Ten members’ PT Cruisers actually made it to the Cruise, along with a PT all the way from California, and 2 PT’s from Columbus, Ohio, and a white Chrysler Minivan belonging to members who did not want to get their baby dirty. We will not mention the Schulz family by name, as we do not like to embarrass anyone. Three more cars joined us later for dinner at the Clays Street Inn. If the weather had been nice, we would have had more than 35 cars attending this event.

We met at the McDonalds at I-90 and State Route 45 and were led to the fairgrounds by Bob S. and his fiancée, Judy D. To no one’s amazement, Bob did not lose a single car in the trip to the fairgrounds. Bob credits this stroke of luck to the fact that PT-Flash had instructed him on proper use of the rear-view mirror. Thank you Ken!!!

We had a reserved parking area at the fairgrounds and the cars looked beautiful parked in a long row, even though they were a bit damp. Little did we know what they were going to look like in a few hours. Everyone left the cars after our arrival to visit the Fair. There were many nice covered bridge displays, and lots of crafters. Many of the crafters offered patriotic items.

We gathered a bit later at a covered pavilion and shared munchies. Lots of goodies of various kinds, including veggies and veggie dips, cheese and crackers, pepperonis, and someone was even nice enough to bring some real good cider to share. (Thanx Cliff and Donna). Then, it was off to get our cars DIRTY….I mean to see the covered bridges and the spectacular albeit damp fall foliage (that means leafs to those of you in Rio Linda).

Mrs. PT-MD and I both had the same brilliant idea at the exact same moment. But it was TOO LATE. Bob S. and his fiancée beat us to it, and we watched as they piled into the Chrysler minivan and headed off into the sunshine….err, uh, raindrops. That was the last time we saw a clean car except for Bob’s, which remained at the fairgrounds.

Thanx to the brilliant directions compiled, edited, and typed by Mrs. PT-MD, everyone completed the tour in the allotted time, and no one got lost except for guess who? Yes, it’s true…we somehow made a wrong turn and headed off in the wrong direction, but it only took us 15 minutes to discover this. Please don’t tell anyone what happened. So what if we missed the last 3 bridges – we saw them the week before when we scouted the route.

When we returned to the Fairgrounds, the weather became even worse. The skies were dark and the winds were howling, but everyone had returned to the fairgrounds safe and sound. The formerly dusty roads had turned into mud, and guess what happened to all of our cars (except one). Never have so many PT’s become so DIRTY in such a short time. And to make sure no one forgot how his/her car looked, Cliff W. went around taking dirty pictures of our rear-ends !!

The original plan was to see three more bridges prior to gathering for dinner, but the weather was so discouraging that we decided to head for the dinner meeting place an hour early and hope they would let us in and they did. We had a nice leisurely dinner with good friends in a nice private area of the restaurant, and were joined by three more couples a bit after we got there.

After dinner, the weather turned NCE and some of us went to see the Harpersfield Covered Bridge along the Grand River. This bridge offers the most scenic viewing and spectacular foliage you will ever see. Looks just like a picture post card. And it was the perfect “dessert” for a wonderful wet day. We stood around and admired the view, and counted our blessings.

At least the TRAFFIC was non-existent. We thanked God for the wonderful friendships, the beautiful. albeit damp day, and the safe Cruise. But most of all, we thanked God for the fact that we don’t ride MOTOR CYCLES.