Day 13: Georgsmarienhütte
With the 50th celebration still a day away we weren't in any hurry we had some time to kill after breakfast. We walked around town for awhile until the stores opened and picked up some stamps, food, and a cooler for the next few days in the hot sun and finally headed out two hours later. We let Tom lead as his rental had GPS and ended up on many charming country roads and through a dozen or so villages before stopping for lunch in Bad Essen. After lunch I took over the lead as it was only a short way to Georgsmarienhütte and I knew the way. My nose and the map I had purchased the first time through put us right at the doorstep of the Gashaus Rose in no time. We didn't have a room until the next night but were fortunate to get a single room with an extra bed wheeled in. After we got settled in we headed off to get laundry done and the cars washed. A couple of girls that Richard was flirting with helped us figure out the money and machine strategy. We left Mary to that job and set off in search of a hand car wash. It was blazing hot but we worked fast and got back to pick up Mary only a couple minutes before she was done. We then drove over to visit with Hans & Brita Dopeenz whom Richard had introduced to me the last time I was in Osnabrück. Hans wasn't there but we had a nice visit with Brita and invited her to bring her '69 KG convertible to the show. Next it was back to the Rose to shower before going in search of the festivities. The event location turned out to be about four miles away...much more than I supposed it to be from the map. The field where the cars would be is just a hundred yards from the casino where the Karmann Ghia was unveiled to the public in 1955. Ute and a few other early birds were setting up. After awhile we all went over to the casino and I had this wonderful Gyro dish. After a hearty conversation about the prototypes being in Wolfsburg. After a few beers and making a few friends we didn't get back to the room until after midnight.
Day 14:
After breakfast I went out and adjusted the valves and the points but it was getting too hot to worry about taking out the spark plugs. I had to get downtown to meet with the newspaper reporter and when I started out the car sputtered a bit but by the time I got on the freeway it was running fine. At the newspaper offices I was led through one hallway and up a stairwell and then another, each time being handed off to a progressively better English speaker until I met Swen who was going to interview Richard and I. Richard hadn't arrived yet so I started in with a brief synopsis of the history of this gathering. I made it up to the night we did the vision when Richard came in and took over the conversation. In quick order he had his computer out and started with pictures of the 100th. When Swen tried to steer it back to the present day Richard fumbled a bit looking for the San Francisco pictures from the beginning of our adventure so I booted mine up and pulled up the pictures I have. I flipped through the America trip and then showed a few pictures from our trip so far in Europe. The interview finally wound down around 12:30 and we went outside with a photographer who positioned us with the cars. Afterwards Richard went off to deal with his T-Mobile problems and i went down to the Hymer dealer to pick up our new gravel guard for our Eriba Puck that we had ordered our first time through Osnabrück two weeks ago. I came back and ate lunch with Mary and as we were getting ready to leave Dave & Pat & Hank & Wilma showed up. Hand and Wilma were able to get a room across the hall from us. We went on ahead to register the car while they unwound with a beer. When we arrived at the field there were about 75 Ghias, 12 of which were T34s, there already. The swap vendors were there as well and I picked up a set of fog light rings and lenses from Lars and we bought some shirts and mugs. Around six we all wandered over to the casino where some food and beer booths were set up. Then we went to the tent behind for the evening program. We had some more beer and then Tobias and the other club leaders come out with a bunch of birthday cakes. They blew out the candles and passed the cakes around. It was a bit like the loaves and fishes scene at the Sea of Galilee as there turned out to be plenty to go around the full house. As that all started to wind down I pulled out the laptop and showed the pictures from both parts of the trip. I had about a dozen people around watching.
Day 15: Trip to Karmann
While we were eating breakfast Jörg Fischer came in and sprung a request on me to show some of the pictures from the trip. After pondering briefly I decided it would be simple to copy the best pictures to another folder and rename them to fall in order for easy viewing. I wouldn't have time, as it turned out to do this until after noon. Jörg had, incidentally, arrived late the previous night after we had at first heard that he couldn't make it. His 7 1/2 month pregnant wife decided to wait awhile longer before having the baby and had sent him on along to join us. At breakfast we had been told not to be late for the 9:30 morning program so we hurried down to the bank to cash the rest of the travelers checks and then over to the park. When we walked into the main room at the casino I spent a few moments admiring the huge toy collection that had been assembled before taking a spot front and center. I sat down on the floor to take the weight off my hip as the room began to quickly fill to capacity. I had a perfect vantage point to snap pictures of the speakers - Tobias, the mayor of GM, Wilhelm Dietrich Karmann, and a man from Volkswagen. Then the organizers began to pass out glasses of champagne in anticipation of the grand unveiling. At the right moment the curtains opened to reveal a gorgeous '56 ivory coupe that belonged to the woman on our right, Marguerita. It was displayed in the same style and position as had originally been done in 1955 and after a few moments they even brought out a model dressed in period clothing. After that wound down I was pulled into the back room to make sure the 'beamer' video projector would work with my computer. With that testing done we went back to the cars and did some swap shopping. Around 11:45 I realized I had better get working on the slide show so I went back to work on that at the casino out of the sun's glare. As the first speaker went through his presentation I began to get nervous that I wouldn't get done in time but it all came together nicely. The talk went well according to those in attendance and I finished in about 20 minutes. After going back to hang out with the cars for while it was our turn to head over to see the Karmann collection. There were about 40-50 Karmann Ghias in our group plus a bus full of others. There were 5 tours in all. We met Karin Schlesiger there and had a hug and a nice chat. We also went up and introduced ourselves to Dr. Eich and thanked him for having us there. We picked up a few goodies from their shop and headed back to the field for the remainder of the day. Shortly before dinner time the skies opened up and it rained sideways as people scrambled to protect their cars. Twelve Americans and Brits had dinner together in the casino before calling it a night.
