The Bullet and the Midget: The Lost Week

Ahlanna at the wheel

For the last week and a half we had our great-niece staying with us as she does every summer and, other than for a couple of errands, I didn't get to ride the Bullet very much because we were busy doing other things. However, Ahlanna and I did enjoy several rides on the MG.

We took several short rides around the Goshen loop and then last Monday we took a real long ride on the Dragon. We first stopped at Thornbury Farms to get some cookies. Being a Monday there was no one else there and when paying I noticed a picture of a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang reproduction that I had seen at the Chester County Antique Car Show in May. I pointed it out to Ahlanna and the girl behind the counter told me that it was their car, her father, the owner of Thornbury Farms, had made it for her and her siblings and that they took it to several shows. I showed her the picture I had taken of it at Kimberton and we chatted about it for a while. She said it was built on a 1929 Model T and that it was very popular whenever they showed it.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at Kimberton

From there we rode down to the Birmingham-Lafayette Cemetery and took some shots of Ahlanna in the car in front of the octagonal school house. Then we continued on down the way to get on the Dragon. We had taken the precaution of fueling up the night before at the Wawa on the West Chester Pike and 352 so we didn't need to stop at the Sunoco on Route 1 to fuel up.

(When we fueled up on Sunday night, the tank took 3.520 gallons of Premium for a total of $11.79. I had to take a picture of the pump because it didn't give me a receipt. Since the refuel the week before we had put on 86.3 miles on the odo which, at refueling, read 4229 miles. (This will become important on a later post.) The mileage on this tank was 24.51 mpg.)

4229 miles on 21 June 2015

We stopped at the Taqueria Guadalajara for some carne asada tacos and horchata that we both enjoyed tremendously. Instead of staying on the Dragon we veered off to stop at Baldwin's Book Barn. We took a little break there and then doubled back to Birmingham Rd to catch 926. On the way back we took Route 3 back to the edge of West Chester to run some errands but came back home via Strasburg/Goshen. All in all we put almost 100 miles on the car on this ride. It was the last opportunity that Ahlanna and I had to ride together (although we got two or three shorter rides before that) and she really enjoyed the car and the attention. There were several instances were I noticed young boys her age who could not figure out where to look, at the car or the girl. It was great fun for both of us.

On this Monday ride we saw two black Ferraris, a dark colored Tesla, a hot rod, and a late 40s early 50s pickup. That brings the exotic tally to 17 Teslas, 17 Ferraris, 11 Maseratis, 5 Bentleys, 4 McLarens, 3 Cobras, 2 Austin-Healeys, 2 Lambos, 2 Unknowns,1 Rolls Royce, and 1 DeLorean. The classic car tally is now three Nash Metropolitans, three 1950s Jags, three 1960's 'Vettes, one MGA, two Hot Rods, one 1950s Chrysler, one 1950s Oldsmobile, one 1950's Plymouth, one Karmann Ghia, one 1950s grocery-getter, one 40s/50s pickup, one Triumph TR4, and one Ford Model A.