Bowling Green - Day 4

We were up and at the Museum for a tour of the countryside with 68 other Corvettes.

The pictures are:
1. Cars ready for the tour at the drivers meeting.
2. The Bluegrass band and yes we enjoyed them!
3. 1954 Gold Certified and in the Museum.
4. The 2010 Grand Sport – just displayed today. Is this what Tom Hill will be driving to the show?

The trip took us up to Owensboro, KY to the Bluegrass Museum. At the Museum we were treated to an hour concert by a local bluegrass group. I must say, it was really good.

After a tour of the Museum, we then all headed to the Moonlight Barbeque Inn in town for a buffet that was pretty good. During the trip we talked to a number of the owners about Bloomington Gold and found out that a lot do not even read Corvette magazines so how could they know about Bloomington Gold.

After the trip back, we then went back to the Corvette Museum for a meeting with the New Corvette Delivery Manager and he gave approval to put a Bloomington Gold show flyer and tickets to the show in every new Corvette that they deliver! That ought to get us noticed.

Then the show at the Museum was over and it was back to the hotel to get ready for the evenings entertainment at the convention center in town, which is just across the street from our hotel. The theme of the dinner and evening is “Margaritaville” so we wore our best, most colorful outfits.

It was a fun evening and we made a number of really good contracts with the Museum and C5/C6 people.

Tomorrow is back home and we will leave about 8 in the morning for the 7 hour drive.

Hope everyone has enjoyed following our trip – it was well worth going and we can’t thank Carol and Mike Stypolkowski enough for coming with us – they are a great couple to travel with and an asset to Bloomington Gold.

See you on our blog the next trip – Barb and Ed.

Bowling Green - Day 3

Day 3 started in Memphis and we left early and headed for Bowling Green, KY.

The weather was perfect, finally.

The pictures are:
1. Onto Bowling Green.
2. At the Museum.
3. Barb’s sampler platter.

The drive was a fast 4 hours and we first checked in at the Marriott and then over to the

Museum and checked in there. Shortly afterwards, we headed over to the Corvette plant for our tour.

It was fun to see the cars from start to finish and we saw everything except the painting process.

Then it was back to the Museum for the rest of the afternoon. I talked to a lot of vendors who have been at the show and are planning on being back, even though they haven’t sent in their money yet – so that was good to get the commitments that I did. Saw and talked to a number of the staff that I have been dealing with at the Museum so it was a very, very good first day at the show.

Afterwards we went downtown to a great restaurant that had been recommended by two of the staff of the museum. They were cooking crawfish outside in the street for the restaurant and after we ordered, Ed went out and asked for some samples. As you can see, they gave him a full tray, so Barb got her appetizer.

Tomorrow we have a tour with 68 other Corvettes before heading back to the Museum.

See you in tomorrow’s blog.

Bowling Green Trip – Day 2

Memphis

Well this was to be our fun day in Memphis and we started at 9:00 am heading for Graceland. It was a little cloudy and had just rained so the tops stayed up.

The pictures are:

1. The living room at Graceland.

2. Some of the gold records and clothes of Elvis.

3. The ducks leaving the Peabody Hotel fountain in the lobby.
4. Party on the roof of the Hotel

We spent from 9:15am until 3:00pm and what fun we had. I was a fun time and we walked and walked and walked.

After Graceland, we went downtown to the Peabody Hotel and sat in their magnificent lobby until 5:00pm when it was time for the famous ducks to leave the fountain in the center of the hotel and go to the roof for the evening. The ducks come down every day at 11:00am and go back at 5:00pm. Dozens and dozens of people watched the ducks leaving on a red carpet to the elevator.

We went to dinner at a famous rib place and it was fine but not the best as far as we were concerned. The 17th Street Bar & Grill in O’Fallon was better.

The downtown was filled with horse drawn carriages and Carol had never been on one so we took a tour of the city in one for 30 minutes.

Then we went to the Peabody roof top for an open air party.

Then it was down to Beale Street, much like New Orleans and finally back to the hotel.

We leave at 7am for Bowling Green. Night, Night.

National Corvette Museum - Day 1

National Corvette Museum Trip

The picture is at Carol and Mikes as we were leaving.

This trip is to attend the C5/C6 Bash at the National Corvette Museum.

They have 750+ pre-registered late-model Corvettes who will be there and a number of vendors. I arranged for the Museum to pass out a Bloomington Gold flyer to all attendees so we hope to get some business from this event.

We started out the trip by heading for Memphis with Carol and Mike Stypolkowski. None of us have been to Graceland so it is a one-day mini-vacation to go there first.

We arrived at 9:30pm after an 8 hour drive from home. It was a fairly easy drive and it was all Interstate 55 until we arrived in Memphis.

Barb and Ed went into the hot tub and Carol and Mike crashed. Mike had been in Chicago the night before with the Fox Valley Corvette Club and only had 4 hours sleep last night.

While we were eating dinner he received a call from a Fort Worth, Texas club that is coming to the show!

After answering e-mails and doing the blog, it is time for bed – night.

Aruba - Day 6

The pictures are:
. . . On our way to town.
. . . Feeding
. . . Just one of hundreds
. . . A turtle just walking around.

Well we started this day like all the others – and it is not boring!!!

We were both down to the beach by 10:30 and stayed there until 1:30, eating a hot dog on the beach for lunch.

For the first time we went to using oil, only for the last ½ hour and it was spf 2, a product we had never used. Anyway, the oil felt good and ½ hour is all we could stand.

Then it was back to the room to clean up and catch the 2:30 bus towards town where we stopped at the Butterfly House. It was really neat. They took us on a 25 minute tour and the guy was very knowledgeable about butterflies.

Back on the bus we headed for town to see what we hadn’t seen the first day. Not very many shops there except tourists shops. Every day they have at least one cruise ship dock right on the edge of town.

This will be the last entry because tomorrow we are heading for home and we really enjoyed the trip, but we are ready to get home. Six days at a destination resort is a couple too many.

Our opinion of Aruba is it is a very clean country. There isn’t a lot of grass because it is really a desert country. The fences are even made of cactus! It is a country built for the tourists who use the beaches and ocean. I am sure there are some cheap places to stay; however, the Marriott attracts a lot of money from the east coast. Most of the people we met were from either Boston or New York. There is a huge Marriott timeshare development adjacent to the hotel so the casino was jammed every night and boy did the people staying here have lots of money. The casino staff is not interested in people at all. They are very distant and we never had anyone introduce themselves to us - we did not like this casino and probably will never be back. We would go to San Juan first as it is probably the best casino in the Caribbean

The Marriott staff, as well as the people who live in Aruba are very nice and friendly and we enjoyed them a lot – especially eating at their restaurants. We were lucky in getting an upgraded room. The regular price on the room is $800 a night, and there are people here who pay that and a lot more – not us!

Anyway a great trip – miss everyone and we will see all of you soon.
Love – Mom (Barb) and Ed

Day 5

The pictures are:
. . . That’s our ship in the background.
. . . The Marriott – we are in the right wing, front corner.
. . . Barb with “punch” on the ship.
. . . Dinner

The day started out like the last couple except even later. Ed was on the beach by 10:30 and Barb was there by 11:00 – relaxing is wonderful!!!

We had lunch on the beach consisting of a yogurt and banana for Ed and a strawberry smoothe for Barb – what a great lunch.

Then at 2:30 it was on to the pier to board the ship the Jolly Pirate.

We spent the next 3 hours sailing up the north coast and stopping twice to snorkel. The water is unbelievably clear and there were lots of fish. The third stop was for the kids to swing off the side of the ship into the water. We decided to not try it.

This sun is really hot and we still haven’t gotten past spf 4 lotion. This may be the first southern trip we have ever had where we did not use oil. But, Barb probably will tomorrow!

Dinner was a chicken cordon blu on the beach that we split and it was great. When we ate it was 81 and getting colder.

Then it was on to the casino and for only the second time since 1993, we have had a losing trip in the casino. We might not even go tomorrow night to cut our losses.

Night for now.

Day 4

The Pictures are:

. . . Small boats and kitesurfing.

. . . Dinner

. . . Ed's favorite food stand!!

What a routine – we went to bed early at midnight and Ed was up at 9 to have breakfast and reserve some beach chairs.

Barb was at the beach by 10 and until 2:30 we were on the beach. This was probably the best day with virtually no clouds and we came close to getting too much sun. We walked a lot and had fun watching the windsurfers and kitesurfers. With the wind here, they really can travel fast.

We then sat on our balcony for the rest of the afternoon. The balcony is 50’ long and we sat in the shade side overlooking the pool and talked and people watched – it was just relaxing fun.

When it was time for dinner, we walked down to the strip mall about ½ mile away and ate at a local restraurant.

Back to the hotel for a short break and then into the casino to try to win back some of our money and we didn’t do it. Ed played for a long time at his table and Barb had miserable luck at the slots – oh well, maybe it will be better tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be another day like today except we are going snorkeling at 3 – should be a lot of fun. This blog is being posted tomorrow because we were tired when we got in last night - sorry about that.