While an hour may not sound like much, the time change added to my normal early wake-up time had me up painfully early despite feeling like I had slept in forever. The very weird dreams told me that my brain was ready to be up.
After lollygagging for far too long, I had a stupendous gratis hotel breakfast of waffles saturated in syrup. The Volo Auto Museum didn't open until 10:00 which is FAR too late for a museum to open; watching all the other people mill around the hotel I just wanted to scream at them, "Mornings on vacation are the best! Get going people! The museum I'm going to opens late - what is your excuse!"
After surviving the morning, we headed out to Volo. We found the museum easily enough and sat around outside until it opened. The exterior facade was a little grubby. It wasn't off-putting, but the place had the feel like it needed a good scrubbing.
Discount tickets were available online, but without any way to print them out we paid full price. The very nice lady selling us entry allowed us to store our motorcycle coats and helmets behind the counter (THANKS!). The payback for this was SO's small cell phone charger must have fallen out there - not the fault of the Volo Auto Museum but a bit of a bummer.
The museum itself is an odd mix of cars for sale and cars for show. The cars for sale run the gamut, but lean heavily toward modified American Muscle cars. But there does seem to be something for everyone. One of the first signs on entering gives a good premonition on what will be seen: Lots of interesting stuff, not necessarily Pebble Beach restorations. Standing in front of a Duesenberg, this felt refreshingly honest.
One of the first cars I happen to see was a 77-newer MGB - presumably for sale. The telltale coolant leak was a little disconcerting...
Much of the space is a mix of showroom and museum. It was hard for me to tell on much of it whether the prices were reasonable, but for the few vehicles I had some inkling on, they seemed at least not horrible, but not a great deal either. There was this sort of art-on-a-cruise-ship scam feel where every car had an appraised price with an actual price that was below that. When the appraisal is done by the car salesman, be very wary...
This car was for sale at a crazy cheap price until I saw that it was a replica on a corvette body. It was still a pretty good replica.
But it would have to be blown up with dynamite as this one was. Or it wasn't?
Tucked away in a tent was a sadly-filthy car I would actually really like to own - a Fiero GT. These were much different from the garden variety Fieros with the tepid 4-cylinder engine. If I'm honest, this low mileage (<8000 miles) Pontiac just screamed 1980's and the $12,000 wasn't too heinous for what appeared to be a very un-messed-with car. This is probably pretty close to what the MSRP for this car was new (1980 dollars were more real though).
I enjoyed the "Hollywood" cars scattered throughout more than I thought I would. Most of these were not actual movie cars, but were traveling movie adverts, or built by the same builders or tribute cars (basically made by someone who likes shows like Knight Rider?).
What can I say, "We're on a mission from God."
And from another Belushi.
Y'all got your redneck on? This one was actually assembled from other pieces and parts of wrecked General Lee cars. That should tell you something.
Until I saw this and read the description, I had no idea that this Aston Martin was based on the Mustang Chassis while Ford owned it. So replicas take on a whole new complication. And James Bond drove a pony-car?
Excuse me, I gotta go shoot some womp rats with my T-16.
That supercharger alone should give this one away, Mate.
There is another one of these only a few miles away at Historic Auto Attractions. Or is there just one and it time travels between the two??????
Not the actual Bonnie and Clyde death car, but an actual car used by a period huckster to hawk access to the "actual" car. The owner of this one was eventually put in jail for fraud.
Yes, for a time Lamborghini made a tractor. Sadly, it was typically owned by trust fund
A "Harley Davidson" jet bike based on the Nazi V1 "Vengeance" rocket used in WWII. The political implications of the mash-up makes the mind reel...
Nearby is a Harley Scooter. With the current dismal financial state of the MoCo and the myriad of directions they seem to be going now, the commentary on the sign might need to be revised.
I hate, hate, hate motor homes. They are evilly slow, can't turn, obnoxious and are too close to the anti-christ. But seeing some of the immaculate condition old-school editions was quite neat. All motorhomes should stay in this state. And they should stay pristine by not being on the road. Ever.
And I'll end with the car that made the whole trip worth it - a 22,000 mile Ferrari Testarrosa (flanked by a Lamborghini Diablo and Countach - which have somehow avoided catching fire). If the Fiero GT screams 1980s, this car screams successful 1980s. Or maybe it screams cocaine and huge cell phones. Or maybe it just screams since the all-too-frequent belt service costs north of $10k. Actually what really screams are the cheesy Pep-Boys looking fog lights behind the grill...
Which meant that it was time to get back on our 10-year-old Gold Wing and head out. We did spend a little time looking at the Antique Mall - and if you need something - anything - it is there. It is there if you can find it. There were a few neat things to look at there, but it felt a little like a high priced flea market.
Overall the museum was worth the trip. The used car lot plus museum is a much different spin compared to most automotive-based museums I've been to in the past. But other than my $15 entrance fee and a slightly overpriced $2.29 fountain drink, my wallet stayed happily in my pocket.
Guidance before we left was that it takes all day to get through the museum. Three hours was enough so we headed north and found a library to borrow WiFi from for a while. This also got us out of the rain since SE Wisconsin decided it was time to get wet.
After borrowing the Union Grove library's excellent WiFi, we headed into Racine to see my Uncle and Aunt. My uncle had a job similar to my own. Family lore is that my Aunt was the one who potty trained me. If that is true, just think of how different my life would be now without her.
We got to their house and my Aunt had me park in her garage which was most gracious as it was still raining. We talked for a while before sharing a local pizza for dinner. The pizza was super and it was great to catch up with them for a while; my Uncle has a striking resemblance to my dad and isn't doing so good.
With the rain letting up, we hit the road again. My past experience in Milwaukee was repeated in that those sons-a-bitches drive really fast. The speed limits aren't even a suggested place to start. If you want to know if your car can break the sound barrier, just go to Milwaukee - the attempt won't even be noticed.
Once north of Milwaukee the traffic largely vanished. It was getting dark and the clouds created a very gorgeous night with a near ideal temperature of around 70F.
We got to Manitowoc with just enough light (I was still wearing sunglasses) to get gas and ice cream.
Our hotel for the night was not nearly as nice as the previous night. The ubiquitous pictures glued to the wall. The drapes that just don't work right. The sanitized feel of the room without any of the cleanliness. The claustrophobic atmosphere with carpeting and fabrics designed to hide what 10,000 previous people have left behind. Perhaps David Foster Wallace was right; hell may very well be a chain hotel.
But the Cedar Crest ice cream, made right in Manitowoc, was really good.
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