Kimball gave the Mililtary Preservation Vehicle Association 2009 Transcontinental Motor Convoy a royal welcome on June 27. The 37 military vehicle convoy stopped at Main Street Market at 11 a.m. and and was served a fine lunch by the Market, compliments of John Morrison and staff. Members of VFW Post 2243 and Auxiliary  also turned out to help with the welcome.The convoy arrived about 11 a.m. and, at 1 p.m. straight up, it headed west, onward to San Francisco.Terry Shelswell of Clarkston, Michigan is the 2009 director of the MVPA convoy. He thanked Kimball for the “very warm welcome.” Shelswell said, “The trip has been pretty uneventful except for some bad weather yesterday near Ogalalla.” He said, “ We have been welcomed everywhere. Last night, Ogalalla treated us with a Dixieland band. Our biggest letdown has been a lack of local traffic control in some of the cities.”The convoy contained numerous Jeeps, the familiar four person scout car type vehicles. Some were of WWII vintage, others from the Korean War and Vietnam age. The vehicles were mostly Army with a Navy and Marine Corps jeep also.There were several of the familiar 2 1/2 ton cargo trucks, two classic motorcycles, a 1918 truck hauled on a trailer, a couple of trucks with headquarters or control unit  type bodies and a 1914 Army field car, complete with carbide headlights.Driver Don Hoye said the vehicles gassed up every night and carried the familiar five gallon jerry cans full of gas for mid day refueling. Hoye said, “Our only real breakdown was a blown engine and they got it swapped out in 24 hours.”One driver told John Morrison, “ I’ve seen all the corn and soy beans I care to look at.” Morrison assured him it would be mostly wheat between Kimball and the night’s stop in Cheyenne.A 1942 Harley Davidson Army motorcycle with Military Police emblem and a driver who looked like tough guy movie star Lee Marvin was quite a picture. He was complete with the division patch of the First Infantry Division, Big Red One. A couple husky troopers in the convoy wore their old 101 Airborne Division Screaming Eagles battle gear, blackened face and all. They looked like fellows you didn’t want  to mess with.Two jeeps joined the convoy in Kimball to bring the total up to 39 vehicles. Seventeen support vehicles followed the convoy. These were RVs, pickups with campers, fifth wheel LQs. flatbed trailers and a wrecker-type. There were no track/tread vehicles making the trip.The MVPA convoy is a reenactment of the 1919 coast to coast Army convoy undertaken to check out the American road system and the sturdiness of the military vehicles. The convoy found the road system then to be very inadequate.Lt. Colonel Dwight Eisenhower made the 1919 trip and it was part of his impetus to approve legislation that brought the Interstate Highway System into being after Ike became President in 1952.It is well known in Kimball that he and Mamie stayed overnight in the Wheat Growers Hotel when the convoy stopped in Kimball on August 7, 1919.The 1919 convoy was accompanied by a 15 piece band provided by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The 2009 convoy had their own music on CD, old tunes like “Across the Alley from the Alamo” and Glenn Miller’s swing version of Meacham’s “American Patrol.”The 2009 convoy will likely have about 200 vehicles in body when it gets to its grand finale in San Francisco. At one point in the early eastern part of the trip, there were 150 vehicles in the group.Hoye said, “The hardest part of  the trip will be 260 miles of desert driving between Ely and Fallon, Nevada. We have to do that in one shot.” There the convoy must leave its normal Lincoln Highway run and get on U. S. Highway 50.The convoy’s stop in Kimball was memorable, both in 1919 and last week in 2009.Hurrah for the red, white and blue.