True Tourists

We headed to Navy Pier early.  Not far from our hotel we stopped at Stans Donuts and splurged for breakfast.  I got an apple fritter and an old fashion donut. Darrin treated himself to a Boston cream, a chocolate long John and an old fashion donut. 
We got our 3 day bus pass at Walgreens and climbed on the public transportation bus. It took about 30 minutes to get to Navy Pier. 
We bought our Go Chicago Passes.  We went on the first Architectural Boat Tour.  The tour started at 10 am. The tour took us up the Chicago River and to both the West a South forks.  We learned a lot about the buildings, designers and history of Chicago.
After the boat ride we went back to the hotel to see what our new room looks like.  Wow.
Around 1:30 we headed to Wriggly Field for the Cubs game. When you choose to go to a game and they win you win.  It was a great game but it was very cold.  Cubs vs Angels, two teams that I like.
After the game we went by a bar to enjoy some local flavor.  We stayed for one drink and headed out. 
After returning to the hotel we headed to Steak Knife for a steak. The steak was flavorful but the baked potato was out of this world!

Transition Day

We packed and left Auburn.  Just about a three hour drive.  We arrived in Chicago around 11 am. We dropped our bags at the hotel.  This is when we found out if we were in a good area or not.  This section of town was an high end section.  The upper north side.  Not far from Wrigley Field.
We dropped the rental car at the State Street location.  We did not know we could have dropped the car right around the corner from the hotel.
We wanted to explore Chicago so we headed toward the river.  We we so close to the Chicago Theater and didn't even know it.  We did walk down the river walk to the marina. It was a beautiful mile or so walk.  Darrin enjoys walking around the boats.  After that we walked around Navy Pier to see everything that is offered.  We went inside the crystal garden and enjoyed the area.  We even took a break to just sit and watch people. 
Inside the shopping area we got Ben and Jerry waffle cones.  We talked about what we wanted to do with the Go Chicago Pass
We took a taxi back to our hotel and cleaned up.  We went for a long walk to go to Giodano's Pizza.  We had been told this was the best Chicago pizza.   The waiter warned us that the pizza takes 45 minutes just to bake.  We took our time finding the perfect pizza to order
It took 45 minutes to bake.  When it came out our waiter wanted to do the cheese pull.  He was not very good at it.  I did take pictures.  After eating a piece and letting the pie cool down I was able to do a great cheese pull. 
After dinner we headed back to the hotel and discovered we were in the rainbow section of town.  All kinds of people dressed in crazy outfits started hitting the street.  There was everything from drag queens to every color of hair.  Men and women all out to have a good time.
We headed in for the night in our tiny room with a very noisy air conditioner.

Show Day

Show day brought an early breakfast for judges.  This is where you find out what you judge and who you judge with.  I was assigned to scooters. 
At Grand Nationals there are no cje's so I had time to photograph every car on the show field.  This was a first for me.  381 cars on the show field.  The cars were laid out in age order.  100 plus years I journeyed through the field.  This was an experience to treasure.  I felt like I was in a time machine.
The free time in the morning was a bit unusual and was welcomed before the heat.  I did take time to talk with many of the owners.
10:30 is when Darrin needed to be in admin.  He has not been able to judge at most of the shows we go to so he was invited to help in Admin.  I think every good judge needs to serve in admin at least once.

10:45 came fast.  I met our group for judging.  There are only three categories that you judge on scooters.  Bob and I teamed up to judge engines.  I kept up with the score sheet.  We would look closely at the scooters and make mental notes.  We would walk away and talk together about what we saw.  Together we would decide if the infraction was worth the deduction or if it was so minor that we would not deduct points.  This was an easy job cause the vehicles were the best of the best and they were in factory delivery condition.

Keep in mind that we are judging Grand Nationals.  These vehicles have Junior and Seniored.  These are already the best of the best.  We also judge them the exact same way as we do the very first time they ever entered a show field. What an experience!
Fourteen scooters in awesome condition!  Spending 5 minutes on each seamed like a long time.  Judging all fourteen flew by and we were done.
Turning in our judging sheets went rather quick because we were the first team in.  We went over the sheets and waited for approval from admin before receiving our chips from our team captain.
After getting released I headed out to look at the cars and photograph any late arrivals.  The day kept getting hotter and hotter so I headed back inside.  I waited for Darrin to get done with Admin.
Darrin was finally done and wanted to go see the cars so I stayed inside talking with friends.
We finally headed over to the auction area.  We watched a few come across the block.  It was time to leave the field.  It was a fun little parade of cars.  We then headed to the hotel to rest.
The doors opened at 4 pm and dinner at 5 pm.  We had dinner with Kelly.  Darrin collected David Rooney's First Grand Nationals award and preservation chip and board for him.  We sat with new people and visited with them and cheered when the received their awards.  Many people that I talked with over the weekend came to show us their awards.  It is fun to see the excitement of wining the honor of a Grand Nationals or Senor Grand Nationals award.
We were very tired so we headed to the hotel and hit the hay.

Zenith Awards and More

After breakfast we met David Rooney and Wally Latham at The Auburn, Cord, Duesenburg Museum.  As a group with Marion and Mark Alpine, Fred Trusty and Ralph Towner we all toured the museum.  The museum is three stories full of beautiful cars with floor two full of historical literature and books.  The collection included many rare vehicles and a few you could climb in and get your photo taken.
The Auburn Automobile Company administration building is part of the campus where cars were hand-assembled, rather than mass-produced. The showroom and administrative buildings were designed by architect Alvin M. Strauss in Art Deco style and were built in 1930. The facility's showroom and administrative buildings, the service and new parts building, and the L-29 building were together declared a National Historic Landmark in 2005. The museum is organized into seven galleries that display over 120 cars and related exhibits such as restored Auburn Automobile company offices. Some exhibits have interactive kiosks that allow a visitor to hear the sounds the car makes and to see related videos and photographs that show details of what is under the hood of the car.
After the museum we all headed out for lunch at Mad Anthony.  They seated us right away and served us some great food.  We all enjoyed the atmosphere and the food.
We headed back to the auction.  Darrin stayed at the auction and I went around and talked to more vendors about coming to the Mobile show.  Darin saw a car he wanted and it took everything he had to hold his arm down.  He has kicked himself ever since.

The last of the Zenith cats arrived before 9 am and judging started.  Judging took most of the day. In the afternoon Steve Moskowitz explained the process of judging the cars to Wes Peterson and I. The judges are broke into two sets of five.  They were easy to spot in their blue shirts.  Every team looked at every car for several hours inside, outside and underneath.  Each team would score each car sometimes looking at the car over and over.  When they were finished they all met in a meeting room to go over the scores and decide what is the best and what is second best.  Steve was appointed to be the Chief Judge of the Zenith cars and his job was to oversee that the judges did their job correctly.  He explained to We and I that the cars would come down to 1 or less points between them and he explained how to tie break.  The conversation was not only interesting it was intriguing.

The Zenith awards were given out in the auction area.  One by one the owners were called up to get their trophy for being a Zenith car.  Every car invited to display at the event got a trophy. I had spent a good amount of time talking with Russel and Teresa Huval during the three days we were there.  They had brought their 1958 Chevrolet Bel Air to the March 2018 show in Mobile.  As Steve Moskowitz announced the field of Zenith winners the Huvals were not called.  My nerves were getting the best of me.  Could the 1958 Chevy be the Zenith Winner?  They were the very last owner called up before the announcement of the runner ups and winner were called.  Excitement and heartbreak.  How cool it would have been for a Mobile car to win the Zenith top honor.

Evening brought us a free concert in the Auction area.  The band was a 50s and 60s cover band with "Elivs" making an appearance.  During the entertainment all the drinks were free.  The band played for two hours and the crowd loved it.