Adirondack Nationals 2021

 This past weekend was a pretty busy one...I'm going to get two posts out of it. On Friday, my brother took off from work and we headed up to Lake George for the Adirondack Nationals. As you may recall from previous years, the Nationals are my favorite day of the year. I was pretty depressed thinking I wouldn't actually be going this year...we didn't stay in town, so I figured we would just drive by and I'd get whatever I could out the windows of the car. On the ride up we talked about how the temperature was absolutely perfect, 65 degrees, which is ideal. And of course it would be the year we weren't going to walk around the show. 

Well, I'm sure you've figured out by now that's not exactly what happened. When we got into town, it was the least crowded we had ever seen during the Nationals. You could actually see through the people and see the cars in the show! But, even more, we got a parking spot- even though it required my brother to walk almost a mile to the show after dropping me off (I couldn't do that physically AND do the show). And so, I did get to do the show! Not only that, I ended up doing the entire show, not just a portion. Normally I am not physically capable of walking the entire show before my health gives out but the temperature is usually much hotter, and you all know I've mentioned my troubles in the heat. It was the perfect storm, as they say, and I had a ton of fun at the show! Here's some highlights from the show...certainly not all the photos, considering I took over 1300 that day! 

This was what we saw when we first got into town shortly before noon, and it was quite a surprise as it's usually bumper to bumper cars by this point already.

Looking into the show when at the red light...we decided we'd be fools to pass up this opportunity, so my brother dropped me off and went to park.

I stood watching the cars go by until he came back and that was pretty enjoyable in and of itself..

Although I don't care for the rat rod style this is certainly unique

First El Camino of the day! And it's a 1970, one of my absolute favorite El Caminos.

1972 Ford Ranchero

I pity the fool who doesn't get to go to the Adirondack Nationals

Multiple generations of Mustangs

1960 Impala

This used to be a 1968-72 Chevrolet truck

This year was the Year of the Javelin. Every year there's one kind of car that shows up in large numbers, larger than usual, and this year it was Javelins. I counted 7 of them. The usual number at the show? 2 or less.

Some cars cruise that aren't in great shape. If they are running, they cruise. 

First thing I see when we pay and go into the show itself is a 1964 El Camino! 

I really love old Pontiacs, and this is a 1937.

Instead of trying to get every single car in a single photo like I usually do, I took more group shots this year. I also (generally) didn't wait for people to walk away before I got my picture. Getting car show pictures without people in them is actually quite a challenge, and normally I take efforts to get just the cars. Not this year. 

1931 Packard! Not many Full Classics come to this show, and this one is unrestored.

Cars with the Lake in the background

A Blue Chevelle with the Lake behind it- this photo is posted specifically for my Mom.

A 1959 Edsel wagon! There hasn't been an Edsel at the Nationals since 2016, and there were TWO this year! Yes, the other is upcoming.

I really, really like this photo.

The red paint on this was really nice.

A fitting car for the weekend. (These photos were all taken September 10th)

Clear red hood ornament!

A color change Corvette!

A 1971 Torino in metallic green

1963 Studebaker Avanti

Here's the  second Edsel, which is almost completely factory stock. The only deviation from stock is that the paint was pearl. The color on them originally was solid, I believe. I took multiple pictures of each Edsel. This was my favorite car in the entire show. While I love El Caminos the most, I had already seen every one I saw at the show. This is the first time I had seen either of these Edsels.

An Essex, a rarer brand. This is only the third I've ever seen. And it's possible the first one was this same car, I don't remember. Sadly, I've never seen a stock one.

1972 El Camino. Parks in the same spot every year. I photograph it every year. Love. 

1940 Ford

There were three cars under car covers at the show...first time I've seen that. 

1951 Mercury with a 50s vibe

Noticing a theme here...

1948 Anglia

Big 70s Lincoln, very nicely maintained. (Note the owner cleaning it in the photo)

A 1939 LaSalle. Rare sight. LaSalle was the companion brand to Cadillac, and second most popular of GM's companion brands, but it didn't make it past WWII. I've only seen a handful. In case you are wondering, Pontiac was the most successful brand, in fact it proved so popular it supplanted Oakland, the brand it spun off of, and lasted until 2009. I've never even seen two of GM's companion brands, Marquette and Viking, neither of which survived the 1920s, in person. 

And another El Camino! 

Dave and Charity Kindig from the tv show "Bitchin' Rides" were the guests. I didn't want to wait on the line, but I did take this picture of them. My brother and I were in the background when he got the group shot of everyone waving so we may end up on his TV show anyway! They came in from Utah! 

There are not many bright pink cars on the car show scene.

A Cordoba! My dad was a lifelong mechanic and a Cordoba is one of only a few cars he gave up on and got rid of. 

Love that green

I like the license plate

Nice to see a traditional hot rod rather than a modern trend.

Now in the lower lot, another El Camino! This one is a 1969.

1965 Pontiac Grand Prix

Studebaker truck

I just couldn't bear all this excitement!

1964 Dodge van

1959 Chevrolet Nomad

1990 Ford Bronco II. This was actually not part of the show, as the year cutoff is 1979. This was owned by a vendor, and she said she was getting more comments on her truck than the stuff she was selling! 

77 Pinto wagon. You can go years without seeing a Pinto, yet I've seen two within the past few weeks.

Some of the automobilia for sale. If I had the space....

I sat on a bench while my brother went back to get the car. I took some photos of cars as they went by, but I liked this photo more to represent that part of the trip. 

After getting back in the car, we drove through town once and saw lots more cars...

Including another El Camino! 

You never know what you will see in town...

It was a lot more crowded on the way out...

They had the northbound lanes blocked down to one, which caused a massive traffic jam, as you can see here. 

On the way back, we planned to do one of the Places I've Been rides, covering Route 9 from Lake George to home. However, it was getting too dark, so we only did Lake George to Saratoga. This is in Glens Falls.

Cool Insuring Arena, home of the Adirondack Thunder

It's a good thing we pushed off that adventure for a later time, because it got dark before we got home.

Here the sun had just gone down behind the mountain.

Colorful sky at sunset. 

And that was the best day of the year. The Adirondack Nationals is ALWAYS my favorite day of the year, and this year was no different...and in fact a little better than usual because of the fact that going to it was an actual surprise, and the temperature was perfect! There's been years where it was over 100 degrees, which is just brutal. There was one year where I was totally exhausted after 45 minutes. We got there just after noon and left just after 4 PM. The temperature plays a huge role, and this year's weather was perfect. Granted, it's now Tuesday, and this happened Friday, and I'm still hurting, but it was worth it. 

You can see all my pictures from the show here:  Adirondack Nationals 2021

Thanks for reading! 

Locust Grove Historical House visit

 On Saturday my brother and I visited Locust Grove in Poughkeepsie, NY. This is a house built in 1830 and was home to four families, the most well known being Samuel Morse, the inventor of the Morse Code, who lived there part time from 1847 to his death. However, even though the house is billed as the Morse Estate, the entire contents of the house are from the Young family, who bought the property in 1901 and lived there until 1975. It was created as a museum upon the death of Elizabeth Young as per her will and remains so ever since. It's believed that only one artifact in the house actually belonged to the Morse family, a large floor to ceiling mirror. The rooms are currently set up as the Youngs had it circa 1920.

Unfortunately, photographs are not allowed inside the home or the tiny museum, which has some of Morse's paintings and some artifacts on the telegraph. However, you can take as many photos of the outside of the house and the grounds and garden as you want, so of course, I did. However, I took only 72 photos, which is the lowest on any of the adventures yet!

The entrance to the property, taken from US 9. We didn't take the Edge- tours are only guided and only run at certain times. We were in a rush to get there and took my brother's car, the first adventure his "new" car has been on, although he's had it over a year already. We were the only ones who took the tour at that time, so essentially we got a private tour which normally costs more. We couldn't see one of the floors of the house because of maintenance but still paid full price, which we didn't know it wasn't fully open until the tour guide said that "normally we'd go upstairs next, but...". That's kind of lousy. 

While the house is all Young, the garden is actually Morse. He created it, and the Youngs maintained it. Some of the flowers are descendants of the original flowers from the 1840s.

The gardener's house on the property, not open for viewing.

This is the actual house, which is in the Italianate style. Although it was built originally in 1830, it was expanded several times, most recently in 1901.

A carriage on display in the portico.

The fields are lush and verdant.

In the background you can see the Young's pet cemetery, avid dog lovers.

The carriage house is sometimes open but wasn't that day, probably because it was rainy. Although you can't really tell it is drizzling during all the outside shots.

I put my camera right up to the glass and looked into the Carriage house. There are at least 4 carriages visible, (not all in this photo) as well as several modern lawn mowers.

You can just barely see the Hudson River here. You can walk on trails down to it, but with my health problems I chose not to. My brother has said he would likely do it at some point but because it was rainy chose not to do it then.

The top floor- which is never on the tour- surely has an excellent view of the Hudson, and likely did even more when it was built, before the trees filled in.

When my brother walks down to the River, this is where I'll be. They have benches throughout, which is nice.

A random unmarked statue which looks like Thomas Jefferson to me. It's the only statue we saw. 

some sort of nut growing on that really tall tree

Way too cloudy a day for the sun dial to be any help.

This is a nice touch, on the outside of the visitors center, which tells you the names of the flowers that are currently in bloom. 

Although I've shown the best photos here, there are more flower and outdoor shots on my website, here: Locust Grove

They did have three post cards, which I purchased, but since my scanner is still down you'll have to see them in another post. 

Honestly, even though it's billed as the Morse estate, I found the Youngs much more interesting. They are local, their collecting interests somewhat closely align with mine, and Morse was actually not a very nice person. 

We did enjoy it, and it's not a very long tour, about an hour only. 

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On a card related topic, I was digging around looking for some stuff I promised to give away, and happened to find two boxes of cards I missed during the typing process. I just found them yesterday and have not fully processed them yet, but I know one of them is about 3/4ths NASCAR, and I recognized that most of them are the same ones I typed in as missing when I did them. I will have to double check them to see, but there was also cards for just about every other topic in the boxes as well, the only thing I have not found in them so far is multi-sport or Olympics, but I just did a small handful last night. Luckily, I found them fairly early in the project, having only gone through NASCAR in full and hockey up to 1991-92 Pro Set Platinum, which is a set that's partially missing and WASN'T in those two boxes...which means I missed another somewhere. {audible sigh}. I'll get there eventually. 

Even though I'm going to consider these numbers the correct collection numbers when I'm all done, I already found one mistake by finding a card from 1990-91 Bowman that was in my paper listing but I missed when checking my paper listing vs. my Excel file. I honestly don't know if it's humanly possible to get a truly accurate number, but like I said before...I'm going to treat it as such going forward. 

NASCAR is completely typed!

 My typing project is progressing well. I have now entered the dates for every NASCAR card I know, making NASCAR the first subject to be completely typed. 

While it was good to get the info fully digital, it wasn't really fun...which I knew going in it would be not so fun. I found it was actually more fun the further I got in to the project, and when I got to the time period when I had dates for almost everything, it was much more enjoyable. 

What I wasn't expecting is that entering the information actually made me really sad and depressed for a few days. Especially the die cast cards. As you may know from previous posts, the Racing Champions stuff is the backbone of my collection. I remember some of the days involved with certain cars & cards very well, and even the memories that aren't tied to a specific place, it all hit me as I was entering that info and just got me down. 

The memories of going to places like Toys R Us, Kay Bee, Kmart, Ames, Jamesway and a couple local places, all places that are long closed...and the fact that Racing Champions was killed solely because of NASCAR being greedy...it just hit me so hard, harder than I expected. (well, I didn't expect that at all, but...). My brother and I used to check TRU and Kmart every Wednesday after the comic store, Wednesday is when the new comics come out. It was a HUGE part of my life, some really great memories, and something I miss. None of the stores are still there, and what I wouldn't give to be able to go back to those times. 

I also realized that my interest in NASCAR waned after Racing Champions was killed. It's not a coincidence. Even though it's still the most important thing to me, and I won't skip a race- not even for, say, a Stanley Cup Finals game- it all changed for me then. It's also around the time we stopped going on our weekly runs. The drop off in the number of cards I got post 2005 is VERY noticeable. 

I did discover that I had 357 MORE NASCAR cards than I thought I did! And that's just what I have documentation on. There's actually a pretty high likelihood there's more that I don't remember having and lost before I created my paper listing. (Which, for NASCAR, I did from 2003-07)

I also discovered that I lost the paper listing for 2013 Total Memorabilia. You may recall I bought a case of blasters from Blowout, and I must have taken the paper listing out when I was doing them in late 2016. I never put it back in my binder! Luckily, I was documenting everything on Excel by that point, so I didn't lose anything date wise, and I even wrote a blog series about it. 

I really wish I had been better about keeping track of the dates I got my cards. I started keeping track on the NBA side in 1998, but let it lapse quite a bit so it's not a full record. I didn't start tracking the dates for NASCAR until Christmas Day 2003 (I labeled the listing at that time) and I didn't create a paper listing for Non-Sports until 2010! At least I had enough sense to track my hockey collection in full and properly. 

Something that worries me is that I have records of getting some cards that I don't have any memory of having, and I don't have scans of from when I scanned all the fronts only, but poorly, for my NASCAR collection in 2009-10. I wouldn't have listed them if I didn't have them in hand at one point, but I don't know where they could have gone. 

I do know I missed at least one box when I was typing in the physical cards, because I remembered a large gift from a friend taking two boxes and I only found one...luckily they were on the paper listing so I was able to figure out how many cards were in that box, about 350. I can tell there was some hockey in there as well, because I've started typing them and I've already found some in my records of getting them that weren't typed in. I recall that box being larger, likely an 800 or 900 count box, so there's probably more I will find as I go through but I've only gotten up to 1990-91 to date. 

It took me about 2 weeks to type in all the NASCAR stuff. I don't know how long it will take me to type in everything else, but I've taken a break to work on models for the last three days and I plan to do some more of that again for the next few days, 

I know this post is not going to be very interesting to most people, but I'm doing this series for me, so you can expect some more posts in the series before I finish. If anyone read it all, thanks for reading. 

My top 10 favorite Henrik Lundqvist cards in my collection

 Yesterday, Henrik Lundqvist retired. I kind of knew it was coming, what with the severe heart condition he has, but I wasn't looking forward to it, either. When I began watching the sport in late 2016, he quickly became my favorite player in the league, a role he has held ever since- even though he didn't play at all last year, and won't play going forward, he's still my favorite player. I'm sad I won't get to watch him play anymore, but I'm thrilled that I got the chance to see him play at all...becoming a fan of the sport so comparatively late I missed most of his career. I should add that it's because of him (and Mats Zuccarello, my favorite skater) that the Rangers became my favorite team. Most importantly, he will be able to spend time with his family now, always a plus. 

I thought I would take a look at my 10 favorite cards of the King. He's the only NHL person to clear the 100 card barrier in my collection, currently with 117 present. 

Please note that these cards are in chronological order- not ranked as #1-10. This is a tough choice but here we go:

2005-06 Power Play #148, his only rookie card in my collection. Drafted by the Rangers in the 7th round in 2000(! not first round is mind-baffling) he played in his native Sweden until the 2005-06 season. 

2011-12 Rookie Anthology Cyan Printing Plate #75. Not only my only 1/1 card of Henrik, the only 1/1 hockey card in my entire collection! 

2011-12 SP Game Used Authentic Fabrics Gold. The most I've paid for any card on this list, perhaps surprisingly, I saw this very card in a card shop in 2017 but balked at (or couldn't afford) the $50 asking price. When I went back to that shop, three hours away from home, in 2019, it was still there so I didn't walk away again, having regretted not getting it the first time I saw it. It's my only patch of his and one of three Rangers patches in my collection. 

2011-12 Upper Deck UD Canvas #C56 This is such an awesome photo! Taken from the camera in the net, this wide angle shot shows a great panorama of the World's Most Famous Arena, Madison Square Garden, the only building to host an NHL game I've ever been in, although it had the basketball court set up when I was there. This is probably my favorite photo in this post.

2012-13 Score #493. Holding the Vezina Trophy for being the best goaltender in the sport. Doesn't get much better than that if you're a goalie! 

2013-14 Panini Contenders #73. This was the very first card of him in my collection. The scan isn't so good, I didn't have as good a scanner when I got this card as I do now, I should really get it out and rescan it. 

2014-15 Upper Deck #132. Just a great photo! When I created my Alphabetical Directory of everyone in my collection, this was the card I chose for him. This iconic pose was seen many, many times after a Rangers victory. 

2015-16 Upper Deck #382. Another great photo taken at MSG, this one apparently taken in game, rather than post-game. It also looks like he's catching the Upper Deck logo, which is fun.

2018-19 The Cup Signature Renditions. I still can't believe I have his autograph in my collection! I didn't think I'd ever get any because they tend to sell for more than I can spend on a single card, but thanks to Kenny making me a great deal I was able to make it happen. 

2018-19 Upper Deck #374. Another great photo, and although he had one more UD flagship card after this one, this is a great "farewell" photo. I believe this is the only card in the list I pulled from a pack myself, possibly 2015-16 UD flagship. 

Like I said above, I'm really glad I got to see at least some of his career, my only real regret is that I didn't start watching the sport sooner. 

As an added bonus, when I visited MSG in January 2019, I actually got to hold one of his game used sticks for a photo shoot, still one of my favorite moments in adventuring. 

Although I have not been able to scan the last couple additions due to my arm injury that I've mentioned a few times, you can see most of my collection of his cards here: Henrik Lundqvist collection

Thanks for the memories!