Pic-of-the-Week for July 22, 2014 Part 2

Pic-of-the-Week for July 22, 2014 Part 2

MAFCA meet continued ………………

The “Grand Tour” was held on Thursday and was a 50 mile tour, which took a circular route of 40 miles to get there, and only 10 miles to get back.  This tour took us to “The LeMay Family Collection at Marymount” which is in Tacoma as well.   

Here is a picture of a very few of the cars lining up to leave on the tour.  

This place is unbelievable!  See their web site at: http://www.lemaymarymount.org/   Marymount was originally about 100 acres and started by the Sisters of St. Dominic in Tacoma, WA in 1919.  It soon became known as Marymount Military Academy and was run as a school until 1975.  Harold LeMay bought the buildings and grounds in the late 1980’s when the Catholic nuns could no longer maintain it.  Harold LeMay died in 2000 but his wife and family carry on maintaining, and enlarging, the museum.

By 1998, the LeMay family collection was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the “Largest Antique & Vintage Vehicle Collection” with more than 1,900 vehicles.  It has continued to grow since then! 

We arrived there and started with the closest building.  This photo gives you an idea of the size of this place.  This is only 1 of 3 huge buildings! 

We walked our legs off and only saw the cars in 2 of the 3 buildings!  We then ate a box lunch.  While we were eating Mrs. Le May was strolling around the eating area and visiting with many people, including us.  She is a very nice person that takes the time to just visit with everyone she can.  She had also spoken opening evening at our MAFCA "ice cream social" where she told us about the 3 museums and invited us all to come see them.

A sampling of vehicles in the first building.  Some very old ........

And, some not so old ....................

Some on the ground floor .........................

And, some stacked on upper levels where you could not get to ...........

Then there was the 2nd building .........  Did you ever want a snarling dragster?

 

Maybe you need something a little newer.  I am sure you will find it in the second "garage!"  Just look at the size of this building (only a part of it can be seen).  These cars and parked bumper to bumper, and very little room side to side.  I would guess close to 800 cars in this one building.

A few pictures in a blog can not do this place justice!  This building is overwhelming!

Here is a picture of the Model A's that attended this tour.  A fellow cam with a bucket truck and would take cameras up and take pictures for you with your camera.  He was kept busy for a long time that day.

After 2 "garages" we were ready for a break for lunch!

After lunch we caught a bus for a 10 minute ride to the location of the LeMay family home.  This location is generally not open to the public.  It is said that Harold bought this home because it had room for 300 more cars in "garages."

We were told that after Harold died, the family would start receiving property tax bills that they knew nothing about.  They would go inspect the property, and would find a large building/barn, etc. on the property.  When they inspected the building they would find more cars!  He was buying the properties just to store his cars.

We walked our legs off at the family home location where he had collections of other items as well as cars.  Those collections included meat grinders, salt and pepper shakers, dolls (I think those must have been collected by his wife), typewriters, hand crank calculators, and etc.

Then there was also the "garages" which included the Ford garage, the T-Bird garage, the Buick garage, the Cadillac garage, etc.

Here is the soda fountain.

Did I mention meat grinders?

Maybe a Mustang Cobra is what you really want..............

And, a special one for me............  A 1936 Oldsmobile that was very similar to one my father had for many years.  I believe he had it when we moved to Bend, OR in 1949.  I do not ever remember him driving it as it did not run by the time that I can remember.

After being tired out at the family home, we caught a bus back to the Marymount Museum where we viewed the cars in the final building.  In this building were many more cars that were restored to perfection!  I will include one more picture for my friends Jimmy Carmickle and Tony Kronemeyer.

Then it was a 10 mile drive back to the hotel where we started out that morning.  We decided that being tourists is HARD WORK!!!

Friday morning it was get up and catch a bus to the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field, in South Seattle.  That took most of the day.  I will not bore you with the airplane photos, but they are available in our Picasa album as well.

Arriving back at our hotel that evening we had to hurry and get ready for the awards banquet.  There were probably about 600 people at the banquet, and the surprising part is that the food was good!  Our table was very successful, prize wise.  One lady won a prize for her late 20's/ early 30's fashions, one couple won a prize for "car games" (playing various games with the Model A), one couple won a bronze prize for their car in "Restorer's Class", and....

Oh, I was given a certificate and medal from the judges for winning a silver medal on my Model A Ford woody restoration in Restorer's class, scoring between 400 - 429 points out of 500 (they didn't say how many points exactly). There were about 5 cars in this prize range, about the same number in the bronze range, and one in the gold range.

All in all, it was a very fun and rewarding week!  You can see our photos at our 2014-07 MAFCA Meet album.  Harriet is still working on the captions, have patience!  (Or you can guess what things are!)  Enjoy!!

Your friends,
Ben, Harriet, Sam & Zoey

 

Pic-of-the-Week for July 22, 2014

Harriet is making me write Pic-of-the-Week this week because she says that I should have something to write about this past week.  I just checked and she has been sloughing off on the job!!  She has not written a Pic-of-the-Week for a month!

We just arrived in Salem Sunday afternoon, and it will be a busy week.  In our last report we were in Bend where we went to the Sisters’ Rodeo, and had our Model A Ford engine rebuilt.  After the engine was done we drove it around Bend quite a bit testing it out and making sure that everything was working OK.  We even took it to the small community of Culver (by trailer) to a small car show there.

Also at this car show was an antique Pierce-Arrow trailer.  This pickup and trailer are owned by the fellow that also worked on my Model A adjusting the brakes and fixing the rear axle.

The primary event controlling our schedule this summer was to take the Model A Ford to the national Model A Ford Club of America (MAFCA) meet being held in Puyallup, Washington this past week.  There were about 450 families signed up for the meet which meant about 400 cars!  We arrived there Monday evening and got registered.  This was the view out our hotel window.  (Do you see our woody in the middle row to the left?)

Tuesday was hurry up and get the car cleaned up and enter it in the Restorer’s Class judging.  They did not reveal the judging score until the last evening (Friday) at the awards banquet.

Later that day we went to the “LeMay - America’s Car Museum” in Tacoma.  Wow, what a place to visit for anyone that likes cars of all kinds.  This is a new museum that opened in 2012, and can hold up to about 350 cars.  For their web site go to:  http://www.lemaymuseum.org/

Maybe you would like the Duesenberg...

Or, a 1926 Rolls Royce

How do you do justice to a museum that holds 350 cars?  I guess it is impossible, so you will just have to go see it for yourself.  Right now, they have a tribute to the 50th anniversary of the Mustang, and especially the Mustang Shelby.   It is located very near the Tacoma Dome.

Wednesday was a tour to “Fred’s Garage” which I thought would be about a 15 mile drive.  Well, when we received our driving instructions we learned that this would be a 50 mile tour each direction!!  The most I had driven the car prior to this was just short trips around Bend.  The route was on slower speed roads except that we had to cross the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which is part of a freeway.

We survived the freeway travel and the 50 mile drive to Fred’s Garage without incident. 

Here are some of the vehicles that made the trip.  Notice how one stands head and shoulders above the others even when it is parked near the back of the row.

 

Fred’s Garage has a number of antique cars and tractors, (maybe 30 cars, and about that many tractors) and it is a working farm as well.

Here is a photo of a 1951 Ford for my brother Ken, who had a 1951 Ford at one time also, but his was not a convertible.

And a 1937 Cadillac.

This was our view of Mt. Rainier from our picnic table where we had a catered lunch.

Then it was another 40 mile drive back to our hotel because we skipped part of the scenic route that we took on the way there.

Ok, that is enough for one Pic-of-the-Week!  I will try to get the rest of the MAFCA meet in the next Pic-of-the-Week.

Pictures from July are posted in our 2014 July Picasa album, except for the MAFCA meet... those photos are in 2014 July MAFCA Meet.   At least some of them are!  Harriet is working on uploading and doing some captions so you know what is what!  Keep checking back on that album for updates.

Your friends, currently in Salem for doctor visits and catching up with folks...

Ben, Harriet, Sam & Zoey