MG2022 - Peterborough Ontario
- submitted by Vicki Bade
MG2022 has come and gone and it was a really fun week!
Our small caravan of 3 which included Matt and myself, Kurt Ill & Dianne Jazdzyk and Gary Decker & Shelley MacMillan started out from our house bright and early on a picture perfect Sunday morning and made the nice drive over to the Walpole Island Ferry in Algonac MI to get to Wallaceburg, Ontario for the pleasant 2 lane road part of our drive. Lucky for us we were the only 3 cars on the ferry going over and it was easy as pie going through customs with the friendly officers making it quick and painless. Our other couples had not been that route before and really enjoyed it.
The rest of the drive was uneventful and since we had to do a good chunk of the trip on the freeway you know how much it was appreciated. Got in before check in time was over and got our goody bags, then we all headed to our respective hotels and B&B. We made it!
As I stated in my President’s letter we were able to run in to quite a few club members at various activities and it was GREAT to see the Canadian members again. I always have to laugh at these things when the employees at the various businesses and people in the area always ask what are those little cars all over the place and why are they invading our town?
We really had a great time and I am very glad we took the trip - despite our not so uneventful ending. I had the car packed full and we were ready to go when the car wouldn’t start - a nice MG owner heard our attempts and yelled out the window “Need a jump?”- he came down a few minutes later and got us started up and away we went, of course wondering if we would have the same problem as soon as we stopped anywhere. We knew JP McGraw and Dale Brown were leaving after we were so we texted them and gave them a head’s up, since our other original caravan members had different plans and had gone in different directions. We stopped at a large rest area and the car started right up when we went to leave. We got off the freeway and stopped for lunch and again it started right up. It was about 30 minutes in going South on Route 2 headed to Thamesville that Matt muttered an expletive and started to pull off to the side of the road because the car had just died.
Stuck on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere with no obvious reason for the car issue when Graham Creswick pulls up behind us and after checking that we are getting sparks from the plugs and fuel is flowing properly he thinks he can narrow it down to the ignition coil or distributor - although he has a coil it doesn’t have the proper connectors so we don’t try to replace ours. He helps Matt push the car to a shady spot and we were able to get ahold of JP and Dale to find out that they were about 2 hours behind us and would come our way as soon as they can. Thank you to Graham for trying to help us out and getting us out of the sun!
We decided to hang out in some guy’s front yard and wait - then Dale and JP drive in behind us. JP had driven his travel trailer and his MG is on a flat-bed behind it to the event, so in typical helpful club member fashion they offer to put our car on his flatbed and have us follow him home or one of the other options JP offers is to take us all the way home across the border if we can’t get it running (can I say how much I LOVE our club members and friends)!! We told them what Graham thought it might be and Dale suggests we swap the coil from JP’s MG on the flatbed with ours and see if we can get it started. So, in just a few minutes JP has it done and thank the Lord it starts.
What are the odds - we didn’t break down in the middle of the freeway, it wasn’t pouring, or 100 degrees and that 1 of our club members traveling behind us is going our way and is towing his car on a flatbed?
I cannot thank Graham, Dale and JP enough for helping us out - we made it home just fine (we were the only car on the ferry going back by the way) and all is well. I know we all say that is just what you do for each other but, in this day and age when everyone is pissed off, people are shooting each other and a lot of them seem to be only out for themselves, it does my heart good to know that there are so many good people still out there willing to help out if they can. I always tell everyone - we have the best bunch of people in our club and talking to others during the trip I see that there are many clubs out there with lots of wonderful people also. We got so lucky and our trip ended well - Matt and I had Friday off to relax and he really needed it.
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