Well, this weekend (being a holiday weekend) has been fairly eventful thus far. Thursday night began with dinner at the parents' house because JC and Walt arrived for another year at the ACD Festival. Friday after school and tutoring I decided to stay and work for a while to get some things done. While I was working, Gabrielle called to tell me her bad luck story--as it was happening. She was on her way up to Kruse to take her grandfather's Cadillac to be sold. On the way it began to smoke badly and caused her to pull over. Apparently this was bad enough to require the assistance of two firetrucks, and for 69 to be blocked to one lane for about a mile. Luckily her mom was following behind and able to take her back as the car was towed. Later that night she called to ask me if I'd like to help her get the car up there the next day. My first question was, "Do you want me to drive the car, or just follow you up there?" (I'm not much for driving cars prone to fire) Well, long story short (or shorter), I agreed to help her out. BTW, this meant getting up at 5:45 on one of my Saturdays off, and on a holiday weekend! Hey, anything for a friend, right?!
Well, we met and drove the BIG car (I mean BIG!--see pictures) up to Auburn. After parking craziness, paperwork, and moving the car to the desired location we were off for breakfast--funnel cakes and lemon shake-ups! I love festivals!!
The fun of being at a festival, especially one pertaining to cars, is lost when you're trying to keep up with, and entertain a 22-month old. We very quickly decided that if the car wasn't being auctioned off until 6pm or later, we should go back to the Fort until later (coming back sans kid!). So, after a trip back home, a short nap, freshening up, we headed back up to sell a Caddy. Now, we were being entertained by festival food (gyros), watching the bidding and the people, and making friends with strange men, but we had no idea what we were doing, and how the car would do on the auction block. Most of the cars on that particular block were either going really cheap, or not selling because they didn't make the reserve.
Well, shortly before the car was to be coming, a man walked past us and made some comment about the truck that he had just been bidding on. Due to my friendly nature, and our success at making friends thus far, I mentioned that he shouldn't leave, and that we had a car coming up for sale soon. It worked! He sat down to talk to us about it. He went outside to go take a look at it. When he came back in, he told us that it wasn't out there, and that we would have to bring it up ourselves. What?! No one told us about all the details, like driving your own car up when it's your turn! And remember...that thing is BIG, and there are lots of people and golf cards all over. Not to mention other fancy cars! Somehow we talked Chris, our new best friend, into pulling the car up for us. He also gave Gab some tips about dealing, being up there during the sale, dropping the reserve, etc. So, the fun part of the story begins. He had told her that the way things were going on this ring, he thought she'd be lucky to get bids of two, maybe three thousand. Well, as soon as they moved that car up near the building it was like a man magnet had been polarized. There were guys all over that thing...asking questions, looking under the hood, sticking their heads in the windows. It was crazy! When it was our turn, Chris, aka Gabrielle's "boyfriend", drove it up onto the ring, and the people flocked.
It was fun to hear the bidding, and the auctioneer reading the info about Gab's grandfather. The bidding was still going strong as the car was being driven off the block! It ended up selling for $10,400!! WOW! We were shocked, thrilled, and very thankful for our new friend, Chris from Cleveland! We met up with him afterward and the only thanks he would accept was a "cold one", so we celebrated with him before parting ways. And actually we saw him again shortly after taking care of paperwork, and he was still amazed at the way the auction went. Luckily for us, none of them must have heard about the Cadillac on fire on 69 the day before! : )Finally around 11pm I pulled Gab away from the auction, before she could spend her new found riches on another car! What a day!
This is Chris...Gabrielle's "boyfriend" and our savior!! Oh, and the guy on the floor in the gray ended up being the winning bidder.
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