Tuesday, Sept. 28th, Detroit, MI to St. Louis, MO. We start by heading over to Federal Mogul, one of our sponsor's headquarters in Detroit for a charity photo op, ad hoc car show, and breakfast in the employee cafeteria. It is nice to see (almost) all the cars in one spot. The light is good and flat for my primitive digital camera, so I try and get as many shots of the cars as I can. Here are a small sample: 911 and a Big Ass Lincoln Caddy & Fairlady Z Falcon & Challenger TransAm & Ferrari I have more pics, and as soon as I get back home I'll put them up here, along with info about make, model, year & drivers. After some of the employees "judged" our cars (as usual our "babe magnet" drew the women like flies to shit. Damn, why didn't we get this car when I was single!?) We took off as we had a long way to go to our scheduled lunch stop in Indiana, and a short time to get there. Martin Swig, in the Cunningham, roared out and several of us followed his lead. Many stayed behind for the festivities and to bask in the media coverage, and probably came to regret losing the time. Left: Martin Swig leads the charge out of Detroit! We hopped on the freeway (today was our largest "freeway day") and headed toward Ann Arbor and then south to Fort Wayne and Indianapolis then on to Greencastle for lunch. It was a long haul and dad and I blew by all but the Super Bird (who traded leads with us most of the day). Below: Passing the Cunningham and the Porsche 911 near Ann Arbor.         We flew as fast as we could, thankfully missing the cops, but as like yesterday, raising the alarm as we passed through. The Indiana State Patrol pulled over a few folks from what I heard later. We arrived in Greencastle, Indiana for our one scheduled lunch of the week, and found a large segment of the town waiting for us! Some local media were there to video our arrival, plus many folks out with cameras. We were 30 minutes late (of the scheduled time) and we were the 1st car to arrive! The boys in the Super Bird, (Wes McNay and Franz Lorist... a couple of well-preserved relics from the 70's driving a well-preserved relic from the 70's! I hope Wes doesn't take any offense at that, since I mean it in the best possible way!) and the Wolf's in their Ferrari pulled in shortly after us. The folks at the Walden Inn did a fantastic job of making us feel welcome and feeding us an excellent lunch! We were thirsty, tired, and hungry... but left refreshed and happy. We hated to eat and run, but time was wasting and we still had a long way to go to get to St. Louis and we knew there was a cold front with rain and thundershowers moving our way. We hoped to be able to skirt to the south of it, but needed to get moving if that was going to happen. Above: Wes McNay's Super Bird passes us somewhere in Indiana. We hit I-70 and start hauling ass west. The top is down and it is hot, but we can see dark clouds on the western horizon. I pick up a rabbit in the form of a woman in a Buick doing 95+mph. I hang back behind her about a half mile going a little slower and keep going like that until our detector picks up a trooper's instant-on tagging her. Thank you! At the speeds I am traveling (80/90mph... I don't like to go much faster on Interstates) all sorts of people try using me as a rabbit, but our brake lights are small, and the "dancing elephants" as my dad calls the big scary trucks, always force them off my tail as I can out accelerate them all. Going flat-out fast in this car is more scary than fun (it is a decapitation waiting to happen!), But the car is a ton of fun to accelerate... like passing people, or waiting in the slipstream of an 18 wheeler as he slowly pulls around another elephant and then sling-shotting away by going from 55 to 95 in about 1.2 seconds. Wheee! As I am finishing my shift at the wheel somewhere in the middle of Illinois, it is clear we are going to get wet. We start trying to out-race the rain squall headed our way as dad & I decide that we'd rather try and shave the corner of the storm than stop, put up the top, and really get caught in it. I fly along and we get hit by two short squalls, including one that pelts my forehead with a baseball sized raindrop, but we manage to get through to the sunshine again. Later, as we approach St. Louis, the wall of dark clouds offers no escape route, so we surrender and raise the roof. Left: Me and dad with the top up, approaching the storm. Right as we enter St. Louis the clouds open up and the downpour begins. The car of course leaks like the sieve it is, but we manage to make the hotel just as the rain stops. We are the first car there, but the SuperBird boys pull up about 5 minutes later. After we pull around back to our designated parking area, Wes McNay pulls some beer out of the Super Bird's cooler... it's Miller Time! Below: Miller Time! Thanks Wes!         Dinner was a strange affair... I'll have to tell you about it tomorrow, since I need some sleep! Roadkill Update: 1 deer, 12 raccoons (must be stupid raccoons east of the Mississippi!), 1 skunk, 1 Opossum, 4 indistinguishable piles of flesh guts and fur/feathers, and a water pump from a Saab 96 V-4. Today's Americana: Signs advertising "Foot High Pies!" in Illinois. -Goodnight! --chuck On to the next page: St.Louis to Lincoln. or, back to the Cannonball! home. or...