Hot Rod Power Tour 2008: Day Five: The Road Taken with the Mopars

The day started with sadness. The storms we had just slept through had killed some Boy Scouts miles away. And it didn't look good for us as the clouds looked very bad.

But we persivered and headed out west to pick up Hwy 69 North. We pulled onto 69 and at that same time our friends were there. The group drove north heading to Jewell, IA with rain sprinkling here and there.

We get about 2 miles outside of Jewell there was a shop with a bunch of Mopars. We drove past fairly quickly and then all of a sudden, came to a stop. Apparently the breakfast in Jewell was such a hit, that they didn't have room for everyone. So the backup just got bigger and bigger.

Our merry band of GM vehicles did a U-Turn and headed another way. Which worked out really well, we were ahead of the backup and cruising along at a steady pace. When 69 had a detour. It had been washed out on the main route so we had to take this LONG detour around.

Went through a whole bunch of little towns and made our way back to 69 north. All went well, we were really making good time and having a blast. The weather started getting better and better.

Then Hwy 18 East loomed ahead. So we turned onto the highway and found the first gas station in over an hour, so the majority of our group had to refill.

At this time I got a call from JoAnn from the Chicagoland Mopar Connection club. Someone had told her not to do the detour and she was lost in Iowa. I gave her directions to get to Highway 18. And I also told her about a secret meeting.

The MoPower group was going to meet up at the last place that Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper played at before they died, the Surf Ballroom.

So we all met up there and chatted for a bit, then took off to head to Minnesota.

It was while filling up some of their groups vehicles that we found out that the new directions we were given were bad because of more lane closures caused by the flooding. So we hopped on I-35 North to Minnesota and never looked back.

Now I never grew up in the muscle car era. So all of a sudden to have a 69 Charger Daytona behind me, 70 Challenger R/T Vert in front of me and everything else mopar around me. It was quite incredible.

While my Caprice is made for cruising and is only 20 years old, those 30 year old car never missed a beat and were pushing past me like nothing!

We took I-35 North for quite a while. Time just kinda blurred together on those large highways. It was fun going triple digits with all those Mopars.

We get into Minnesota and then merge onto Highway 14 East. We took that all the way to Rochester, MN. We pulled into the city limits and some of the group needed to fill up since they hadn't the time before. And there just happened to be a Famous Dave's BBQ place next door.

The poor place didn't know what hit it. We took up a good chunk of their back room. The cops were outside, people were building things out of paper towel holders. It was nearly complete chaos.... but was fun.

I was actually told an amazing story by a friend I met on the tour. He owns the blue 69 340 Cuda a few blogs back.

He was driving along when he blew a headgasket on his 340. No big deal he thought, but his girlfriend wanted to head home. He didn't think it was that bad, so he took her to the Little Rock, AR airport for a flight out. Well apparently it was bad and on his way to Ames the head decided to melt down on the side of the road.

Well a farmer helped him get it onto his farm and the farmer was a mopar guy! With a whole bunch of mopars sitting around that we was building or using for parts. The head couldn't be saved so the farmer GAVE him a head off of a 360 he had lying around from a 80's RamCharger. They swapped it over and he was on the road the next day. The farmer didn't even want anything in return. The guy with the Cuda quietly accepted, but will be repaying the kind old man in the future for the assistance he did.

With what I've seen on this tour, gives me some hope in humanity!

The group pulls into the show around 3:45 pm and gets an end spot. And I began to investigate the show.

It was quite a nice show, the weather turned out perfectly and I was there with good people.

I start walking around and what do I spy, a BRAND NEW CHALLENGER. I am of course giddy with excitement and begin asking the guy all these questions about the car. His response was....

"I just bought the car two hours ago, brought it straight here and want $55,000 for it."

I said thanks, snapped a bunch of pictures and continued on my way.

There was quite a stable of cars at this show, a 70 Superbird, cobras and everything in between.

I spent some of my afternoon with some mopar guys I met from the area, chatting with them about mopars and new technology.

I took off a little early to fix the problem with the blog from last night, which took me a while to do. Now I'm tired and getting ready for the last leg of the trip, south to Madison.

Ryan
HemiPwr70@aol.com