Day 41 Sunday 28th September, Washington D.C. and Maryland

Today Dale finally got to do his first "real car thing" for this trip - the route 66 car museum doesn't really count.  We organised to meet fellow local Alvis enthusiast Jim Sprague at the St Michael's Concourse being held just outside Washington at the Hyatt Regency in "Cambridge".  A lot of places in this part of the world have adapted familiar English names.

After a few small mistakes getting out of Washington, one of which left us in a (derelict) car park which was being reconstructed and required negotiating a 5 way intersection from a road that didn't exist according to the traffic lights.  (Dale picked his chance and floored it! - fortunately we survived).

Interesting street sculpture

Eventually on the right track, we followed I50 north towards the enormous Bay Bridge which goes across Chesapeake Bay and reaches a height of just on 200ft according to Madame GPS. We thought at first the $6 toll was a bit serious until we realised it was only charged one way.  The I50 then turned south to Cambridge following the bay.

View across from Bay Bridge

Yacht enjoys the serene Chesapeake Bay

The drive took us over several more bridges and around several inlets until we arrived at the Hyatt Regency where the event was being held.  The site was spectacular, the cars lined up on one of the golf course fairways with the bay in the background.  The day was very sunny and quite hot unless you found a tree to grab some shade.

Part of the Concourse field with the Hyatt in the background.

Maritta's favourite (a veteran American Underslung), after Jim's Alvis of course

Jim Sprague receives the Presidents Award for his Offord bodied Speed 25 Alvis.

Jim was awarded the Presidents prize for his Speed 25 Offord bodied Alvis and was a very popular choice. A wide variety of cars attended with everything  from 1912 National Indianapolis race car to a 1938 Morgan Plus 4 prototype, American Underslung (Maritta’s favourite), and an extremely original 1916 Simplex Crane (a very expensive car in its time) which had never been restored.

After the cars left the field we made our way back to Washington for the night - expecting to fight considerable traffic although it was not too bad.  Being such a lovely day most people were out and about - given their late fall early winter is just around the corner.

Section of the Bay Bridge stretching back to the main land.