September 29, 2007
Location: Driftwood, Texas (Hays County, South of Austin)
This is the clubs annual “tiny” parade, one of the smallest events we attend, but fun nonetheless.
Early Saturday morning Danny K and Madison H with their M37 3/4-ton’s, Rick H with his M38 1/4-ton, and Rory with his M813 5-ton, had assembled at the old Albertsons parking lot at the Y in Oak Hill. At 8:30am sharp, the small convoy departed for the pleasant 15 mile drive through the hill country to Driftwood. The weather was perfect, sunny and warm, but not hot.
We arrived at the assembly area and Danny conducted a recon, found our staging spot (we were entry 6 this year), and we moved up there to wait. There was a bit of apprehension when Rick’s Jeep decided not to run anymore, but with Madison’s help the problem was diagnosed as stuck points and the M38 was quickly running again, and in time to participate in the parade. Meanwhile we had been joined by John K with his MB and two little daughters Kaylee and Sydney as crew.
At close to the 10am start time we were off, a few minutes and a few hundred yards later we were done. We pulled off the road and were directed into a nice large field to turn around and wait for the end of the parade. Since this doesn’t appear to be an election year (well over half the participants last year were folks running for office) the parade itself was pretty short.
After about 20 minutes, we moved over to our display area. This year we were where the vehicles could be seen rather than hidden behind a building, so we had quite a few visitors.
Around noon, our tummies told us it was time for part two of the day’s schedule- lunch at the Salt Lick. We convoyed over there, met up with a couple of Madison’s friends, and dined on some of the best barbeque around. Once the appetites were slaked, we loaded up for the convoy back to Oak Hill. There the sensibly sized vehicles went back on the trailers for their trip home, the M813 had another 45 minutes of driving to get to its barn.
While the parade is little, it is well attended by the locals and is a wonderful example of ‘small town America’. With that and the great lunch in good company afterwards, this will no doubt continue to be an annual event on our calendar.
