Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Visiting A Friend Mark - A Glorious Obsessive Car Collector


Well our second day we scooted down to see our customer turned friend Mark who started us off by showing us his first warehouse-shop-museum-storage-space. It's called The Whitehouse Trading Company but those of you who know Mark will know he's one of those obsessive guys who doesn't like to sell things and it shows.

He toured us through the Packard's and the Rolls Royce's like he was a little boy with Match-Box cars. His non-chalance as he strolled through his amazing collection was unnerving. The appraiser in me kept saying "I wonder if he knows how much these beauties are worth?" but I quickly realized of course he did - he bought, sold or traded all of these magnificent models into his life at one point or another. It took us a good 1/2 hour or more to stroll through this one building and we were moving through all three floors.

Mark bought his first antique auto at 15 and claims to have lost track at more then 300 but I suspect he knows quite well what he owns. He also has a fabulous collection of automobilia throughout his life everywhere. Signs, motorcycles, pennants, oil cans, you know it - he probably has it. We were quite happy to see quite a few pieces which had passed our hands at one point or another.

After viewing this building we all jumped in the car and headed about 35 miles South to the Center of Lynchburg where Mark brought us to another factory. This was an old car dealership and was much bigger then the first. He had far more cars and more automobilia here. Fabulous eye candy everywhere you glanced.

This old buggy dealership had really interesting advertisements painted on the walls which Mark had had steam cleaned and restored. They created a fabulous backdrop for this truly amazing collection.

I'll be posting pictures in the days ahead. I'm learning a little bit more about the Droid each day. I may get it figured out yet.

We stayed in Lynchburg and headed down Route 29B fresh the next morning. We were driving through Virginia and soon after we entered North Carolina we happened upon a State run Transportation Museum which was perfect in so many ways. First of all we were still basking in awe of Mark's collections and were marveling at the impact transportation had on the 20th century. Second of all it was free. Third it was spread out over many acres so it gave us a chance to get out of the car and walk. It's still brisk in the south. Frank's anxious to get his shorts and T-shirts on.

The Museum had 3 very large buildings open to the public. The museum had some really cool things I loved like a 1930's school bus and a scale model of the Kitty Hawk. In the roundhouse there was a wonderful and very extensive collection of trains which Frank and I both really enjoyed. Our favorites were the Duke High Style Train car; the Postal Delivery Train car and the Army Red Cross Train cars. Train cars from every era and operating method were on hand. From early cars from the 1800's right up through a Purple Diesel Am-track car. This was frosting on the cake for Frank and I because train-cars was something we didn't see at our friend's warehouses.

Tomorrow I'll talk about a sweet little historic town we found called Dalton and another named Walterboro. Found some great shops which I'll expand on. Today has been a rough day for Frank - he's not feeling well but I've been enjoying the quiet time in the Hotels while he rests up. Until we meet again.

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