[Walt Tomsic]

Man what an aventure! And I thought that Oregon run last summer was the ultimate Cobra experience. It was great, but this was beyond great. Don't want to bore with too much detail but a few things just really stand out for me.

The XXX Root Beer owner's obvious delight and enthusiam for the cars, his spontanious t-shirt raffle and $50 contribution to the poker prize...because "people who love cars have been good to me, I want to give something back". Now there's a retail concept that needs to be encouraged...patronize this place every chance you get!

Watching my mates endure horrible weather in open top cars with courage and humor. These people are tough! (I, on the other hand, did my admiration thing from an enclosed car with the heater on...I may be old and slow but I ain't stupid!)

The help I got from Adam (Bish's S.O.'s son-in-law) when "Crosley" developed some ominous clicking & clunking sounds. He took time off to track down a great mechanic in Boise who squeezed me in late on a friday with no appt. Adam taxi'd us to the hotel and back in his 22 foot long, 8 foot wide, 7,000 pound, 4,000 cubic inch, 36 cylinder Cadillac Coupe de something or other and kept us in stitches the whole time.

The trip to Sun Valley and back was beyond description, scenery that would make John Ford weep, the celeb thrift shop in Ketchum where Zderf was seen enquiring as to whether or not the thong he was buying had once belonged to Demi Moore (turns out it was Bruce's).

Driving the twisties at 8,000 ft...in a snow squall (this time with my top down, my wife Deni white knuckling the grab handle but grinning all the way)...behind a Ferrari! The guy knew the road, every time I heard that distinctive snap-pop-crack-pop sound coming from his exhaust, I knew he was getting set and it was time for me to get focused.

Finding out over dinner one evening that big Dennis and I are political soul mates.

Discovering that there's not one pretentious twit in the whole group (unlike a previous club I belonged to). Everyone on the trip was thoughtful, helpful, funny and friendly.

Being quite frankly, shocked at how gorgeous Eastern Oregon is. I had no idea.

Experiencing both the best (Richland & Boise) banquet style meal and the worst (Madras) banquet style meal I've ever had. Madras reminded me why I generally hate those things and Boise showed me that they can actually be done in an efficient and organized way so as to get hot food to the table, at the same time with no post meal check chaos.

In a rare serious moment at breakfast, Rich and I talked about the real value of owning a Cobra. When you cut to the core, a Cobra is a lot like a boat, a basically impractical hole, down which one throws handfuls of money. The real benefit is the social side...meeting good people, who share your bent sense of humor, quest for adventure and who, like you (and against all logic) love this noisy, smelly, sometimes mean spirited little beast of a car.

I've gone on long enough. There will be more of these drives in the future. If you missed this one, make the next one. The memories will sustain you for a lifetime.

Over and out!
Slabman