The 22nd Annual NAMGBR meet, MG 2013, was held in Corvallis, Oregon. Oscar and Diana Gonzales and Roger and I left on Friday, July 12th at 6:00 a.m. in our MINI Cooper Countrymen. Our first destination was the Badlands and then Keystone, SD to visit Mount Rushmore National Memorial. We arrived Saturday afternoon and enjoyed dinner at historic Powder House Lodge followed by our visit Mount Rushmore to see the evening program. Sunday we traveled through Custer State Park driving Iron Mountain Road and Needles Highway. We were greeted by a herd of Buffalo who came right up to the cars. They love to roam the roads overnight, so we needed car washes following our visit. Leaving South Dakota, we stopped in Billings, MT and Spokane, WA. Tuesday we drove along the Columbia River Gorge, first along the Washington side to see the Stonehenge Monument honoring WWI soldiers, then crossing to the Oregon side to drive the mountainous h ighway, stopping at waterfalls and the Crown Point Vista House.

Wednesday afternoon we registered for MG 2013, being held on the campus of Oregon State University. Our hosts offered tech sessions, a hospitality suite, a funkana, and a rally. They offered drives to the Pacific Ocean to visit lighthouses and drives to some of their many covered bridges. Saturday’s car show was held on the grounds in front of the Student Union with 22 classes of cars, craft, photo, and model competition, and valve cover races. There were 273 cars registered and cars were eligible for Concours judging or popular voting. At Saturday evening’s banquet, held on the third floor of OSU’s football stadium, awards were presented, including a 2nd place to Jack and Louis Feldman for their red MGC.

Oscar and Diana returned the original Thornley Award painting and were presented with a plaque representing the picture for them to keep. The award this year was presented to Jai Deagan of Michigan. Dave Mullin from Indiana presented information about MG 2014 to be held Sunday, June 15th through Thursday, June 19th at French Lick Springs Hotel in French Lick, Indiana. It will be hosted by the Illinois Flatland British Car Club (Flatlanders) and Southern Indiana Region British Car Club (Sir Brit). It was also announced the Toronto MG Club will host MG 2015 in the Niagara Falls area, Canadian side.

Traveling west we met people from St. Louis in four MG’s several times along the way. On our way back east, we met a group from Ohio in four MG’s. Temperatures were in the upper 90’s and in the Oregon plains it was 104 degrees.
Our total trip was 4,820 miles. French Lick, Indiana is 288 miles from Chicago. We are making plans to attend! And we would love to organize a caravan to French Lick for Chicagoland MG Club members.

~~Roger & Shirley Goebbert