Today was the first day back to work after a great DCS celebration! James and I flew out last Thursday morning after getting everything up and running at DMC Houston. We landed in St. Louis and rented a car to drive the rest of the way to Springfield. The flight from Bush Intercontinental to St. Louis was about two hours, and then the car ride was another hour and a half or so - not a rough trip at all. We ended up with a nice new Nissan Altima which had to take the place of 2932. My DeLorean would have been able to make the trip, but due to the lack of extra staff at DMC, we were unable to take the time off to drive it to the show and back. We stopped for a quick lunch at an Arby's in St. Louis and then headed north.

Along the way, we found an interesting roadside stop called Country Classic Cars, which was located off of a portion of old Route 66, and Interstate 55. It was a series of low buildings housing many old and interesting cars. You could pay an entry fee of $1.00 per person and roam freely throughout the collection, and all of the cars were marked for sale. There were several car haulers loading and unloading cars in the parking lot, so they are apparently doing some great business out there. There were no DeLoreans, but there were some great Pontiacs, Camaros, an old Jeep Wagoneer, and James also found another 1985 Avanti - the same year as the one that he owns. There were only 99 cars built that year, so the odds were very small that he would find another one - especially so easily!

Once we made it to the show in Springfield, we got our car unloaded and made it up to the hotel room to set our bags down and get freshened up for dinner. The location for the event was great, as every bit of it was indoors, even the DeLoreans on display for the car show portion. The hotel was connected to the local convention center, so it made a great facility for group dinners, speakers and seminars, and the car show itself. The weather was blistering hot and sunny, so we were all relieved that the time spent baking out in the sun was kept to a minimum. Sorry we brought the Houston weather with us, guys!

The food at the show was delicious, and the event space was perfect for the amount of attendees. There appeared to be about half the number of people at other recent DCS shows, and only about 55 DeLoreans compared to the 100 or so that usually turn out. If anyone was holding out until some feedback came through about whether it would be worth attending or not, you missed a great show! I hope you can be there in 2018. These shows make or break because of us, and I heard more than one person at the show saying that they did the only thing they could do to support it - they signed up and attended. We are a great community of owners and enthusiasts and one thing we can always do is come together and enjoy each other's company. DCS events are never long enough!

I spent the vendor days running the DeLorean Museum booth alongside the DMC Midwest parts tables. It was nice having the vendor time spread over more than one day, as it kept the usually large surge of buyers down to a steady, manageable flow. Shoutout to the Girl With an Impact fans who came to say hi! It was great to visit with you all and I hope to see you at the next event! 

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Some more progress was made today on 2932. The doors have been re-hung and the torsion bars adjusted correctly. The powdercoated windshield reveals have been installed and we are now working on getting the headliner and weatherstripping installed and the doors adjusted so they open and close without rubbing the infill panels or dash. Then the carpets and seats can be reinstalled and we are good to go!

​Unfortunately it looks like I will not be able to drive it to DCS, however. Not because of anything with the DeLorean, but because we are having an extremely hard time filling the vacant front desk position we have had for the last few weeks. I have been having to play double duty and answer phone calls and manage our parts ordering system so that people's orders still leave on time, and that won't change before DCS. James and I won't be able to have the time away from DMC that would be required to road trip to Illinois and back. So my meet up with 2932's former owner and the places we were wanting to stop at will have to wait. Unless a miracle happens and we can hire someone in time to get the time off, we'll be flying up the first day of the event and leaving Sunday evening to be back in the office on Monday.

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