Past Events - Midwest 356 Club

This was planned to be the replication of the drive the old club made each year to Starved Rock State Park in the 1990s, the highlight of which was the stop for a group photo at the "rainbow bridge" where Old Stage Road crosses the I&M Canal between Morris and Seneca. Despite warnings of heavy weather in the area, a dozen cars (nine 356s, one 912 and two 911s) and twenty club members and guests set out from Channahon and proceeded without incident to the bridge, where we discovered that the road, which had been closed a week earlier when a scouting party had explored the route, was now open.

Arranging the cars for photos on the bridge was great fun but took up more time that we had planned for, and we thought we could make up some of that time by taking the now-opened Old Stage Road instead of the detour the scouting party had been forced to take. Unfortunately, that led us into unscouted territory, and we soon found ourselves both lost and uncomfortably close to the time of our restaurant reservation for lunch. A brief conference on the side of the road led to the decision to forego Starved Rock and proceed directly to the restaurant. Our table was still waiting for us when we reached the Captain's Cove. That restaurant sits on the north bank of the Illinois River and afforded us a beautiful and tantalizing view of the approach to the park along the opposite bank we would have taken had we stayed on course. We'll just have to try it again next year.