That’s right, Kevin was the First Place winner! in three different categories at the 74th IL Secretary of State Vehicle show last Saturday, Sept. 7th. We’d entered it once before a couple of years ago and Kevin won 3rd place with his 1992 Cadillac that had been my dad’s.

This year Kevin worked like a maniac, cleaning, polishing, fixing so much stuff. But it wasn’t just the Caddy, he also entered his 1992 BMW motorcycle and his 1974 Volkswagon Thing. The Thing had been sitting in the garage for years and years because it had stopped running and needed a lot of work. He finally found a place in town to work on it and took it in in May, and it was there all summer. He just got it back the week before the car show and although it was now running and a bunch of stuff had been fixed, there was still plenty of work to be done in a very short amount of time.

Meanwhile, he hadn’t driven his motorcycle for years so there was all kinds of stuff to be done to get it running. He spent weeks taking it apart and changing the carbs and the plugs and many parts of many kinds plus cleaning and polishing. One of Kevin’s many jobs when he was young was working in a bike shop, and he’s owned many over the years and he’s pretty much an expert at fixing them.

He can fix just about anything, as I’ve probably mentioned a couple of times, but his focus for the last month or was on the vehicles. He took the caddy in to have the hood re-painted and the week before the show Glenn came over and helped polish it. It positively gleamed after all their hard work.

Kevin finished up fixing, cleaning and polishing the BMW and we all pitched in to help with the Thing. The inside of it is pretty much all metal and it was really dirty, and Randy came over and we cleaned and polished like crazy. One huge job Kevin undertook was cleaning the rims of the tires. They’d been rusty when he bought it in 2004 and he hadn’t taken the time to paint them back then. Each tire took about a day because he spent a long time using some kind of scrapy tool to take off the old paint. Here’s what the old and new rims looked like.

He then put shiny new hubcaps on it and it made such a difference. The Friday before the show we got in the Thing and I practiced driving it with the finicky clutch. I learned how to drive on a stick shift and I know I’d driven the Thing, but it had been a while. I was a little nervous at first, and did kill the engine once, but I got more comfortable pretty quickly.

At 8:30 on Saturday morning, Glenn came over and drove the caddy, I drove the Thing, and Kevin followed on the BMW. I went first because I was anxious that if I wasn’t able to stop in time I’d crash into Kevin. But the drive went well even though I wasn’t completely awake. I drove with the top up because when it was judged they wanted it that way.

It was a beautiful day, sunny but very comfortable, not like the horribly hot days we’ve had. We brought lawn chairs but I don’t remember spending a lot of time in mine because it seemed like there was always something to do. When we first got there I got a picture in a cardboard cutout.

I took lots of photos of some of the fabulous cars, of course. Here’s a sampling.

I loved that the “Oldsmobile” logo was there in the front of this car.

Kevin wore his BMW shirt, I wore his Thing shirt, and he bought a Cadillac shirt for Glenn. I suddenly realize that we have no photos of the three of us in our shirts in front of the cars. Oh well.

Kevin had one of these cars at some point in his life. He has had many many many vehicles.

Here’s my great view of the Capitol building from where we were sitting.

We walked to Obed and Isaac’s restaurant for lunch. We had to walk over the railroad tracks, which apparently is illegal, but luckily we didn’t get busted, and there was a wall and a fence on the other side of the tracks and we had to climb the wall and fence. No problem for tall Kevin and extra tall Glenn, but i also managed it. We met Mom for lunch and it was great to sit outside and have a delicious meal.

Here’s Glenn and Kevin after lunch, hanging out next to the two cars. The motorcycle was parked over by the other motorcycles.

Abe Lincoln was strolling around, as oftentimes happens at events like this. He stopped to chat with Kevin about the Thing for quite a while.

And of course we had to have a photo op with him.

Judging started at 3:30 and there were about 91 different categories. Kevin got a First Place Plaque almost immediately for his BMW, in the “”Foreign Mororcycles” category.

It wasn’t too long before the Caddy got his second award for “Automobiles 10990-1995.” ” But the VW category was almost at the very end. There were only two VWs, and the other one was a lovely red beetle, but there were no other Things at all. Yay, third first place award!

Here Kevin is with all the awards. A long day, but chock full of rewards!

I love this photo of Glenn in the Caddy because the Thing is perfectly reflected.

We took the top down on the Thing and pulled off the windows and I was ready to head home. I have to say it was one of the funnest drives I’ve had, a perfectly lovely day and so very fun to cruise down the street with the top down.

Saturday was also Glenn’s birthday and when we all got back to the house I insisted that we take a cruise around the lake in the Thing because it was just such a fun ride. Mom joined us, she and I squished into the back seats, and a very good time was had by all.

And that’s it for this very picture-rich post. I hope your weekend is going well.

ok then,

Grace.