Untitled Document

On Thursday Carol, Anthony and I drove our '55 to meet up with the Wanderman's in their Patrician in Kingwood along with Ben and Jan Carter in their Clipper, and Mike and Caroline Calistrat in their Lincoln. I should mention that Steve and his committee took great care to make this a successful tour as they even had Bobby driving the diesel Excursion pulling a car hauler in case of trouble. It came in handy on Sunday. We had a great cruise up Hwy. 59 and through the backwoods near Lake Livingston, where we ended up at Florida's Restaurant near the lake for lunch. I cannot find the words to describe how great the BBQ and the fried catfish is at this place and I don't have enough time to tell you about the desserts! After we took some pictures and waddled back to the cars we continued on 1988 and ultimately rejoined 59 North. Just south of Lufkin we took the scenic route by the Angelina County Airport and then got on the loop going toward Nacogdoches. We arrived at the Fredonia around five to find about twenty friends from the Arklatex club waiting for us. Most of the LSP members were so full from lunch that we skipped dinner but the hotel treated us to a free bar and the Wanderman's brought in refreshments in the Fredonia Room that night.

The next day we were joined by Gene Oeding and Ruth, Juanita and Ron Jordan with their '56 Patrician, Karen and Rich Trokey, Maureen and Doug Carlson, Janice and Dale Musgrove, Jerry Ehrman, Anne and Bernie Stebenne in the 1940 that Ben likes so much, Shirley and Tony Darrow in the '57 Clipper and Larry and Lily Myers in their '40 Coupe. We then took a scenic cruise to an overlook area southeast of Nacogdoches where we stopped to take pictures and visit. Then we continued our tour of the East Texas backroads and headed towards the Appleby-Sands Mercantile for lunch. If I remember correctly we had twelve Packards, ranging from a 1925 to the 1957 Clipper. We also had Mike and Caroline's Lincoln "12" in the mix. After lunch we traveled back to the hotel where some chose to shop the main street of Nacogdoches and some chose to take a nap. Several of us drove approximately five miles to Wendell Spreadbury's three acre spread. He has about half a dozen or so fully restored cars of various makes in a building and then about six more restorable jewels in the same building. Outside he must have close to a hundred donors including Packard, Buick, Lincoln, Cadillac, Studebaker, Edsel, Chrysler and more which I can't remember! I like for Carol to see things like this every once in a while so she does not think I have too much stuff. After a scenic ride through the piney woods of northeast Texas we arrived back at the hotel around four to rest before supper. ( it sounds like we ate our way across east Texas which we kinda did!) That night we had forty Packard lovers at the Clear Springs Inn for dinner. We then returned to the hospitality room for refreshments, visiting, and to view some videos from the '99 Opus in Warren, as well as some other pictures from past events. Dale also displayed the beautiful plaque which the four clubs purchased to place by the engine we donated to the Pacific War Museum in Fredericksburg. It was fun to sit and visit with all our friends from Arklatex Packards and we vowed to have another joint meet in the future.

At 7:30 Saturday morning we picked up another couple of Arklatex cars and we caravanned forty miles north to the annual Henderson Syrup Festival. Carol was raised just eleven miles from here so we are very familiar with Henderson and I did not know you could stuff so many people into that little town! It opened at 9 AM and they wanted the cars in place by 8:30. We were able to park together and I think we were probably the hit of the show. There seemed to be more Packards than any other brand and that included sixty other cars. As always, there was the usual representation of hot rods that somebody probably created from a perfectly good original, but there were some classic Lincolns, two '40 Cadillac's, a Studebaker Lark, a nice '53 Chevy convertible, a couple of really nice '55 and '56 Fords, some Mustangs, etc. We had lunch at the local hamburger shop called the "Filling Station". Most of our Arklatex friends did not return to the Fredonia that afternoon because they were so close to Longview and other points where they reside. We did have a great banquet back at the hotel Saturday night with some really delicious food.