Back to the Future....Minnesota Style...

I am on vacation for a week with my favorite brother in law Lawrence. Each July we go to Wisconsin to enjoy a huge antique car swap meet in a small town and we love making this trip north. This time we came a different way for a change of scenery and hit the Land of 10,000 Lakes in the mid morning. We had seen beautiful corn and soybeans in Iowa and MN was much the same. Real nice crops as normal for them. We stopped in the SE part of the state to look at some engines for sale and stopped to look at some cars too. Then it was time to head north to Minneapolis area to meet a friend for supper. Rush hour traffic was bad and we took some streets thru suburbs to try and avoid that. Didn't save much time but it was nice to see the nice homes and town areas here.
Soon we arrived at the Minnetonka Drive In and turned into the parking lot with our truck and trailer just as Mark M was arriving in his 40 Ford coupe powered by Cadillac...

Mark's coupe sounded good as he revved the engine and so did his voice as he welcomed us to his neighborhood. We were all smiles as we ordered cheeseburgers, onion rings and root beer served in frosty mugs in this former A&W drive in. We met the owners who were friendly and we sat at some outdoor tables as the car hop brought our food.

There were other old cars and hot rods that showed up on this Monday night as well as a high performance air boat which may be common along this nice lake area.

Then the car hop brought us some hot fudge sundaes and it was good.

I rode in the hot rod coupe and we headed to Mark's nearby home near the lake to see what else he had to show us.....I had been there before but L had not and was stunned to see his immaculate collection.

Then we went upstairs to his lounge area and visited some more. I sat on a nice sectional mid century modern couch but forgot to take a photo of it.

I know my friend Brian from Mankato, MN would love to see this twin engined go kart...

I even posed for this photo sitting in the front engine dragster. Sadly, I couldn't get it to start when I turned the switch on...

Then we went into Mark's home and living room area just off the garage...

We had a good relaxing visit and looked at some photo albums from car builds and so forth...

And we left thru his workshop garage area and looked at another historic hot rod that he is restoring. This car was featured in 1961 Hot Rod magazine but I have forgotten it's name. The car was built by Barris and Cushenberry if I remember correctly. The hood was shaped with lead and weighed about 200 lbs.

At this point in the evening it was time to move on and we told our friendly host goodbye for now...

And that was what we did on our first day of vacation...summer of 2012....stay tuned for more updates on this trip and thank you for riding along again.