Yoopers for a few days!

Saturday, June 28 was the 39th St. Ignace car show just on the north side of the Mackinaw Bridge that joins the two peninsulas of Michigan.  St. Ignace is a quaint little town that turns into a car cruising paradise the last weekend of June every year.  Several members of the ClassiX Street Rod Association decided to make a mini vacation of this years show by heading north from Grand Rapids, Lowell, Belding, Jenison, Kentwood and East Grand Rapids on the Wednesday prior to the car show.  We arrived in St. Ignace about 1pm to cool temps and threatening skies.  Just after returning to the Northernaire Motel after lunch at Northern Lights restaurant, the rains came.  We decided to relax and sit out the showers and ended up taking the courtesy van to the Kewadin Casino for a buffet dinner later in the afternoon.

Thursday dawned with blue skies and sunshine - cruisin' weather!  Once the cars were cleaned up, we cruised into town and found the registration trailer for the show.  A short while later, we found out the t-shirt vendor was setting up shop in the vendor lot.  They weren't even open yet but the owner made his boys find the shirts we wanted and take our money!  With registration and t-shirt shopping completed, we spent the rest of the day cruising and watching other cars roll into town.

The rest of Thursday and all of Friday were spent just hanging out, cruising the streets and scoping out the other cars arriving for the show.  Saturday morning, we were up early and left for the show at 5:45.  Rick and his yellow truck led us into town and sweet talked the parking attendants into the same spots we had last year - right in front of the bank.  That spot had a perfect location for our awning with it's new club banner and just enough room to park all seven cars between side streets.

Fred and Paul knew one of the judges who happened to work at the big Frankenmuth show and we met up with him on Friday for ice cream and some bs'ing.  He stopped by our awning with Top Hat John, the other judge, and kinda let us know that last years winners wouldn't be winning again this year.  That eliminated Jimmy's 32 Ford Roadster, Fred's 47 Chevy Fleetline Custom and Jon's 41 Chevy sedan.  As it turned out, the entire club was shut out from any awards this time around.  One car in particular caught everyone's attention as we cruised the streets.  This one was parked along the street on Thursday and Friday and was selected for a special award on Saturday.  Many of us thought it was a Chrysler concept car but it turned out to be one man's dream and totally constructed by hand!

We not only secured the same rooms for next year at Northernaire but we also managed to add two more rooms for a total of seven.  Two other groups each cancelled a room and that gave us the immediate option to add them to our group.  This show is so much fun, everyone is planning to return next year for the 40th year of the show.  Sunday's caravan home was uneventful other than a couple of rain showers near Gaylord and again around Cadillac.  Everyone had a great time and we're all looking forward to next year.