Kenosha Homecoming Car Show

Photo: https://www.marlinautoclub.com/

Friday

Every three years Kenosha WI hosts a homecoming car show. It’s a celebration of the American Motors car manufacturing industry that took place in Kenosha dating back to 1902. Any car with an American Motors connection is invited. Nash, Rambler, AMC, and even Jeeps.

The event is nearly a week long, this year starting on Tuesday the 26th of July and ending Saturday the 30th. We arrived mid-afternoon on Friday the 29th fresh off our Iowa tour. Our connection to this show is a 1966 AMC Marlin. It’s not a show car, the primer and patina make sure of that. But it drives (and stops) pretty good. It’s not really long-distance ready yet so we put in on a trailer and hauled it to the show (we’ll circle back to that in a bit). After the car was unloaded we drove into Kennedy Park and registered for the Friday night parade.

The parade formed at Southport Park and from what we could tell there were a couple of hundred cars lining up.

We slowly got into the line out of the park and into Kenosha. We expected some onlookers but were we surprised. As we headed into downtown, the path was packed with people. Just like a Fourth of July parade. Everybody waving. And us without our parade candy. It took us 10-15 minutes to get through downtown and into the neighborhoods were the were fewer people but still a solid fan base this time with chairs. The parade/cruise lasted for about 35 minutes ending near the Kenosha History Center. We found a place to park-once again the attendance was huge. We walked around looking at some of the cars and meeting people.

There were plenty of food trucks as well as a few restaurants within a short walk. We chose Kenosha Yacht Club Bar and Grill. We had a plate of loaded fries and cold beverages. Very good!

Since we were not allowed to leave the anything in the park overnight, we drove back to the trailer and loaded up and headed to our hotel.

Now it’s time for the circle-back part of the post. We arrived at the hotel to find no parking spaces. Who builds a hotel with insufficient parking? Apparently, a lot of them. We then got our first car-show lesson. The hotel doesn’t allow trailers. The desk clerk wasn’t much help either. And since most of the hotels in town were all booked because of the show (and a food and beer festival), we cancelled the reservation and headed north 45 miles to Milwaukee where we stayed with our daughter.

So for those that might be thinking about traveling with a trailer (car or otherwise) take note. For those of you that already knew about asking for trailer parking, we now join your ranks of the informed.

Tomorrow: the big show.