2019 Western National Meet – Grand Junction, CO – July 10-14, 2019

2019 Western National Meet – Grand Junction, CO – July 10-14, 2019

Independence Monument with Mt. Garfield in the background.

The 2019 Western National Meet will be held in Grand Junction, Colorado and hosted by the Rocky Mountain Region. Monuments, Mesas, and Memories is the theme of Mesa County, and it truly embodies these words.  The Grand Valley was chosen for its scenic beauty, and offers something different than what we have experienced at previous meets.

The host hotel is the DoubleTree, Grand Junction, located at 743 Horizon Drive, Grand Junction, CO 80106.

https://doubletree.hilton.com/en/dt/groups/personalized/G/GJTDTDT-LCC-20190710/index.jhtml?WT.mc_id=POG

The room rate is $119.00 per night (plus taxes) for a standard king or double queen. The hotel offers free Wi-Fi, pool & whirlpool, fitness center, Bistro 743, and a lounge. To reserve your room call the hotel directly at (970)-241-8888 and ask for the “Lincoln and Continental Owners Club” rate. The cutoff date for room reservations is Wednesday June 19, 2019.  If you wish to arrive before the 10th or stay later than the 14th, please call Alex at 970-241-8888.

View and download Schedule of Events and Registration Form.

For more information and for  meet registration please contact George Malesich at 303-909-2853 or Jake Dout at 970-201-1644. Registration packets will be available soon so please check the website at www.LCOC.org for updates. We are still finalizing the events and other details, and more information will follow in the next issue of comments.

Downtown Grand Junction is home to dozens of outstanding locally owned shops, music venues, restaurants, and art galleries. Stroll Downtown Main Street with our tree-lined, pedestrian friendly streets complete with a large collection of public art, fountains, and historic buildings. So whether you’re looking for local cuisine, a unique gift, or a place to relax with the family, you’ll find what you’re looking for in Downtown Grand Junction.

Wednesday Welcome:

Registration will open at 10 AM and close around 6 PM. Starting at 6 PM, a welcome reception held outside on the Peachtree Terrace, with free hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar, will run until sunset.

Thursday Colorado National Monument Tour:

The Colorado National Monument is a treasure near Grand Junction that typifies the Colorado Plateau’s dramatic mesa and canyon topography. The plateau that forms the “mesa” part is a high desert-scape at the edge of the Uncompahgre Uplift, some 6,000 feet above sea level and 2,000 feet above the Colorado River. Side canyons into the mesa created by its tributaries make it something of a mini-Grand Canyon, albeit a smaller, more manageable, and less crowded version.

The National Monument designation signifies a natural or cultural feature that is part of the US National Park Service. Its scenery is grand: sweeping vistas, imposing monoliths, wind and water carved pillars, spires and turrets, and layered cliff walls that are a geology text come to life all below the big blue dome of the Colorado sky.

Friday Gateway Tour & John Hendricks car collection:

On Friday we will start with a driving tour. As we leave the valley and climb our way up to the top of plateau, the view back across the whole valley is a sight to behold. As we start our descent and work our way through Unaweep Canyon, the true beauty of the area starts showing you her wonders. We will arrive at Gateway Canyons Resort and make our way to the car museum.

The Gateway Canyons Auto Museum features a brilliant display of American ingenuity. Spanning every era of the auto industry, the museum houses the privately owned Hendricks Collection of nearly 60 spectacular cars. The models and surrounding displays offer a rare glimpse into the beauty and history of the American automobile. Featured among rare and historic automobiles is the 1954 Oldsmobile F-88 concept car. The museum is devoted to offering and celebrating the history, design and social impact of the American automobile.

Gateway Canyons is located in Unaweep Canyon, one of the most unique red rock canyons in the world. The word Unaweep is a Native American term meaning “canyon with two mouths.” It is thought that the ancestral Colorado and Gunnison rivers may have cut through the soft red sandstone of the Uncompahgre Plateau, exposing stone dated to Precambrian times. This is said to be the only canyon in the world that is drained by two creeks, East Creek and West Creek, sending water off in opposite directions. Much like the nearby Colorado National Monument, our area has special recognition in Colorado geology. Ancient rivers eroded the rock away, and exposed more than a hundred million years of geologic records and fossils of dinosaurs and early amphibians. After we complete our visit, we will head back to the host hotel.

Friday evening we will have a cocktail hour, then a banquet and auction.

Saturday Car Show:

Saturday will be our traditional Lincoln car show with judging and exhibition. We are working with the hotel to hold a wine tasting of locally vinted wines in the afternoon. We are still putting this together, so please stay tuned for more details.

Later that night we will have the cocktail hour and the awards banquet.

 

Sunday Photos:

Sunday morning John Walcek will be photographing the award winners, so get up early and polish those trophies.

Lincolns visit Albuquerque’s High Desert By Bob Johnson

Lincolns visit Albuquerque’s High Desert By Bob Johnson

At the 2018 LCOC Board meeting it was proposed to select Albuquerque, NM as the site for the 2018 Western National Meet.   The dates October 17-21st was selected for the meet. This was one week after the Annual International Balloon Fiesta, October 5-14th, when hotel room rates returned to normal.  I volunteered to be the Meet Chairman for this meet.  What a challenge, 1400 miles away from my home and only 16 LCOC members in the whole state of New Mexico! The LCOC national would put on meet with the New Mexico region being the host; in theory that should work. This was a rehab of the New Mexico region and was the greatest effort I’ve taken on with the LCOC.  We had a small but great meet, thanks to key efforts by Bill Fletcher and Jim Fletcher.  They led the Driving tours, did the Field layout, did the Mechanical Judging, and made the show field numbers. National Director Dave Gustafson did the name tags, meal tickets and meet booklets for this meet, with Jeanne Talbourdet doing the meet registration, so this was a truly a  National-produced event. Other key LCOC members who worked to make meet a success were Dennis LaGrange as the auctioneer, Joan Denney as auction clerk and 50/ 50 tickets sales person.  Chris Gray, Janice Eby and Mary Johnson also sold 50/50 tickets. Acting Chief Judge Paul Temple ably filled in for Steve D’Ambrosia who is recovering from major surgery and cancer treatments.

The theme for this 2018 Western meet was October in the High Desert and the ABC’s of Albuquerque – Atoms, Balloons and Cars. We toured to the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History and the Anderson Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday the weather returned to sunny with normal temperatures in the 70’s for our traditional Lincoln car show.  An added bonus was we invited the local TBird and Cadillac car clubs to visit and park adjacent to our show field.  Ten of their cars were parked there; this is what the old car hobby is about.

We had 20 Lincoln’s judged and 5 more exhibited with cars for all decades on display.  The Meet bought Jock Finley back into LCOC after absence of five years, with a goal to show four cars.  Only one made it, but it was a beauty, a 1939 Blue K Sedan.  At the awards banquet Paul Temple announced the Elliston Bell Award winner: a yellow 1978 Continental Coupe owned by Michael and Diana Vickery from Junction, IL. The People’s Choice Awards voted by meet participants were:  First Place to a Black Satin 1967 Lehmann Peterson Limousine, Tom and Terry Machado, Stockton, CA; Second Place to a Capri Blue 1940 Continental Cabriolet, Eric Freeh, Alamagordo, NM; and Third Place to a Red with Black Top 1952 Capri Hardtop, Mike and Joan Denney, Tulsa, OK.

On Sunday morning John Walcek photographed the major trophy winners with their cars for Continental Comments using the arches of the hotel as his background.  The day was not over for those that wanted to travel to Jock Finley’s home in Estancia, about 60 miles east southeast of Albuquerque, to see his unique car collection.  Dave DeGeer, transporting Jocks 1939 Lincoln, led the way. Twelve people were treated to many beautiful cars, several being Lincoln’s. Then it was time to say our final farewells and Mary and I headed back to Shafer, MN.

Hopefully, the New Mexico Region is back on track with Matt Martinez becoming the Region Director, assisted be Dave DeGeer, Nick Manole, Tony Carson, Jim Deck, Paul Bowman, Gerald Gerken and Eric Freeh.

OUR ADVENTURES ON THE LINCOLN ROAD… AGAIN

OUR ADVENTURES ON THE LINCOLN ROAD… AGAIN

No sooner did we (Elayne Bendel and Jim Ayres) get back from the annual Mike Cunningham Wine Country Picnic in Sonoma on October 13th  than  we were off again on another long-distance road trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the LCOC (Lincoln and Continental Owners Club) Western National Meet.

Leaving the usual sunny and warm weather of Southern California we began our trip on Tuesday October 16th by heading eastward to interim stop Flagstaff, Arizona. There we intended to meet Western Region board member Jim Higgs and his wife Carol at the Hilton Garden Inn Hotel.

As we hummed along effortlessly in Jim Ayres’ new-to-him 1988 Mark Vll we encountered little traffic leaving town. The route was fairly simple once we got past Interstate 15 and merged onto the I-40 toward Flagstaff.

“Wouldn’t it be something if we ran into the Higgs?”, Jim asked. Not long thereafter, that came to pass. We overtook Jim and Carol and the two Jims traveled together in their black Mark VIIs until both cars stopped for gas at Newberry Springs, California.  They  had time for a brief meet and greet and some picture taking at the gas pumps before each car went on its way.

Driving long distances to meets is old hat for Jim Higgs but a leap of faith this year for Jim Ayres, since he only purchased his vehicle a few short weeks prior to the meet. Ayres couldn’t help hoping for the best but planning for the worst throughout the journey. Nevertheless, his car cruised along sweetly, averaging over 20 miles to the gallon on the way to Flagstaff while climbing up and over some steep grades.

We passed a lot of interesting desert landscapes on our journey and found the scenery much more exciting than driving through the central valley of California on the way to and from Sonoma.

 

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As we approached Flagstaff things got a bit more interesting than we had planned. Temperatures plummeted as we rode along in our  light  California duds. We ran into rain and then snow along the route. The temperature read 33 degrees in Flagstaff. Brrrrrrrrrrrr. Nevertheless, both we and the car arrived safely at our hotel where we joined up once again with Jim and Carol and had a great and well deserved dinner at the nearby Coco’s restaurant.

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The next morning after a pleasant breakfast we filled our tanks and were off and running again. The weather improved slightly but we were still under a canopy of foreboding clouds. However, the beautiful Southwest scenery made this part of the trip very enjoyable. A target of opportunity popped up as we drove, which was the world-famous Meteor Crater. When we discovered that it was only 6 miles off the main road we couldn’t resist the chance to stop and have a look. It was well worth the detour and we spent a fascinating hour touring the visitor center and looking down into this enormous artifact caused by a meteor hurtling toward our planet some 50,000 years ago at a speed of 26,000 miles an hour! The meteor exploded before hitting the ground but the concussion caused the huge crater to form. The fragment in the photo with me is one of the largest pieces of the meteor that was found. I’m sure glad I wasn’t around when this visitor arrived!

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Another potential detour popped up as we continued down the I-40 and that was the Petrified Forest where trees from a bygone era had turned to stone. John Walcek who stopped there said it made for some great photo opportunities, but we were anxious to get to Albuquerque so we kept on moving.

Entering New Mexico fantastic red rock plateaus appeared on both sides of the road and we marveled at the strata exposed and speculated about their geologic history. Then directly in front of us a huge mountain stood tall and disappeared in the clouds. We were approaching Albuquerque so we guessed that the city had to be nearby. The low clouds and erratic sun patterns made for a very surreal sight as you can see from the photo below. We later learned that this mountain is called Sandia which means watermelon in Spanish because the rocks often turn pink in the sun. As we got closer, we realized that the City of Albuquerque lay at its base. We got to inspect this mountain via the tram at close range the following day but that is the subject of another story.

At around 6:15 p.m. we arrived at the headquarters hotel for the meet, the Crowne Plaza, Albuquerque, and were greeted by something as fabulous as the scenery. Parked directly in front of the hotel like the queen she is was a gorgeous black 1956 Continental Mark II owned by Dan and Jacki Flanagan of Prescott, Arizona. Immediately our cameras were clicking and you see the results below. What a way to begin the meet!

To be continued…

 

LCOC President’s Message – October 2018

The Museum Homecoming was a success with a great line up of Zephyrs and Continentals arriving after their exploration of the Elkhart, Indiana area earlier in the week. Thanks to the LZOC for hosting this year’s event. Plan for next year when the Homecoming will be hosted by the Road Race Lincoln Registry, who will be inviting all marques produced by FoMoCo to participate and share in the fun. It should be a new and different event and provide the opportunity to see other Ford and Mercury vehicles. Do you have your reservations for the Western National Meet in Albuquerque, New Mexico October 17-21? A fun time is in store for everybody.

Summer appears to be waning in New England, almost like the switch was turned off. The summer was hot and sunny which is a test of both automobiles and passengers as one traverses the roads to exercise and enjoy our Lincolns. As this is written it is in the 60s, but a few short days ago the weather was hot and steamy, at least for the Boston area. This is the time to use the more reasonable temperatures to enjoy your Lincoln and provide another benefit. We collect automobiles for the love of the vehicle and what it represented when it was manufactured. They reflect society at the time, and Lincoln provided the benchmark for automotive design and engineering. The early Lincolns provided quiet, stylish and reliable transportation in the day of the later Model Ts. The art deco period of the ‘30s saw the introduction of light weight unibody construction surrounded by wonderfully shaped metal. The ‘50s continued with advances to improve drivability, with ball joint suspension, power steering and brakes to make driving these larger automobiles more enjoyable for everyone. The large late’ 50s land yachts reflected the exuberance of the day. The ‘60s brought about a “smaller” design that was very sleek and soon to be copied by other manufacturers. The ‘70s were a challenging time with an increase in fuel prices that changed the landscape forever, leaving Lincoln the last holdout of the large vehicles. The ‘80s saw a universal downsizing where the goal was to improve fuel economy while retaining the comfort associated with the larger cars of the ‘70s. The changes in the ‘90s and beyond were subtler, with more refined engineering and hi-tech electronics aimed at producing cars that were comfortable, reliable and economical to operate.

Why the history lesson of Lincolns through the decades? It has to do with the need to show off all your hard work to the public. Jeanne and I attend a few local car shows each year to both allow people to see our Lincolns and to enjoy the drive to the event. The people who attend car shows come to see the impressive workmanship and styling of all the automobiles that are proudly displayed. They come with the specific intention of viewing automobiles. What about all the people you pass on the way to and from the event? This is where you provide the public an unexpected glimpse of your Lincoln “in action” as it was intended by the designers. Think about all the smiles, thumbs-up and horn toots received while driving. What about the person who stops working on their lawn to take a look as you motor by and calls out to the children to stop and look? How about the person who remembers these cars when they were driving the roads on a regular basis and has an unexpected encounter to reminisce about the Lincoln that a favorite uncle owned? You are providing not only the visual impact but the sounds, or lack of noise that radiates when starting from a stop, shifting gears or just cruising along the road. A toot of your horn will further elicit a wave or a longer pause to savor the moment.

Let’s get out and show off our Lincolns to brighten someone’s day and rekindle a memory of days gone by.

Until next time

John

Lincoln Heads to a Great New Home

Lincoln Heads to a Great New Home

The transfer of Bill Green’s 1978 Lincoln Continental to its new owner went off without a hitch. OK, technically there was a hitch between the truck and the trailer, but that was the only one. Tim Moore brought his trailer to Bill’s farm in upstate New York on Saturday, Sept. 8 to pick up this beauty and take it to its new home. He was delighted to have Bill and his wife share lots of information on the car. “It’s a great car with an interesting story,” Tim commented. They happily documented this transition in the photos here.

By the following Monday, title was transferred at the DMV and the car had taken up residence in the Garage Mahal on Tim’s property in Richmondville, NY.

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