Aug. 30, 2025

Been a while since my last update, so I’ve got plenty to write about.

TRI-FIVE NATIONALS. My wife and I left for Bowling Green and Beech Bend early Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025. We made a stop to fill up the cooler and gas up, then hit the road.

Now due to how low the 55 wagon sits, I was majorly concerned about bottoming out on the Bluegrass Parkway and I-65 for the two-hour trip. But to my surprise, the Chevy only barely scrapped once on the entire trip on the interstate, and that was when we cross a particularly bumpy bridge joint — and that was a very slight scrape. No big deal.

But it was very nice to have an uneventful drive in the Chevy. With my GPS speedometer clicking off the miles, we averaged 60 to 65 miles per hour. The car drove just fine, the Chinese Eldebrock knock-off carb ran great.

ARRIVING AT BEECH BEND. We got to Beech Bend Park about 11 a.m. local time and made our way to the park and followed the signs to the registration and packet pick-up. The pick-up was well-marked and the staff was excellent.

The problem however was after picking up our packet. The document they called a “map” was woefully in adequate, and did damn little to help you navigate the Beech Bend grounds. We spent the next hour or two basically wandering around, trying to find how to get to the car show area. I could see it but finding our way over there was another thing altogether.

We ended up in the spectator parking area; the trailer parking area; and the camping area, which had a boatload of paved paths and driveways. Dodging golf carts was a full-time activity by Thursday afternoon; many of the paved paths were no more than 12 feet wide. If you met oncoming golf carts, you have to pull halfway off the path. Of course, dropping two wheels off the paved path meant that the passenger side exhaust would drag on the pavement. The noise it made sounded like the exhaust system was going to be dragged off that side.

Out of concern about the bottoming out, I decided when I had to pull over in the grass to stop my car and let the oncoming vehicles/golf carts come pass while I sat stationary. Once past me, I continued forward.

There were about 2800 Tri-Fives at the show, and about five times as many golf carts, so Job 1 was dodging the damned carts. Made just navigating the show more work than it should have been.

FRIDAY AT THE SHOW. After getting lost on the grounds on Thursday, we decided to get up early and leave for the park by 9 a.m. That way we could follow other Tri-Five into the park and follow them, which was an effective strategy.

A lot of show-goers who arrived on Thursday used their tents to block off parking spots for themselves and their friends. When we arrived Friday morning, there were large blocks of parking spots already “reserved” for other Tri-Fivers and their friends. We drove around looking for an unoccupied/unreserved parking spot and went quite a ways. We finally found a spot we squeezed in. It looked like a tight fit on the end of a row next to a utility pole, but we had plenty of room for the wagon and to set up our tent behind it.

We stayed until late afternoon. We hitched a ride to the vendors area and bathrooms before going back to our car. It was hotter than hell. We had failed to reserve a golf cart, and hiking the ground in that kind of heat did not appeal to either of us. Lesson learned for next year, lol!

We left the park and headed out to find dinner. We were running low on gas, and as luck would have it, we ran out of gas before getting to a gas station on our way back to the hotel. We ran out of gas right next to The Smoky Pig BBQ place on US31W. A passer-by picked up my wife as she was hiking to the gas station, drove her there and back with 2 gals of gas. We got back on the road and went to eat dinner at the Smokey Pig. Damn. Good. BBQ.

My wife was super pissed off about running out of gas. The gas gauge wasn’t on E, and had never run out before, so I really didn’t know where “E” actually was. Now I know.

HEADED HOME SATURDAY. Despite my wife’s suggestions we stay for Saturday, I decided that we should just pack it in and head home. The Chevy ran fine, without any dragging, and we made decent time getting home.

I was just damned happy to be home after a long, hot drive in the wagon. The heat wasn’t bad a road speeds, we had plenty of airflow which made the car reasonably cooler.

PLANS FOR NEXT YEAR? I’m already planning to go back next year — a year older and wiser.

For starters, I’ll have a better map of the Beech Bend Park. I plan in the next year to invest in a Vintage Air A/C system for the wagon. I’m going to invest in a golf cart rental for the weekend too. I think these changes will improve our Tri-Five Nationals experience in a big way.

Other changes I plan to make will include removing the 2-inch lowering blocks on the rear leaf springs. If that doesn’t give me enough rear lift, I plan to check into getting the existing leaf springs re-arched to give a couple inches of lift. To that end, I need to check the rear leaf springs. The prior owner told me that when it was lowered, he believed it had 4-leaf sedan leaf springs installed. Two-door wagons generally got 5-leaf leaf springs, while 9 passenger wagons (and I believe sedan deliveries) got six-leaf leaf springs.

Well, that’s it for this update. See you next time!