane Auto, threw a surprise lunch for us Power Tour folks. We filled the lot

with hungry folks. By some coincidence they even had a retail store open on the premises where folks could stock up on necessities, like Mothers® products.

Thankyouverymuch.

While I cruised the lot looking for more of the cool and unusual, like this chopped and slammed Lincoln (from Canada, eh?)

Justin, Jim and Gary drew straws to see who would go up in the lift for high angle photos. By virtue of Justin’s tardiness this morning, he lost.

I guess that’s one way to get up in the world. I’ll bet he’s on time tomorrow, too.

Lunch, by the way, was catered by Taco Bell. Mr. Soft Shell Taco was running around spreading good cheer and hot sauce to all who’d venture close.

I hope my daughter, who’s reading this, will now understand the need to do well in all subjects at school.

Even though there were many trash cans around, some folks chose to save all their recycleables for the proper containers. I hope this one finds the containers soon.

It really was nice to be back in the middle of the Tour, surrounded by those who can truly appreciate the effort which went into restoring a Vista-Cruiser to better-than-new condition. Ah, to be amongst your peers. It doesn’t get any better than this. At least until Gary shut-off the Vista-Cruiser and it wouldn’t restart. Darn, left behind again.

A quick diagnosis by Mr. Oldsmobile was vapor lock. I scoffed at Gary’s diagnosis, as the temperature was no where near hot enough to induce the dreaded condition. Gary gave the 455 a Vulcan Mind Stare to do Mr. Spock proud and it started right up. Who was that entertainer in the ’80s? Yuri something, who bent spoons? Well, he’s met his match. Gary continues to blame the 10% corn (er, ethanol) added to the $2.02 per gallon gas.

Back on the road to Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, we were once again flying high.

There were probably as many cars as at Pontiac, if not more. I saw the writer for the Miami Herald, Terry Johnson,

with his vintage racer ’65 Shelby G.T. 350, along with one of my favorites, a winged wonder from Plymouth

known as the Superbird. We even stumbled upon the sanest ’60 Ford wagon I have EVER laid eyes on.

It doesn’t get any sweeter than this ride.

The Hot Rod folks called a driver’s meeting to review tomorrow’s drive to Mid America Design (you know, the Corvette place) in Effingham, Illinois.