I pulled up to the Motel 6 where I had made phenomenal reservations for $39.99 per night. The lady at the desk gave me my room key, I found a place to park and grabbed my backpack and headed inside. I think my expectations where a little high considering the cost of the room. I was picturing micro-tel, and that's almost exactly what I got, but maybe micro-tel 10 years ago... As I enter the room I had flashback to some of my buddies dorm rooms from college... small hallway leading into a room barely able to fit a queen size bed, and a old box style TV. The bathroom was larger than I expected but acceptable and clean.
I get comfortable and I pull my iPad mini out and pull up the WiFi list and click on motel 6, where I am conveniently redirected to a page that tells me I'd have to pay $2.99 for the WiFi. Really, wtf even McDonald's has free WiFi, so I pull out my phone and hope on the Fusion Nation FB Page, to let people know I had made it. When I seen Brandon Loche posting that he was eating with the one and only Troy Walls with CD3Performance. DAMN... I was already in comfy clothes and was 30 minutes away, I had just missed them eating dinner by maybe 20 minutes. I flip the TV on and there are literally 15 channels and nothing on... even HBO had some harry potter BS :(. What did I expect for a $39.99 motel room, but my thoughts where Hey, just staying a few nights get out cheap.
So I grabbed my wallet and headed down to the lobby vending machines where I snagged me a couple of bear claws and went back up to my room to call it a night. This is a picture of my hotel room the next morning.
The bed was pretty comfy I only woke up once or twice because the elevator was literally on the other side of the wall the TV was on. Around 8:30am I flip the TV on and flipped through the channel and finally found something to sustain me for a bit, was one of those mystery detective type shows. So I settled in knowing the event wouldn't start until 2pm. I ate the other bear-claw I had. I messed around on facebook watched as people posted pictures from much nicer hotels and of their cars in the parking lot, and then realized I need to find a place to wash my car. I posted about it on Fusion Nation and this guy named Damien Oldham (doesn't even own a fusion, V6-6 Honda Accord) told me about this place on the way from Caseyville, IL to Imperial, MO called Celebrity Car wash, which was exactly what I wanted, one of those do it yourself jobs with the sprayers and scrub brushes. So after watching a few back to back episodes of that detective show, around 12:15pm I decided it was time to get a shower, wash the car, and get some food. Should give me plenty of time to get to the event.
I punch in celebrity car-wash on my gps and head on over. This place was in a really nice part of town, as I pull into the car-wash there is a 1st gen dark blue ford fusion... VERY STOCK. I nod at the guy and pull into the bay next to him. What do you know this car-wash actually takes credit/debit at the machine in the bay, but I had five dollars so I headed over to the change machine to get quarters. I get back to my bay, and started off putting tire wet on my tires, wheel cleaner, bug remover all over the mirrors and front end. Started tossing the machine quarters and going through the cycles on the sprayer... Pre-soak, Soap, Brush, Rinse, Rain-x, Spot-free Rinse. Man the car looked amazing other than needing to get dry. So I hop back in the car and set the gps for the John's Auto Body & Paint in Imperial, MO where the meet was to be held.
I'm about to turn down old county road, and I see a Subway and decide that's where I will grab some food before the meet. The ladies in subway where nice and the sandwich was pretty good. So I refill my drink and head to the meet per Jeremy Johns screaming at me to get my ass there on FB!
I pull into the parking lot, and Jeremy is standing there in his flat bill waving at me to park between him and this sexy ass white G8. I carefully back into my spot, trying not to look like an idiot or an ass. I was a bit nervous, but as soon as I got out Jeremy greeted me and asked me how the trip was calming my nerves... We shot the shit for a bit, and people started showing up... a GTO, another G8 Billy Loche (Brandon Loches brother) A few Mustangs, 5.0 and Roush I believe. I asked where Brandon was, and Jeremy told me he was picking up Jeremy's Girlfriend and would be in shortly. I asked about Andrew Dingemans and Troy, who where also on their way. I think the next person to show up was Craig Snyder and his wife. Great Couple and easy to talk too in a Sexy Dark Blue 2013. And then Ray Krautz in his White 2013. Several other Non Fusions Showed up as you can see from the pictures and then Andrew Dingemans showed, and then in rolls Troy Walls and Brandon Loche. I immediately walked up to Troy and we started checking out all the cars, and discussing my wheels and tires and the intake and exhaust. I then walked over and started talking Ray about his car... Everything is starting to run together I'm surprised I have remembered as much as I have thus far with the details. At some point a few races took place on the road in front of the body shop. Jeremy Collected money and had pizza delivered. I didn't eat any cause subway still had me full, and I never keep cash so didn't have money to donate to the cause, used the last 5 bucks I had to wash the car.
After probably another hour Jeremy decided it was time to take a cruise down by the arch and to the graffiti wall. Once we all got onto the interstate the rest of the guys at the meet (non fusions) started racing 4 wide down the interstate. Ray and Jeremy go head to head a few times, while Troy with photographer Steven Pham started taking rolling shots of the fusions. We finally got down town amidst the traffic we managed to keep the caravan pretty tight nit. We drove by the arch which was beautiful, I hadn't seen it in over a decade. We parked the cars along the graffiti wall and continued to converse and take photos for roughly 2-3 hours, before people started peeling off one by one. First out was Ray, he had to go pick up his girlfriend who was doing auditions for the voice, and then Andrew Dingemans had to head to NY. Craig Snyder and His wife headed out. Jeremy and Brandon got a call from another fusion owner that had made it to the body shop and they redirected him to downtown but he never showed. Jeremy and his girlfriend peeled off shortly after that, and Troy Steven Brandon Billy, and I talked for a bit more and Brandon and Billy made dinner plans. Troy and Steven where headed deeper down town to find some trouble, and I headed back to my hotel room. It was roughly 8:30pm when I got near my hotel room and decided to stop at McDonalds for my usual... 10 peice chicken nuggets, two mc doubles, large fries, and large drink. Once I got back into the hotel room i realized they left the mc doubles out and no bbq sauce, but I was too lazy to go back and get them. So I crashed out shortly before 10pm.
I woke up around 5:15am and decided I would check out and head back to Knoxville to be home around 1:30-2pm. Again, I get on the interstate get settled in, and flipped on a different podcast called HG World, which after listening to about 4 episode and 4 hours in I decided I couldn't keep up with it. So I turned Pandora back on. Ran into some traffic north of nashville, a tractor trailer had wrecked damn rubber neckers... and also east of nashville down to one lane for several miles... I got home around 1:45pm, back in good old Strawberry Plain, TN.
Overall the meet, was good, I got to meet the guys i'd been talking to on Fusion Nation for the past several months, and now I feel like I know them all that much better. Looking forward to the next Fusion Meet... Which if all goes well will be here at us129 the dragon October 26th.
I know this was pretty long, and probably pretty boring... but hey it was fun.
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