Snowy Days Around the USA

Is it spring yet? Not here in Minnesota, and considering the huge snowfalls that hit the East Coast, spring won’t be arriving there anytime soon either.

NIA member Janet Frantz of New Jersey sent this picture of her “backyard birdhouse with its new beehive hairdo” – 14 inches of snow in one day – that’s even more than we got here in Minnesota!

Our NIA friends Joe and Jennie Wilson from North Carolina said they woke up to snow in their yard – I sometimes wonder how far south I’d have to move to never see snow again. It has been quite a winter!

NIA member Tommy Nolen of Richmond, VA, headed to Philly despite all the snow that blasted the East Coast earlier this month to collect his THIRD AACA Grand National Award for his gorgeous blue ’61 SS. Congratulations! I heard there is a spectacular article by Doug Marion in the latest issue of Super Chevy magazine featuring another of Tommy’s fabulous Chevys. I’ll have to steal Jody’s copy and check it out!

Magazine and Decals

Speaking of magazines – the latest issue of Impala News is now in final edit and on the way to the print house – would you like to see a sneak peek of the cover? Here it is:

The new National Impala Member Decals are here! They tell us these new, removable decals can be applied to either the exterior or interior window glass on your classic Chevy, so we’re taking them for a trial run. I nabbed one and it looks great on my coffee mug – but I wonder how it will perform in my Dishwasher Proving Ground?!! Once we are finished with the test run, we’ll mail them out to every NIA member, just in time for spring cruising:

Countdown to Spearfish!

Dennis & Byrdi Naasz and their team are working hard to create a fun time for us this summer! Mark your calendars - the NIA 30th Anniversary Event will be held in Spearfish, SD, on August 24-29, 2010. 

Join us in beautiful South Dakota to celebrate 30 years of NIA fun, friendship, and great cars!  Highlights of our week together will include:

• Picnic in the Park
• Cruising Spearfish Canyon
• Main Street Car Show
• Sights of the Black Hills
• PLPs (Parking Lot Parties)
• Kool Deadwood Nights

Call Now to book your stay at the Spearfish Holiday Inn and be sure to request the $99.50 "National Impala Association" rate. If the Spearfish Holiday Inn is full, we have blocked an additional 30 rooms at the Fairfield Inn in Spearfish, which is close by and owned by the same owners as the Holiday Inn.

For a registration form and more information, go to our National Impala website. We're looking forward to seeing everyone there!

Updates on the Homefront

Update on Jody’s dad: Thanks to so many, many of you who were so kind to send notes of encouragement in response to my last e-newsletter with the difficult news about my father-in-law Duey’s brain tumor. Your prayers and thoughtful words brought tears to my eyes – the NIA family has been so supportive, and we can’t thank you enough. Last week brought both good news, and hard news. We learned that the stronger chemo treatments have successfully halted the further growth of Duey’s brain tumor, and we praise God for that. At the end of the week, though, he was hospitalized due to some challenging side effects related to the chemo. We are hoping he’ll be able to come back home very soon.

Several of you have written asking how “Edna” my ’64 station wagon project is coming along. To be honest, she hasn’t had much attention lately and I haven’t seen her in a few months as I’ve been pretty tied up with things here at home. But I asked Jody for an update, and here is what he wrote: “We got carried away one cold Saturday morning and decided to do some more detailing; so Edna’s intake manifold was pulled for a fresh re-paint. Good thing we did! It turned out that the engine breather port baffle inside the lifter valley had never been installed! Must have been quite the mosquito prevention machine everywhere she went!”