The Wandering Bulgar: Two days, three car museums

We left Dyersburg, TN early on Sunday morning to be at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts by noon. It was a perfect morning with no traffic and clear weather and no detours or road construction on the back roads we took, so we arrived early. We had lunch at the museum cafe and were in line when the exhibit opened at 1 PM. There were a couple of dozen cars exemplifying the art deco period and the show is very popular, so there were a lot of people. The cars were gathered from museums and private collections from the US and Europe, so it is a one time gathering. Most of the cars were very limited production or one-off examples of the coachbuilder's art - they were expensive when new and would sell for millions today. We spent a couple of hours there, and then visited the nearby Lane museum, which I hadn't heard of before I saw a flyer for it at the Frist. This museum is an entirely different concept than the Frist exhibit. There are mini-cars, prototypes, many odd-ball Eastern European models (many Tatras for example), a small collection of motorcycles, and military vehicles - apparently whatever caught Mr. Lane's fancy. We spend another couple of hours there, and as a consequence didn't get as far out of Nashville as I'd hoped.

This morning we were on the road before 7 AM and rode small state roads north into Indiana, but not before making a quick stop at Abraham Lincoln's birthplace in Kentucky. The weather was perfect for riding - a few clouds, temperature in the mid-70's to 80. As we got further north in Indiana, it became partly cloudy and cooler. We stopped for breakfast and once for gas, but that was it - we'd arranged to meet Dan in Auburn, Indiana and I didn't want to be too late. As it was we arrived at the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg museum at 4:20 PM, just a little before Dan showed up. Vanya and Andrew and I visited the museum about 15 years ago, and I could only spend an hour there before they dragged me away. This time we closed the place up at 7 PM. It's a good museum with a lot of history of the cars and company in addition to the amazing cars. We are spending the night in Auburn, and will ride across Ohio tomorrow and probably spend tomorrow night somewhere in New York.

The courthouse in Trenton, TN, near which a Civil War battle took place

A 1936 Delahaye.

An 1929 L-29 Cord, purchased new by architect Frank Lloyd Wright and painted in his signature Taliesin orange. He owned the car until he died in 1959.