It's that time of year again when all of the muscle cars from all around southern California come out to play in downtown Riverside for the annual car show for charity put on by the local Rotary Club. This was my second year participating in the event and it was a scorcher with temperatures soaring into the mid 90's! Friday night was nice because it was later in the day and my buddy John and I got a spot on the corner of 12th and Market in front of the Salted Pig which also happened to be in the shade. I stayed until around 8:30 and then drove through the cruise route to take my dad back home where I then helped my sister-in-laws boyfriend change the spark plugs on his 2000 VW Jetta. Unfortunately it requires pulling off the upper intake manifold and throttle body to change the spark plugs so it wasn't a 5 minute project.
On Saturday I rolled up around 7:20am since the event started at 8am, but the spots we had the night before were taken. Most of the good spots were taken. I ended up parking on Market at Ninth street in front of White Park.
It was a good thing that John brought an ez-up because I would have likely melted in that heat all day without shade. Lauren brought our son down for breakfast around 9am on her way to celebrate her dad's birthday with the rest of the family. They walked down to see the car and hang out for a little bit before they left.
My dad took over 900 pictures between Friday and Saturday, and although I haven't seen them I'm sure they turned out good since he was standing in the middle of the street taking pictures of the cars as the cruised by. I'm sure he took some of mine and some of my friend John's El Camino and I'll post them once he sends me some of them.
On Saturday afternoon I ran into my old co-worker James P as he was walking down the sidewalk with some of his friends. The last time we hung out was 2 years ago in April. It was nice to see him and catch up. I took him and his girl for a ride along the cruise route and we said that we'd try to catch an Angels game together this summer.
I'm happy to report that nothing broke on the Mustang during this year's car show. The new clutch and clutch cable that I installed worked perfectly this year. Last year's snapped clutch cable on the cruise route was stressful so I'm glad that I didn't have to experience that again this year. Here's to many more smooth cruises!
