Knott's Berry Farm

On April 18th, at around 7am, I hopped in my '96 GT and headed for LA. From my small apartment in San Juan Bautista, CA, it was going to be about a five hour drive. My Mustang was packed full of all the essentials for a young male heading for a weekend getaway: Plenty of Gatorade, gummie-worms, couple of sandwiches, backpack full of clothes, a digital camera, and the desire to hit the road. Once I got on hwy 5, it it about 200miles of straight nothing...so it seemed. For the most part I took it easy because there are so many highway patrol officers ready to write-up a ticket to "a guy in a mustang". My destination was Knott's Berry Farm, although I wasn't going there for the theme park...I was going to the Fabulous Fords Forever car show! Along the way, I got thumbs up from many passing cars, kids in backseats of minivans with faces pressed against the glass waving at me, and even the young at heart glancing at me perhaps reliving road trips of their own. At one point a Ferrari 308 finished in Fly Yellow went speeding by me then slowed down so we were door to door. I looked over and the "dude in all white" began revving his car, flashing his lights and took off. Before I through the car from fifth to third i was cruising at 65mph, but before I knew it i was nearing 80mph, then 100mph...and I caught up with him. He turned bright red, waved then we both slowed down, and he took the next exit, lol. About an hour later I saw him fly by me again, then about twenty mins after that the Ferrari had a CHP Charger pulled right behind him. Every gas station I stopped at, people would say things like nice car or just give me the thumbs up. I kept thinking to myself, oh I love my car. Although I did have one mishap with my car, involving a SUV running over a traffic cone and launching it into my front bumper, the car did perfect and rewarded me with 29mpg at one point. The cone managed to pop the front bumper cover off at the driver's side, breaking the plastic push pins. Along the side of the road, I zip-tied the bumper back together and somehow managed to free the cone from my BBK X-pipe, but not before melting the crap out of the orange cone, lol. After that it was smooth sailing to my Hotel for the night in Stanton.

The next morning, the day of the show I got up early and drove to the Sears parking lot next to Knott's Berry Farm for the show. With camera in hand I sat myself on the sidewalk, watching all the Fords coming into the show. It is one thing to get to walk up to a 2000 Cobra R, peer into and snap a few pics, but to see it drive up to the show, 5.4L revving up, is quite different. Eventually I made my way into the show, i was surrounded by hundreds of mustangs and people who bled Ford Blue. I was in heaven. I saw so many amazing Mustangs, ones I had only read about, 'stangs that have graced the covers of 50. Mustang and Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords, and even a few like mine. Everybody was so kind there, just waiting to strike up a Mustang conversation. It was so cool to see what people do to Mustangs of every year. Although everything was outstanding, the real highlight of the show to me was walking through the SN-95 portion and seeing a whole row of black 96-98 GT's. The owners and I talked for a hour or two, bragging, swapping tips, and what they had in store for their 'stang.

I took over 1,000 pics, but still could have taken more if it wasn't for the blasting heat and lack of time. So after a wonderful day I got back onto the road and headed home. I encourage any Mustang or Ford fan to attend next year's event!