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Trip Start Date: September 20, 2002. Miles at Start: 97995 On September 20, the QS-9000 Auditor wrapped up his follow-up visit to our plant. Klaus Petersen, a self-employed contract auditor from Austin Texas, recommended my place of employment, Delta Wire Corporation, for QS-9000 certification through Perry Johnson Registrars. Delta Wire is only the 45th company in Mississippi to obtain QS-9000 certification. QS-9000 is a quality standard developed by the "Big Three" automakers (Chrysler, Ford, and GM). Delta Wire is a bead wire supplier to Goodyear, which, of course, is a tire supplier to GM. Since I am the QS-9000 Facilitator for Delta Wire, I played a very important part in the company achieving this certification. What better way to treat yourself after a hard road to QS-9000 certification than hitting the road to Bowling Green Kentucky to be a part of the 2nd Annual Camaro/Firebird Gathering at the National Corvette Museum! My wife had already made hotel reservations online during the week. Around 5:45 pm, we were heading out of Clarksdale. 
The trip to Bowling Green was mostly uneventful, except for when we were on I-240 in Memphis, TN running at about 80 mph. The expressway was a little damp from a rainfall, but it was no problem until about a mile from the exit to I-40, when we ran into some rough pavement with standing water at 80 mph. The car in front of us was traveling about the same speed when I saw the brake lights come on and water splashed all over my windshield, greatly affecting my visibility. My wife didn't help the situation when she let her fears be known by gasping, which scared me, plus realizing the fact that I had disabled my ABS on the Blubird made me tense up even more. All of this happened within a span of five seconds. Of course I was able to play off my moment of terror. "It's all good...", I told my wife. "Now quit scaring me before you make me crash!"
Anyway, we took US-61 to Memphis where we picked up the I-240 Expressway to I-40, which took us to Nashville TN, where we picked up I-65 straight into Bowling Green. We made it to the city limits around 11:00 pm. We then exited I-65 and turned left onto US-231. That was wrong. According to the Mapquest directions, we were supposed to turn left from I-65. Actually, we were supposed to turn right. We rode around Bowling Green for 20 minutes! We finally made it to our hotel around 11:20 pm. There was a parking lot full of Camaros and Firebirds, so I knew that we were in the right place! 
The following morning around 8:30 I went out and found a carwash and gave the Blubird a nice, quick shine, then I rode around in the country for a little bit. At 10:00 am, after I got back from shining and riding, we checked out of the hotel. We ate breakfast at Shoney's, then we headed to the National Corvette Museum and the Camaro/Firebird Gathering. There were more Camaros and Firebirds than you could shake a stick at! We also took a tour of the Corvette Museum and we really enjoyed ourselves. However, I had a bad case of poison ivy and it was bothering me to the point where I just wanted to hit the road and go home, so we walked around and saw a few more f-bodies, then around 2:00 pm we pulled out and headed back to Clarksdale. I couldn't even make it to Jackson, TN before I had to let my wife take over, but I was glad we were able to even make it to the 2nd Annual Camaro/Firebird Gathering! I will definitely try to make it to the 3rd one!
Miles at End: 98718 Total Trip Miles: 723 Click here for pictures from the 2nd Annual Camaro/Firebird Gathering!  Click your browser's Back button to return to The Firebird Travels Resume. December 31, 2002 |