Thought I might try something different, and talk about the recent trip to Texas....so we start off with just about missing our flight in Sydney...took so long to do the shuffle/shuttle from Domestic to International, that we were among the last 6 on board the A380 direct to Dallas/Fort Worth...16 hours later, into DFW, and Charlie Duran was waiting to pick us up, and start the three week adventure..first stop of course had to be at Heath Murrays shop in Fort Worth, to check progress on Les Ws sedan...Even though it was a proven running, driving hot rod...it had been built way back in the 70s, and some items needed attention,,,Heath installed a new Limeworks column, and went through checking other pieces..brakes, lights, etc...he knew we wanted to drive this sedan to the Lonestar Roundup down in Austin Texas, so it needed to be right!...As usual, Heath gotta done...so back to Charlies for the next day and get ready for trip.
So, Wednesday, we leave Willow Park for the short drive south to Granbury, where we would meet up with Mike Fee, and Dale Grau and his group of rod running buddies were all meeting there for dinner...we all stayed at the same motel, by this time, the group heading to Austin was about 20 of us...had a great dinner and as usual, meet n greet n talk hot rods for the night.....next day, the US guys were up and gone by 8 am....Les, Doug and I must have been in some other time zone, as we didn't get away until almost 9!!....And, we must have gone a different route...we took every country road that the GPS took us on to get to the Thursday kick -off BBQ...it was starting at midday.........we got there at 2pm.....not knowing the roads too well was our problem...got into a mess of roadworks somewhere near Austin....detoured over towards Round Rock...went up a few wrong roads, as the directions to Beyersville Hall was very sketchy....hardly any Texans knew where this place was.....we were within about 10 mile of it before we finally got the "go right here, take a left, up the road, ya cant miss it".......so off we go, and remember the old saying...never let a chance go by...well we did when the fuel gauge packed it in, and we trusted our instincts that we had enough fuel.....wrong!......ten mile short, the old 425 Olds gulped the last bit of go juice...Les went back a 1/2 mile for gas, and 20 minutes later, we were mobile....found the BBQ...ate what scraps of food were left...took some pics, met old and new friends, and 1 1/2 later...headed for our Motel 6, to get ready for the Fri/Sat Roundup...(re read this later, as my grandson is here, and I have to finish this later...)
Ok..he's asleep now...did I mention how cool the sedan was to drive...with three of us, and luggage for a week, the buggy spring front/semi elliptic rear drove like a dream.....the torque of the Olds saw us many times just leave the Muncie in top gear, and just lope away...a lot to be said for a big cube 4 speed car...and even though we ran out of gas with the dodgy gauge...it still didn't seem that expensive to run, even with dual quads...so..where were we...the group we had met in Granbury had all booked into the same Motel 6, only a short drive to the Travis County Fairgrounds...and as usual...world-wide...parking lot chats around the cars happened every morning and afternoon. Now, I'm going to jump ahead in time with these following photos, as we have seen this week the terrible floods in and around the area we were at...we were lucky to miss this rain event in the three weeks we were there...check the last two pics..you can see that Arch in both pics...same place, Trinty River in Dallas...a few weeks apart...
So..once the Roundup started on the Friday, we were there at 10 am to hit the swap meet area first, then spent the next two days looking at the cars...events like this never cease to amaze me at the following they get...vendors who drive 500 to 1000 mile to sell their bits, but entrants from one side of US to the other...all here for a two day event!..The swap was good, not like the Pate which I will talk about later, but to be able to see all the swap inside a huge shed was a bonus...no sun burn!...a big for sale are outside with about 100 cars on offer..then the 2 or 3000 entrants scattered around the grounds...was a good time of year to be in Texas, not too hot, not too cold..but there were already signs of what happened this week....Tornados were reported on the news nearly the whole 21 days we were there.....back to the Roundup...anything good in the swap was snatched up in the first 2 hours each day...but us aussies still pounce on items compared to our US friends...the fact that if they want something..there's always another swap next week or so...even simple things like pulleys ..so hard to find good genuine ones over here...(will continue later...little fella is up again..)
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