Residents of Central Huron and Bluewater got to take a step back in time on Saturday as several horseless carriages toured the area.
The horseless carriages belong to members of the Ontario Chapter of the Horseless Carriage Club and they stopped in at the Windmill Lake Wake and Eco Park near Bayfield. Harold Carter from Mount Clemens, Michigan owns one of the cars. He says he got interested in them when he saw a parade of them come through his town when he was in grade four. He says it looked like the people were having fun and he wanted in on it, so 43 years later he had his first horseless carriage.
All of the cars in the Club are at least 100 years old. Carter says his car can get up to 30 or 40 miles per hour but admits it's a little scary at top speed. But he adds it's a blast, too, and different in that you see more, smell more and hit more bugs, but he describes part of the appeal as just being a slower pace of life. Carter says he bought the car he has now in 1996 and since then they've put about 70-thousand miles on it in 24 states and four provinces.
“I stood on the side of the road for an hour and a half or two hours, watching these cars drive through town and I said some day I'm gonna do this because these people are having fun. And 43 years later I finally got my first car.”
“Scary, but a blast. It's so much different because you see more, you smell more, you get hit by more bugs and it's just a slower pace of life.”
