Today's Adventure

Today was supposed to be a kick-back, do-nothing day, but that didn't quite happen.

I did sleep in late, then noodled about on the blog until about two in the afternoon. Then Ken rang me up.

"Hey, dude," he said. "Why don't you join me and Beth at the Blackhawk Auto Museum? I'd like you to meet Eileen (Ed's widow) Roth and check out the exhibit."

"Sounds great," I said.

So I checked in with Anita, who was on her way back from Swazzle rehearsals in LA. "Go for it," she said. And off I went to Danville - about thirty-five minutes from the homestead.

Danville is an interesting place. Interesting in the way that it's probably the last place in the world that you would expect to have a car museum - especially one with a custom hot rod exhibit! The section of it that I saw was a huge, beige swath of planned communities. There was almost no one on the sidewalks, aside from the odd baby stroller or jogger. It made my college home of Valencia look like Mardi Gras!

The museum itself is very nice looking, but a big mall is sprouting up right in front of it - one of those malls with architecture that looks like a cross between Roman and American Southwest, and sprinkled with 'waterfalls' and 'streams' that make you feel like you're on Lastday in Logan's Run. It's so big that you can barely see the museum from the outside, and since the mall is still being built, the sign-age is not particularly good. I drove by the mall, and after looping through the plaza only to return to the street, I figured it had to be in there somehow!

Inside, I ran into a docent right away, and of course it was in full view right behind her as I asked. Sigh.

Eileen and Beth were busy selling Fink stuff under a tent in front of the museum. I got to meet her and give her a signed Happy Beaver toy. She seemed to enjoy it!:



I bought a membership to the museum, and went upstairs to find Ken. He was right at the start of the Roth section, painting away on a new piece for them. I got there at about three-thirty or so - it was quiet by that point, but apparently had been pretty busy all day. Baby Boomers + Father's Day + Rat Fink = Attendance!!

I wandered through the rest of the place while Ken kept working. Two floors of gorgeous classic cars, plus the Roth stuff! One floor of pre-1950 cars, another of post-1950 specimens. Just stunning!


My favorites were three Alfa-Romeo concept cars. Each of them was one-of-a-kind, and had all been sold and driven by various owners before their addition to the collection. Very bat-like - I hope someone makes die-casts of them at some point!

Ken wound up his museum day, and took the Fink painting home to finish up. Eileen couldn't stick around for dinner, and I hadn't eaten anything all day, so Ken, Beth and I met back in Martinez for Italian food...

...well, sort of. I didn't realize that the 680 freeway connected directly to highway 4, so I drove for fifty minutes to get to a place I could've reached in twenty-five! I guess that's why I have a hybrid - but I really need to get a GPS-thingy if I really want to save on gas. Once dinner was over, I popped back home to greet my baby after she'd been driving for six hours. I 'almost' matched her over the two days!

Anyhow, it was a great Sunday - so much for resting!