In late November northern Illinois was getting hit by a record setting storm as we were approaching from

A foot of snow in Galesburg, IL, Nov 27

the south. By the time we arrived in Galesburg, IL on the 27th, the storm had mostly blown over, and we were greeted by the results of a foot of snow, not very well cleared from the roads, and temperature in the teens. Next morning it was 11°F with partial sun and generally low wind (much better than the preceding days) as we attended the funeral of one of my older brothers. That was followed by a mid-day gathering of family and a few friends at a local restaurant, after which the weather was deteriorating, so we headed back south. Two fuel stops, one break for evening meal, then cruise on. By late night we had passed through Kentucky, and landed near Clarksville, Tennessee where it was at least slightly above freezing.

MGB with tree damage in Albany, GA

It was a good time to slow down and relax as we spent the next few days ambling slowly south with very few appointments, not much future planning, and no great sense of urgency. On Monday December 3 we had a few appointments, first being a visit with Bill Waller in Albany, GA. In the past couple of years, we had been here working on two long dormant MGB to get them running and back on the road. One of these was damaged by a falling tree in a spring hurricane, now having a broken windscreen and a few dents, which would be repairable, but also not running again after being parked for a while. Charging the battery and applying a jumper wire got the engine running, but the short of it was that some mice were nested in the engine bay

Several wires removed by mice

and had chewed away several inches of wiring harness, in the same location where we had fixed the harness after a squirrel had damaged it last spring. Problem identified, the owner could fix it later, so we moved on.

A few miles away we stopped to visit Shane Knight at Tomcat Garage LLC in Albany, GA. We soon found Shane's wife outside cleaning battery cable terminals

We have an experienced lady mechanic in Albany, Georgia

on a Jeep to get it running, so she certainly knows what tools are for. This shop does service and restoration on classic cars, including plenty of vintage Britishcars. On the other side of a wall in an equally large space was a "sister" business manufacturing parts for heavy equipment. Among other things they have a CNC plasma cutter and a CNC water jet cutter, a variety of welding equipment and a full machine shop. This stuff crosses over to make structural steel parts for the auto restoration business. So, if you need structural brackets, like for your air conditioning compressor or engine mounts for instance, this place may be helpful.

Midget with bad connector for ignition switch

Then we were off to visit Hardenberg’s Advanced Automotive, also in Albany, GA. They service lots of modern cars but are also veterans with vintage British cars. There was a resident TR3, an MGB looking for a new home, and a vintage Mini Beach Car

Very happy owner of Midget with electrical fixed

previously restored here, one of maybe six sold in North America.

Two days later, we did a return visit to Tom and Kelly Seegmueller who had some electrical problem with their MG Midget. It was running well after our prior visit but had since stumbled on the road and was parked when it wouldn't start again. We flushed the stale fuel and gave it a new battery, and we did get it running again, until it died while we were doing a little fine tuning. Start, run, and then die a few times while doing electrical diagnostics. It

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