Downtown

BUMPER TO BUMPER: Most of our days have been consumed with the kids private pilot ground school studying, but Sunday morning, we took an hour or so to stroll downtown Renton.

It was some sort of community celebration. For us, the draw was the city's allegedly largest food truck rodeo of the summer, and a zipline "over downtown Renton," or so the ad said.

What we found upon parking and walking into the old part of downtown was actually blocks and blocks of a really big car show.

Now, we're not normally 'car show people,' meaning we don't go out of our way to attend auto shows. However, if we happen into one, like we did on Sunday, we're happy to check out the autos. 

It was an impressive collection on display. Dozens upon dozens of cars, from stock sedans to wild hot rods.

I think most would agree that this highly stylized, flashy orange 1939 Lincoln Zephyr was one of the more eye catching cars on display.

 Its interior was as snazzy as the exterior.

Speaking of snazzy interiors, we encountered a Chrysler Imperial Crown that actually has a working record player in its dash. And check out its fancy swivel front seats!

According to a poster next to this beauty, the car is so rare, there are less than 5 show-quality cars of its type in existence these days.

When we spied the car with 'wings,' we knew it was a Delorean, of course. 

And one can't say "Delorean" without thinking about "Back to the Future" shortly thereafter. 

And sure enough, in the back seat of the car, there was a flux capacitor, just like in the movie.

This was actually not our first time seeing this car. I spied it near the Mariners' stadium a couple of months ago, parking in the garage south of the stadium. I figured it belonged to a player, because someone with an MLB salary seemed likely to have the money to drop on a ride like this. I snapped a quick pick back then.

Some of the cars we saw had been 'slammed,' or lowered substantially. I can't fathom how this old Chevy even drives!

While there were certainly fancier, more rare and much more valuable cars in the show, I will always have a soft spot for the Volkswagen Beetle.

Perhaps you head the news that Volkswagen announced it was ending Beetle production (again). In fact, the very last one rolled off an assembly line in Mexico today.

While we were wandering, we kept looking for the "zipline over downtown Renton." 

Imagine how underwhelmed we were upon finding out the attraction was really only a short run over part of a non-descript parking lot. Sigh.

However, CJ still wanted to give it a go, so he and Christian strapped in for about 8 seconds of fun (which cost $25, BTW).