Chapter 72: Rod Run to the End of the World

This weekend was the last hurrah of the year before Long Beach plunges into the gray solitude of winter. The little town was bulging at the seams with people, classic cars, 4 x 4 trucks, and any number of eye-popping activities. The reason for all of this was the Rod Run to the End of the World, a car show that attracts thousands of cars for the show and as many that just brought spectators into town. 8,000 people attended the car show itself and there were a lot of  folks like me that did not attend the show and just roamed around town.

While we were there, Bob crowned our little sway-backed shop with the cupola I requested. With a sigh, he said "I guess I could figure out how to build one." and got right to it. He started with some old louvered closet doors we had in the backyard and built it from there. It truly adds a bit of character to the building.

I really wanted a weathervane on top, but weathervanes are out of season and were hideously expensive at any rate. Then I remembered I just happened to have one for a stained glass project I was doing. The only problem is that the weathervane had a cow on top of it. Who puts a cow on their beach cabin cupola anyway? So I looked around on the internet and determined we could morph our cow into a whale. Armed with my "You can do anythng" attitude, I showed Bob what I had in mind. In just a few amazingly short moments he managed to turn this:

Into this:

Ok, so the whale isn't facing into the wind like a typical weathervane animal but we did the best we could with the cow we had available. At least it's better than flying a cow over a beach cabin!

After Bob's shop improvement project, we cruised the main drag of Long Beach in my Beastie car with Bear hanging out the back window. He sure was a hit. People were totally shocked that we had a DOG in our classic car. Apparently that is not done in the classic car world. Bear and I also walked up and down the street with me watching people and Bear watching dogs. There were plenty of both for us to watch. People had all manner of car-watching arrangements set up along the road and stayed planted there from early morning until almost midnight.

Below are some pictures of downtown Long Beach while being inundated with cars and spectators.

We had pretty good seats for the parade of cars ourselves and it didn't involve sitting on the curb smelling exhaust! This is the view from our new living room window.

I'll leave you with some pictures of the crowd and cars from the show. If cars are not your thing, then you may stop reading here.

They start 'em young on the coffee in these colder climates.

It was an excellent time for firemen to be collecting with their boots since they had a captive audience in the stalled traffic and pedestrians weaving through it.

A firetruck parked on the curb for everyone to enjoy.

One of the actual Long Beach fire trucks driving through town.

Some spectators spectating in their own ways:

Bear sitting on our steps watching traffic going by/

And yet another tough day for The Exhausted Beach Dawg.