Lincoln Highway Centennial Caravan 
   

Prelude 3 - June 16, 2013
The 901 days mentioned in Prelude 2 are almost gone. Those were the days between posting the Prelude and the planned departure from Times Square and only five of them remain. The Times Square drive-by (we're not getting any kind of a stoppage for staging) is to occur at 7:00 Saturday morning. I'm leaving home on Wednesday to allow plenty of time to reach Secaucus, New Jersey, for Friday night's kick-off dinner.

An awful lot happened in those 896 days. The route was refined and stops firmly scheduled. Hotels were reserved. 270 people with 140 vehicles registered to participate in the tours. Detailed driving instructions were written for getting to and from Kearney from both coasts. Many people worked really hard to make all of that come together. I wasn't one of them so, although I filled out registration forms and paid fees, none of the advancing tour plans triggered an update here. I added an update to the Riders page when John Nawrocki committed to co-piloting, I did a few updates to the Ride page as work on the Valiant progressed, and I did an update to the Route page a couple of weeks ago to acknowledge the finalization of things there. But nothing prompted another prelude until I realized that the time for preludes was nearly passed. Three more sleeps and I'm gone.

Prelude 2 - January 3, 2011
Even though going on this trip has been firm in my mind for quite some time, I only recently created a "Fixed Leads" section for it. A big reason is that only recently have I been able to actually fix the lead. The location and dates of the 2013 LHA Conference have long been established and it has long been known that two caravans would converge at that conference. In November, a preliminary caravan schedule, with the dates mentioned in Prelude 1, became available. Real dates, even tentative ones, made the trip seem a bit more real and my search for a vehicle seemed to get a little more serious. I looked at a couple of cars friends had found and I submitted questions on a couple of eBay listings. Then I made offers on a couple. Then I bought a car.

It's a 1963 Valiant convertible in desperate need of a top. It looks great (with the top down) and runs well though not well enough to make me want to start across the country tomorrow. It's a Slant Six Torqueflite; a power train often associated with words like "venerable" and "bulletproof". It's probably as reliable an engine and transmission combination as I could hope for. It's not perfect and I didn't pay a perfect car price for it. Even though I couldn't nail down exactly what I was looking for, I believe this is almost precisely it. I now have, if those preliminary dates hold, 901 days to get it ready to be driven from Times Square.

Prelude 1 - December 16, 2010
I'm not entirely sure when I started thinking about this trip. It's been awhile. I may have begun thinking about driving all of the Lincoln Highway as early as 2000. In 2003, I was aware of the 90th anniversary caravan though I wasn't in a position to participate. But that's almost certainly the thing that got me thinking about the Highway's 2013 centennial. I figured to be retired by then and hopefully able to take part in the cross country caravan I assumed would be formed. The retirement has occurred, the caravan is being planned, and chances of my participation are looking good.

There will actually be two caravans in 2013. Starting at opposite ends of the Highway, the caravans will meet in Kearney, Nebraska, for the 2013 Lincoln Highway Association National Conference. I plan to be part of the caravan that will set off from Times Square on June 22. The western caravan will leave San Francisco the following day. Both caravans are to arrive in Kearney on June 30 for the conference and Centennial Celebration. Current Association plans call for the caravans to finish full cross-country drives only "if there is significant interest". I suspect there will be but I intend to continue on to the western terminus with or without an official caravan.

Naturally, participation by vintage vehicles is encouraged. In fact, a "tourist camp" at the Celebration will be limited to pre-1932 model cars. Driving the Lincoln in a vehicle from the road's hey day would certainly be fun but cars that old are probably beyond both my budget and my ability to maintain. At some point, the idea of participating in the centennial in a car half the highway's age begin to form and it quickly became a fairly firm plan. Obtaining and operating a 1963 model auto certainly seems more realistic than doing the same thing with a car fifty years older and the year has other attractions, too. It was the year I bought my first car and turned sixteen and got my driver's license; in that order. So, rather than shopping for a 1913 Packard or Stutz, I decided to be on the lookout for an attractive deal on a '63 Corvair or Falcon or something similar.

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