By Kathy Ahrendt

Most people can't wait for retirement. It does have some advantages. One of them is being able to head out in our LBCs and visit the sites of the area on a weekday.

On a recent Thursday some of those fortunate retirees got together to head out to a car museum and for a great drive. Most of us gathered at a local restaurant for the start of our drive. After a "leader change" we headed out to meet up with our tour organizer. He led us to the town of Forest City and the Bennett Classics, an antique auto museum.

The museum, “Bennett Classics Antique Auto Museum” was started in 2007. It has around 70 vehicles with many of them unrestored. They have also obtained a 1963 Ford Mayberry Sheriff’s Car Signed by Don Knots (AKA Barney Fife) which is a must see! Many of our members were drooling over the Nash Metropolitan (MGA engine inside) and some of the other rare and unique autos that the brothers have collected.

The museums goal is to preserve the automobile history for generations of the past, present and future.

We were allowed to get up close and personal with the cars and our group had the museum to itself. It was a car lovers dream with something for everyone.

After we finished with the visit we headed to the downtown area of Forest City to have lunch. Since we were a large group -- about 20 people -- we split up and headed to different restaurants. Everyone proclaimed a good lunch when we met up on the outskirts of town to continue our tour.

We headed off with the intention of visiting a small distillery nearby but something "shiny" caught our interest. As we entered the down of Bostic, NC we saw a museum that looked interesting. It was the Bostic Lincoln Center which is dedicated to collecting, documenting and researching the history of Abraham Lincoln. Most people don't know that there is some question on the actual birthplace of Lincoln. Many stories both verbal and written are being gathered to challenge the history as we know it. It will be interesting to see how this all unfolds over the years.

Once we finished at the museum we decided that we were too late for the distillery tour so we will add that to our next tour in that area. But we did stop at a really cool hardware/general store. Washburn's was established in 1831 and is still family owned. If you've ever wanted ______ (fill in the blank) they probably have it! It is a time capsule for all things.

Everyone headed out on their own after we finished at the store. But we have plans to gather again and visit a new area. In fact, we have a list of about thirty places to visit and things to do for our club. Guess we better get started!