Team Blog

Left Napolean, and did an amazing drive heading towards South Bend, Indiana. Rolling hills, lush green country-side, unique little old historic towns, beautiful homes. People had some gorgeous front yards, giving no appearance that there was any recession going on in the US, but thats probably because we were mostly in an upper-middle class affluent area. Made it into Indiana, but… about 100 miles from our destination, Emily had to pull over because the engine was knocking again. Oh no! We made the decision to put the car in the trailer, to bring it into South Bend to the convention center where we had planned to put it on display at the reception for the Lincoln Highway Association National Convention. At that reception, we had food, listened to music and our relatives Carol, Kip, and Caitlin showed up (after searching for us along the roads they finally tracked us down at the convention center, its so great to see family along the way to keep our spirits up!

Meanwhile, Steinus and his nephew Jan, his friend Will, along with Cass left Napolean in the Spyker, they decided to take a detour and headed West to take in a side trip to Auburn, IN to go to the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Museum (the “Deusy” is probably the most expensive and valuable ever to have been made in the United States). Then they headed to South Bend, and got caught in a terrible rain storm, not only did they get drenched, but they also got really cold. Heading to the hotel, they missed some turn and ended up going all the way into Michigan. They got freezing cold, gone too far and are lost, eventually they made it back and get thawed out, we hope they don’t get sick!

While we were warm and comfortable at the reception, Sally Barnett gave a talk about Alice Ramsey and then Em and Christie did a little talk about their own experience about doing this drive.

When that was over, Tim and Barb and Rich loaded the sick Maxwell in the trailer and drove back to Cecil, OH, about 150 miles east. Went to Hart’s Machine Service, Howard Joiner had an engine done there once and he had called them to see if we could bring things down. We headed there early, 7am this morning. The owner, John Buskirk, along with a couple of his employees: Jerry and Dave along with Tim and Rich worked on the car, tearing it apart. Had to melt down the babitt again and pour in new babitt and machine it and then put everything back together. Its fixed and back running again, but we couldn’t find out why this happened. What caused this to happen this time? We are racking our brains, and coming up with various theories, but no solid evidence has manifested yet.

The nice folks at Hart’s were really great and accommodating. They got us in really early and out quickly, really kicked it into high gear for us! We got out of there around 2:30pm, loaded up and are driving to catch the rest of the group in Rochelle, IL. where the city will be awarding Emily a special proclamation, and where we will have a dinner and reception at Abraham’s restaurant. Tomorrow morning we head to Cedar Rapids, IO, hopefully the car will hold up to at least Cedar Rapids!