For the last two years, Mary and I have participated in the Moss Motoring Challenge. This is an annual year-long contest to see how many locations from a prescribed list you can visit in your Moss Motors supported car. At each location, we take a picture of the place or sign, along with our car, one or both of us, and a copy of the Motoring Challenge flier. (We had the flier page printed on heavy stock and laminated after the original wore out early in the event.)

This year, the list of locations includes cities or towns from A to Z, 15 counties, 12 lakes or rivers, 5 state parks, and as many states and Canadian provinces as you can get to, all identified by official signs. They also award points for pictures of your car in up to 10 car shows, and various other bonus opportunities. Perhaps the most interesting group of locations is a list of 40 random destinations like a carnival, a drive in theater, an End of Detour sign, a fireworks display, a ghost town, a historic landmark, a one room schoolhouse, and so on. Last year we visited one place that we'll use again this year as our “World's Largest (anything)” - the giant wagon at the Radio Flyer plant on Chicago's west side.

The nice thing about this event is that it gives us another excuse to just get out and drive our car (not that we need one). You can do as little of the list as you want or you can really get into it - last year we visited over 100 locations and finished among the top 50 participants. And as always happens for us when we're out in the TD, we meet friendly people, some of whom offer to take our picture together when they see what we're doing. Last year, a couple saw us, pulled over and parked their 3 wheel motorcycle, and offered take our picture in front of the big “Welcome to Wisconsin” sign near Kenosha.

More information about the Challenge is available on the Moss Motors website at http://MossMotors.com/MotoringChallenge. There is also a Motoring Challenge Facebook page where participants post pictures and comments at https://www.facebook.com/groups/motoringchallenge/.

See you on the road.

~~Ralph Brooks