February 3, 2019

Yesteryear
One year ago today: February 3, 2018, diet day 65.
Five years ago today: February 3, 2014, PopSci kindergarten security.
Nine years ago today: February 3, 2010, pollen rain.
Random years ago today: February 3, 2011, see the bumper?

           Today's notable event was the Lane Motor Museum. If you catch me saying car museum, that's fine, but there's enough more to it than cars. We'd planned on an hour or two and wound up there nearly twice that. It's easy to get to in the near Nashville east end. After another extensive doggie tour, we waltzed into yet another famous diner, let me grab the receipt and I'll get you the name. This one I should remember because we got mistaken for celebrities (or did we now?). Here we go, Nadeen's Heritage Haven. A late breakfast, but no pics as got them all mixed up. Had other things on my mind.

           The first thing noticeable is the great shape of all the exhibits. They have a separate workshop for the restorals, though we didn't visit. But it keeps the interior spotless and that is the way to describe the cars. Completely cleaned and polished. The museum confines it's cars to classics, which in the "real car" era centers around the larger numbers of brands available from the 30s to the 70s when Detroit-funded safety laws began to squeeze out the samller manufacturers.

           There is plenty of space to walk around every vehicle, there are motorcycles and bicycles besides, but they are literally a sideshow. Obviously not everybody will agree when I say I found the groupings of the vehicles to be very intelligent. There is better perspective on a group of vehicles based on a single manufacturer or geographic area than cars clumped together by year.

           Some of the vehicles churned out by eastern European factories are astonishingly pretty. Sure you have the Soviet era junkpiles on wheels, but some of the others made some sincere efforts to capture the US luxury market. Alas, many of them also ran afoul of the increased "safety" laws that basically made it just to expensive to compete with the American, and later, the Japanese big boys.

           My degree in military history had me smiling. I recognized many of the cars I'd never seen before as products of armaments plants. Everybody seemed to want a kick at the can. Skoda (howitzers), Panhard (armored cars), Tatra (tank motors), and BMW (aircraft engines). The wartime influence on 1930s cars was also apparent, something I've never seen covered in such detail elsewhere. Here is Robynette pointing to the "fender" of a coal burning car. You filled this hatch with coal, which didn't burn but smouldered. This produced coal gas, which ran the car approximately 30 miles before you had to coal up again. Sounds like fun.

Picture of the day.
North Dakota.
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           The real specially of the show are the small cars. The competition to produce a popular small auto was pretty intense. Many of the designs, had they take off, would be quite elegant looking on the road today. Also, the classic arrangement of motor, passenger compartment, and rear was by no means finalized by the 1960s. Sadly, the more interesting and practical small cars hit a price barrier that sunk them.
That this happened so consistently is very suspect. It seems each of these mini-cars was sooner or later shunted aside by a cheaper model of regular motor car from one of the existing giant firms. I dunno, doesn't that seem a little odd to you? Here's our stunt doubles trying to figure out what use this kiddie car would be other than groceries and taking the cats for a ride,

           The interior of the museum is spacious enough to include other exhibits. There are amphibian cars and flying cars. Propellor driven cars are a hoot, but equally useless due to the spinning props. Robynette thinks them practical but I say, judging by how sluggish they are taking off from aircraft carriers, they would be a fail in rush hour traffic, although they might succeed in keeping tempers much cooler. Here's those two crazy tourists about to spin the prop before heading out for a well-deserved Starbucks near-coffee.

           I recommend the museum, there is so much to see that if you don't get your money's worth, you are just being negative. You should also bear in mind that except for a designated photo car, handling the exhibits is prohibited. It has to be, since many of the vehicles sport the original paint jobs and strange building materials. Do not be fooled, both of us are experienced professionals in front of a camera lens and I assure you it is all illusion. We never touched a thing, even if you see photos of what appears to be us sitting inside airplanes and so on. They are fakes.

ADDENDUM
           As if we didn't have enough to contend with, let me tell you about mysterious thievery. I brought home a doggie bag of spinach wraps with cheese sauce, that's salsa queso in Spanish. The next day I went to microwave them and gee, the sauch was gone. Hey, Robynette, look here, the sauce has evaporated. Sure has, she said. I wondered if it could have just soaked into the corn wrap. Could have, she said. I asked if she had any theories and she replied that she had two cats. But, I said, the wraps were stored in the refrigerator. Cats can be very resourceful, she said.
           So, while the sauceless food was still pretty good, I've asked everybody around here to be on the lookout for the Queso Bandit. Robynette says she will be super diligent. I can't blame her. Once you get a Queso Bandit problem, just you watch out. Why just a few days ago a cup of my favorite trail mix went missing, and what about that half-package of tortilla chips. She says she'll be especially watchful from now on whenever I'm away or up at the library.
           But, she says, the odds of nabbing the culprit are nil. It's just the way they operate that makes them so impossible to catch. She said.

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