Day 22 - Rick Gets One More Car Museum & Jody Gets To Visit With An Old Friend

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Our plan this morning was to get an early start as we new it would be a 300+ miles day, but all good plans are subject to adjustment, especially when we didn't wake up until 7:00. After a quick breakfast, we packed up the bike to head southwest to Auburn located in the northeast tip of Indiana. We checked the weather forecast and it looked like scattered showers throughout our travels for the day. It wasn't actually raining yet, but to play it safe, and as a little insulation from the morning chill, we went ahead and put on our rainsuits.

Our trip took us west on US-12, and once we were outside of Dearborn, the road turned into a wonderful country road between farms with lots of twists and turns and hills. It made for a great morning ride. We turned south onto US-127, and then onward on US-20 and it was the same kind of pleasant winding country roads through scenic, though a little aromatic, farm country. It was about a 2 1/2 hour ride to Auburn, and about an hour away, the sky began to look a little ominous, and the approaching cars had their headlights on, a sure sign of rain ahead. Sure enough, the rain started and as we braced ourselves for the oncoming deluge, it stopped as quickly as it had started

The rest of the way to the museum was dry and pleasant, and we arrived at close to 11:00. I had been especially looking forward to this museum as I had seen it on "Chasing Classic Cars" on the Velocity Channel back in Orlando, and it looked really interesting. The building that houses the museum is the actual headquarters building of the Auburn-Cord Motor Corporation that built high end cars back until the 1930's. The building also contains the design studios and the dealer showroom where the Auburn-Cord dealers would come to see the new models and prototypes when they were about to be released. Most larger car museums may have 1 Auburn - usually the Boat-tail Speedster, and 1 Cord - usually the 1937 Supercharged Coupe with front wheel drive and pop-up headlights, and maybe a representative Deusenburg. But this museum being the Auburn-Cord headquarters had lots of Cords and lots of Auburns and even a few Deusenburgs. The Auburns, Cords and Deusenburgs of the 1930's are probably some of the most beautiful and luxurious cars ever designed and built. They were fast, expensive, and flashy and reflected the art-deco design of the era with streamline design and bright colors. The Auburns and Cords were sold as complete cars, so the design is what came from the factory. Deusenburgs were really more of a mechanical marvel, as most were sold as chassis with drivetrain and custom bodies from 1 of the 38 coach makers would build the body style of your liking.

There were many more Auburns and Cords than I had ever seen in one place, in fact most of the Auburns and Cords I had never seen anywhere before. There were many earlier models showing the progression of design showing some of the earlier models up to the 1920's were very similar to other cars of the era but with the coming of the 1930's, the designs really took off. There were several Deusenburgs and actually a few of the typical Lincolns, Packards, Pierce Arrows, Rolls Royces, and other high end cars of that era. There was also a section of cars that were built in Indiana, most of which I had never heard. But the Auburns and Cords were spectacular. They even had a technical section where they showed the internals of the engines and front wheel drive transmissions. The volunteers were particularly friendly, and we chatted with a few as we went through. This was easily my favorite car museum of this trip so far.

When we left the Auburn Cord Deusenburg Automobile Museum, we noticed there was an additional car museum right behind it called the "National Automotive and Truck Museum". One of it's biggest claims to fame is that it has a restored 1953 GM Futureliner #10, which I really wanted to see. It was getting close to 1:00 as we had spent more time than I expected at Auburn Cord, but since it was right next door, we popped in to see what it was like. There was actually no one at the desk or the gift shop when we went in, so we could peer through the window at the exhibits. A lot of the cars seemed more modern with a good sampling of the muscle cars of the 1960's and 1970's, the Futureliner wasn't visible from where we stood. In the end, we decided that one car museum for the day was enough, and we didn't really want to spend the time, so we left.

For the trip from Auburn, IN to Columbus, OH we checked on the Garmin and it was 3 1/2 hours using highways and about an hour and a half longer without. The reason we made a stopover in Columbus on the way to Cleveland is because Jody's friend Fran from her childhood in Dover, DE lived here and we wanted to get together for dinner. Jody had reconnected with Fran on Facebook and spoken several times, but they had not seen each other since Jody was about 14. So we took the Interstate route, and actually there really wasn't much Interstate until we reached I-270, the loop road around Columbus. Mostly we were on US-30 and US-33 which were 4 lane divided highways across rural Ohio. When we arrived at the hotel, Jody called Fran and we ended up meeting her family and having dinner at Chuy's, and favorite of ours back in Orlando. It was really nice meeting Fran and her family. Jody really enjoyed catching up.

Tomorrow, we are off to beautiful downtown Cleveland. we plan to visit our second to last art museum and our second to last car museum before heading over to the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame.

327.8 Miles Today

3632.4 Miles Total

5.472 Gallons Today

90.736 Gallons Total

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