[cahc] *** The (Unofficial) Austin-Healey Northwest Meet is ON ***

[Reid Trummel]

*BREAKING NEWS*

In case you haven't heard, the board of the Austin-Healey Club of Oregon
just cancelled their hosting of the annual Austin-Healey Northwest Meet
that they were scheduled to host in Pendleton, Oregon, August 27-29.

However, just because the board bowed out, that's no reason to cancel
plans.  No one closed Pendleton.  I checked with the hotel.  They're open
for business.  I checked a couple of gas stations in Pendleton, and they're
operating as usual.  I checked a couple of restaurants in Pendleton.
They're open as usual (except the Governor is again requiring us to wear
masks when we walk into a restaurant, but only until we get seated at our
table).  I just don't see any show-stoppers there.

*In fact, Gary Feldman, president of the Austin-Healey Club of America, is
flying out from Ohio and we're going to drive my Road Warrior Bugeye from
Portland to Pendleton. * That's the car I drove round trip to Deadwood,
South Dakota, for Conclave a couple of years ago.  That was about 10 days
on the road as I recall - five days each way.

*The show goes on.*  We are still going to Pendleton on the planned dates.
We're still going to tour, enjoy local restaurants, and see the sights, so
basically we're going to have the Northwest Meet with *all the features of
a Northwest Meet* except for the name "Northwest Meet."

I guess you can spend the rest of your life waiting for someone to give you
permission to live your life, spooked every time you hear of an uptick in
virus cases, or you can choose not to live in fear and get out and live
your life while you still have some life remaining.  Or maybe you're
planning to live forever, and so your plans for travel and for driving your
Healey and for some fun can keep getting put off year after year and it is
not an issue for you.  You can always do it next year, or five years from
now, or 10 years from now *when conditions will certainly be just perfect*.
Right?

You know, the Northwest Meet has long been a very simple event; virtually
unstructured.  In a Northwest Meet we come together at the host hotel.  We
socialize.  We go to dinner at various places in various groups.  During
the day we go touring on the roads in the region, and there are some
*great* seldom-seen
touring roads in that part of the state.  In a Northwest Meet there's not
even a car show or any trophies, and I'm just not seeing any reasons to
stay home.  *We can still do everything that had been planned, we just
won't call it "the Northwest Meet."*  And we're going.

If you would like to join us there, we're staying at the *Red Lion Hotel
Pendleton, 304 SE Nye Avenue, Pendleton 97801, (541) 276-6111,* the
originally planned venue.  It's only a three-hour drive from Portland, so
we'll hit the road on Thursday the 26th and plan to arrive at the hotel
in Pendleton about 4-5 p.m.  That gives us all day Friday the 27th and all
day Saturday the 28th for local area touring and sightseeing and visiting
area attractions, etc., etc.  Saturday night we'll wrap it up with dinner
out somewhere in Pendleton.  Sunday we'll return to Portland, reinvigorated
by having driven a Healey on some terrific roads, and just by getting out
of Dodge for a while.  And we're going.

And by the way, the weather in Pendleton in late August is typically sunny
with temps in the 70s and 80s most of the day, and lows in the early
morning hours in the high 50s or low 60s.  Sounds like perfect Healey
Driving Weather to me.  And we're going.

You know, you can always find a reason not to do something, or you can
choose to live your life.  Or maybe you're going to live forever and there
will always, always, always be next year, and if you postpone living just a
little longer, just another year or two or three, everything will be just
perfect.  Or will it?

"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be
overcome." * - Samuel Johnson*

It's the Northwest Meet in everything but name, and it's ON.  *And we're
going.  *

See you there?

RT
Mobile 503.753.3700

Reid Trummel
Editor, HEALEY MARQUE MAGAZINE
*Official Publication of the *
*Austin-Healey Club of America*
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