At the end of the Rainbow...

The end of the rainbow was in Flagler, Colorado. We made it to Flagler without clear directions to where we were going, but a guy riding a lawnmower down the highway pointed us the right way. We met Bob, who retired last year, which is why he was selling his Dammer-Diker. I meant to take a picture of it on the trailer, but never got around to it. Bob asked us if we were in a hurry, or if we had time to see his "hobby". Lloyd and I both said sure, and looked at each other, our interest and curiosity soaring. Various "hobbies" ran through my head (and later, I learned Lloyd's as well), but none prepared us for what we were about to see. The pure irony would simply be icing on the cake. Lloyd was in front of me and he turns, with excitment and disbelief , "A Ranchero!" Anyone that knows Lloyd knows that he loves Rancheros. He has three of them, and they are all he ever drives, and has had for as long as I have known him and even long before. Now I wouldn't consider a ranchero a very collectable item, and suddenly knew that what I was witnessing was clearly more than coincidence...Lloyd was meant for this roadtrip, and there was a reason we couldn't find another Dammer-Diker for the right price less than 900 miles from home. Immediately after the shock of the ranchero, I was able to soak in the magnitude of what lay before my eyes: over 30 beautiful, beautiful cars. Now, as the owner of a soon-to-be Hemi '65 Belvedere and the daughter of a NHRA racecar driver, I thought I had seen a lot of cars in my time. I have seen a lot of muscle cars and racecars, but I have always loved the OLD, old cars the most, and I had NEVER, in all my life, seen anything like this. There were at least 3 model A's and at least 3 Model T's. Wow. There were 3-4 mustangs, a thunderbird, a camaro, an Oldsmobile REO (very rare), and too many other vehicles to mention. Oh, and he had 3 rancheros of course; rancheros are not my personal favorite, but there was a blue one in a container out back that was just gorgeous. Bob also had a nice selection of tractors, including one that he was very proud of, and was so uncommon I couldn't fully appreciate it since I had never even heard of it. There is supposed to be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but I think the pot of gold is just symbolic, because what you find at the end of the rainbow is clearly much more amazing that just a lousy pot of gold.