Here's to you Paul!

Our good friend & hot rodder, Paul, passed away recently. He & his wife Marge drove this model A (37b) everywhere. He will be missed. Here he is in October enjoying a car show (far left) His wife Marge has her back to the camera.
Our last hot rod memory of Paul was from last October: we followed him home from the 2010 Reliability Run, as he lives in our general vicinity. Unfortunately, that was the day that my camera broke, so I didn't get any cool pictures as we followed him home.
Rest peacefully.

2011 Night in the Famous Garage!

Another weekend out of town! This time we went to Saratoga Springs, NY to meet up with our friends from Bonneville and to attend garage night!

They added an event this year - to Friday night. The local auto museum was show casing some great hot rods, and it included our friend Ritchie's car.

Ritchie's car - Lots of cool posters throughout the museum

And many great cars too.

A tribute to our New York hot rod club

2nd floor of the museum held some vintage race cars. Great stuff!

View from the 2nd floor. The auto museum is in a building that used to be a bottling plant. Great architecture.

About 100 friends came to the event. A perfect sized crowd.

Ritchie being Ritchie & showing his love for his car - by hugging it and then stripping.. Sorry, he moved too quickly - this was the only photo I got. Have to keep my site PG anyway...

Next morning, Chris & I went for our long run. It was awesome - through a

great park, where the trails were nicely cleared. Chris only said it about 10 times: I could live here ...

And then we went for a nice walk down town. We didn't know that it was Chowderfest weekend & there were over 50,000 attendees for it. Holy cow, one minute we were able to run freely down the sidewalks, and the next minute, we couldn't even walk down them!
Tons of people out & about.

Then we had to rest up for garage night!
Always a great time. Always meet great people. Always see great old friends! Our good friends, Charlie & Charlie were missing though. It was a little less crowded than usual - the weather kept some away. There was actually breathing room this year - even if you can't tell by the pictures.

29 roadster

another cool paint job by Ken

They have a great shop!

Our friend, Jon, from England made the trip. Here is his motor on display. It will be in the old bones roadster race car. Jon bought the car from them after Bonneville last year. The car will actually have 2 motors: one street legal and one Bonneville legal! Jon is planning on driving the car from New York to Bonneville & will then be racing it. Very Cool! I can't wait to see it happen!

This one has been around awhile & had made the drive to Bonneville & back

A number of guys from California came as well. One guy, not to be named, had been spending his winter in the Caribbean. It was his first day wearing shoes - in 45 days!!!

Some of these hot rod guys sure know how to live!

Chris having fun, as always

Ken & Keith making time for speeches & awards...

Ken & Keith have built a number of hot rods. I think Ken said 13. But there seem to be many more out there that have been built by them .... taking advantage of their name. So they made plaques/certificates of authenticity for the owners of their cars & handed out a few of them on Saturday.

Here is Ritchie getting his.

And there was plenty of time for razzing between the High Speed Division & the Lo Speed Division. Here's Billy O's award for blowing up many times at Bonneville - his car affectionaly now known as the 'poopster'.

And the 'winners' award... nice

Makes everyone long for summer & hot rod events!!

Weekend wasn't over yet.

Next morning we met a friend from our yacht club. He has a home in Saratoga Springs. He talked us into doing a 2 hour bike class at the local Y.

The inside was even nicer, if you can believe it!

And then, just because we are gluttons for punishment, we did a snowshoe race. It was a 5k (3.1 miles) Lots of snow, beautiful views, and lots of participants. Chris, Peter, and Mary had great races! Me, I wish I had stayed at the Y. I finished, but it wasn't pretty. But they did have a great raffle & a nice long sleeved tshirt. :)

50 years - WOW

Chris & I did get out of town one weekend in January.

to celebrate my parents 50th wedding anniversary!!! Wow!

My parents usually go out to dinner with some friends on Friday evenings to a local pub/restaurant, and their 50th anniversary happened to be on a Friday. So my brother, sister, and I decided to join them for dinner - but keep it a surprise. We wanted to do something for their anniversary, but knew that they would want it to be simple. So us surprising them at dinner would be perfect!

Here we are hanging out before they arrived: my brother in law & my brother's 2 kids

and everyone else

Here they come! Mom just looked perplexed at first :)

They were very surprised & very happy to see all of us!

Here they are - exactly 50 years of wedded bliss

It was nice relaxing & fun evening with friends & family

Dad - getting a little tired of the photo shoot :)

Me & Chris

Of course, we had to have cake! It was delicious!

As you can tell - it went over Very well...

And since we were actually home a non holiday weekend - Chris & I were able to see some of my nieces & nephews in action

My niece playing volleyball - funky socks they now wear...

and my nephew playing basketball

They crushed their opponents - 60 to 30

And, we were able to have dinner with my brother & his family. Deep dish pizza of course!

Me & my niece Claire

We flew home on Sunday morning. But not too early - we were able to have breakfast with my good friend Amy & her daughter!

We packed a lot into the weekend - it was perfect!!