[Chrysler300] Fall Meet, Blacksburg VA; Room Registration Deadline 7/5/13

["DeBusk Thomas L." <tleed@xxxxxxxx>]

Wednesday August 21 - Sunday August 25
Fall Meet - Blacksburg Virginia
 
JULY 5TH DEADLINE FOR RESERVATIONS!!!
 
You'll need to contact the hotel directly by phone at 800-346-3334 and identify yourself as a club member to book our rooms.
 
There will be no other rooms available within 50 miles if you do not get one of our rooms.

Registration form will follow for meet events, but don't wait for it to get your room.

If you do register for a room, send club secretary Gloria Moon an email at agmoon@xxxxxxxxx to let her know who and how many.

Now that I have your attention, here are the details, from meet host Thomas DeBusk:

Our host hotel, Mountain Lake Lodge (formerly Mountain Lake Hotel), is famous as the scenic backdrop for blockbuster romance "Dirty Dancing", starring Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, and Jerry Orbach. Historically a seasonal summer resort, it just re-opened for year-round service following a multi-million-dollar makeover. You're not coming for the amenities, but you'll want to soak in the newly refurbished rooms, delicious food, and grand views hour after hour. On a scale that's more "cozy" than "corporate", it commands a breathtakingly beautiful setting on one of Virginia's two natural lakes. At 4000 feet, it towers above the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains that peak around 2200 feet.

You'll forget all about the long drive you took to get here as you wind the last six miles up the mountain. If you haven't already, convertible drivers will want to put the top down as soon as you leave U.S. 460. That way you won't miss the covered bridge near the bottom, or the view 4 miles & 1400 feet back down when you're just a few curves from the hotel.

If you're trailering something, you'll want to pull around the front of the hotel between the lake & the front veranda to get to the large parking lot at the other end. You should find plenty of room to park & unload there. If you're checking in with a single vehicle, you can pull to the right behind the hotel for easy same-level access to the lobby, or head to the front & park by the curb near the outdoor life-size chess game. Take note that the road to the right behind the hotel is one-lane and you won't be able to pull around a vehicle blocking the way or back up a trailer very easily because it's narrow and the rock walls aren't very friendly to shiny paint jobs & fragile plastic lenses.

"Parking lot time" will probably make maximum use of the fact that you can park right along the front access road. A porch & balcony overlook the lake and that road, and club members will enjoy the easy access to the club "store" as well as the chairs & open bar on that side of the hotel. In the morning, you'll appreciate that our special rate includes breakfast for all attendees. The closest other restaurant is over six miles back down the mountain, and there just isn't much selection until you've gone over 10 miles back to Blacksburg.

Our "block" of rooms is in two buildings. Early registrants will get the main hotel, which is the same structure that contains the banquet room, on-site restaurant, bar, and verandas. The last 16 registrants will be place in the "annex", which is just on the other side of the main parking lot. If walking is an issue, or you just want a "front-row" seat, you'd better sign up early. Mountain Lake Lodge has a newly-created online presence that includes a reservation system. However, if you try to register there, you will find that our blocked rooms are already "full" and you can't reserve them. You'll need to contact the hotel directly by phone at 800-346-3334 and identify yourself as a club member to book our rooms.

Virginia Tech and Radford University will both open their dorms to thousands of students during our meet. Because their families will swamp our "small-town" infrastructure, there will be no other rooms available within 50 miles if you do not get one of our rooms. Our room release date is set very early (July 5!) to encourage you to reserve early and make sure you get a room. If our block of rooms fills up before everybody who wants to attend registers, there might be more room available at our hotel. But I can't guarantee that! There are also "cabins" available at Mountain Lake Lodge in an area called "Blueberry Ridge". They are spacious & very nice, but while that area is just a short hike through the woods from the main hotel, it's a significantly longer drive around (2+ miles!) on a gravel road for vehicle access. And that area isn't very trailer-friendly. Space might be "available" there for late-registering participants who would like to group up and room together, but group rates have not been arranged for housing in that area. Contact Mountain Lake Lodge directly to reserve those accommodations.

Thursday's event will be a day-long cruise with a first stop at club member Benny Buckner's private junkyard & restoration facility. Benny has about 200 cars waiting for a restorer's touch. Most of them are Mopars and many are Forward Look cars. Contact Benny ahead of time if you have specific parts needs. He has a constant turnover of cars, so it's no telling exactly what will be on the premises when we arrive. Recently there were 3 G's, two of which club member Terry McTaggart spotted being delivered to their proud owners on I-70 the day after the Spring, 2013 meet. The club host's C300 is at Benny's, along with an early 50's Imperial limo, a '42 Windsor coupe, a '49 Dodge Wayfarer 3-seat coupe, multiple '60's convertibles, a '59 Dodge swept side pickup, a supercharged Studebaker, Benny's 300G, etc. But the one car you will not want to miss is Benny's red '57 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer convertible with D500 hemi option. He spent 20 years collecting parts for this car, and should have it complete by August.

After lunch Thursday we'll drive up to the New River Gorge Bridge. This bridge is the longest single-arch bridge in the world and the second-highest bridge in North America. It would tower over the Statue of Liberty. The meet host will take you down the old winding road into the Gorge to cross the previous bridge at the New River below. We'll pass the massive bridge abutments along the way, thread our cars through multiple switchbacks (this really WAS the primary road through here?!) view daring whitewater rafters & kayakers on the river, and take plenty of pictures along the way. On the way back to the hotel, we'll wind along several more curvy scenic back roads. One will take us back down to the New River at Hinton, WV, where we'll dine in style at a Dairy Queen whose massive windows command a mesmerizing view of the rushing river surface near the massive Bluestone Dam. Please note that this day-long tour is roughly 200 miles long. Anybody who "does it all" won't regret a single inch. This is what our cars were made for! But if that sounds a little daunting, you could skip out on part of the drive, and/or take the fast way (4-lane all the way) home. Ask the meet host for special instructions along that line if you need them.

Friday morning club members will conduct business at the club meeting. Afterward, Gil Cunningham will supervise the concours judging. On Friday afternoon we'll picnic at a private campground on a quiet cove on Claytor Lake, which is a 26-mile-long dammed-up section of the New River. Afternoon activities will feature boat rides and/or skiing & tubing with a 1974 Correct Craft Southwind ski boat motivated by 318 cubic inches of ported & polished reverse-rotation roller cam glory. Or if that's not enough speed & water, you can take a spin on a jet ski whose maximum paddling speed is 62 mph. Hold on tight! (Special Note: Virginia now requires most boat drivers to complete a free, 6-hour boating safety training course to operate a jet ski or boat. Comparable courses completed in other states are acceptable IF you carry your license and present it to the game warden on request. Otherwise, you're welcome to ride, but you can't touch that steering wheel!) Local eatery Country Cooking will cater our lake-side picnic that'll feature macaroni & cheese worth a month of preparatory starvation. Really. Supper is $20/person & includes access to the campground, fuel for the boats, & all the food you can eat.

One of the local gems of nature is The Cascades, a 62-foot waterfall an easy drive (7-8 miles) from the hotel. The falls are a 2-mile hike from the parking lot & feature a large, deep pool at the bottom perfect for swimming on hot summer days. The hiking trail winds along the mountain stream with one wild, beautiful setting after another. It's a perfect 3 or 4-hour outing for energetic individuals with a taste for the outdoors and families with children. Friday morning before the picnic would be an ideal time to explore that attraction.

We're close enough to the Floyd Country Store for any bluegrass aficionados to get there for the Friday night jamboree. It's legendary, authentically "local", and a must-do for real bluegrass fans. I'm not including it as an official meet "event", but I'll happily point any interested parties in the right direction on Friday evening.

On Saturday, we'll join with the Roanoke Valley Mopar Club for a car show at the Roanoke Civic Center. Local club members are incredibly excited about having so many Letter Cars at our meet. After the awards ceremony wraps up mid-afternoon, we'll drive up Mill Mountain to see why Roanoke is nicknamed the "Star City of the South". (Might have something to do with the gigantic neon star perched on the mountain.) We'll enjoy the view of the whole valley at the star overlook before we mount up again to return to the hotel for the evening banquet. The banquet is $40/person.

It's hard not to over-sell this meet. There's not much I like to do more than get in my car & enjoy a drive through these Blue Ridge Mountains. Getting to share that with a bunch of Mopar-loving friends is just icing on the cake. I know the club has had many excellent events in the past. But the sites & events that are planned are sure to generate memories that club members will talk about for a lifetime. Successful club meets focus on the club members enjoying each other and their cars. But the way the setting & events of this meet encourage that to happen will set a high water mark in the club history. Make your plans early & don't miss it.

Meet host,
Thomas DeBusk



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