Best cruise ever! This was the comment heard all day after visiting the Klairmont Kollections in Chicago! We had 32 members and 17 cars for this summer cruise and 10 of the members are new members to our club within the last year! Our rainy drizzly morning started by driving to Klairmont Kollections in Chicago. Once we arrived, we were overwhelmed with the size and variety of the collection and the themes in the museum. The museum encompassed 100,000 square feet on two floors. Proud owners and ambassadors of this magnificent showplace is Larry Klairmont and his partner Joyce. There are 340 most impressive vehicles in this museum and another 150 in another warehouse that Larry said they swap out every so often. The museum played music to the theme of the cars in each of their locations. There were concept cars, an area set up like a drive in movie, there was a crystal car!, the Golden Sahara car from Las Vegas and even an old Cucamunga gas station which took over a year to set up as all the original gas, oil and pumps were gathered and assembled. This is just a few of the amazing cars and things to see at this museum.To top off our visit of the museum, Larry and Joyce showed up and started telling us things about the cars. Our Lou Malnati's pizza arrive for lunch and during lunch Larry and Joyce told us stories of how some of the cars were purchased. Larry is a great story teller! He told us how he got started in buying and selling real estate and collecting cars and he had a story for every car in the museum! He is a self made millionaire! Larry said when he wanted something he always got it! He told a story about a car he trying to buy at an auction and the auctioneer started the bidding at a million dollars, no one bid on it. So auctioneer lowered the bid again and again and finally Larry said $100,000 then a little ol’lady started bidding with him but in the end, Larry bought the car! Joyce told a story of how she sealed the deal with another car for Larry in the bathroom with another wife of a car buyer! Wonderful stories and amazing cars! What a way to spend a morning with our Viper friends!

After lunch we headed out to Ravenstone Castle, a 16th century family owned castle in Harvard, IL. The castle stands on a hillside but has all the modern conveniences of today. The castle was built by the family in European style. Mom and dad along with 4 sons and a daughter laid the foundation and built it! Mom had a vision and each son had a specialty either in woodwork, laying tile which is all through the castle, brick laying, etc. Mom decorated the castle in several antiques and tapestry from Europe as well. The family is also involved in Renaissance Faires and sell their tapestry work. After our tour of the castle, we were treated to small cakes, cookies and tea. What a great way to end our day! It was only late afternoon and some of us decided to stop for a bite to eat before heading home. Matt Schutte recommended a place called The Spot in Marengo because of their great hamburgers. The Vipers were also spotted by the Chicago Car Spotters while at The Spot and put pictures of our cars on their Facebook page. After a nice supper and talk about our day at the Klairmont, mostly, we headed our separate ways towards home. Again, everyone mentioned how this was the best cruise ever! And encourage the rest of our Viper family to join in on the next cruise scheduled for October 6 & 7. Hope to see you there!