Cruise Night 2019

On Cruise Nights, the Oakland Beach Park in Warwick becomes a gathering place of show cars and people who enjoy viewing them or simply being near the beach.

Yesterday, Jan and I decided to visit the place once more. The weather was gorgeous, a gentle breeze from the bay was the icing on the cake. The music was blasting songs from the 50s and the 60s, people were walking around occasionally stopping to inspect some features of a car, then moving on to the next. The car owners and their families were gathered in front of their vehicles sitting in circles on portable chairs.

Oakland Beach Hosts Cruise Nights

We went by the Harley motorcycles and through a narrow opening on the fence, made our way to the main green. We probably had seen most of the cars but it was still enjoyable to see their shiny paint, gleaming chrome, and nostalgic lines. Not all were original vehicles, some were hotrod cars with their engines jumping out from under the hood. There were some rather new cars, probably only twenty years or so old, a few original cars with minimal work done.

Classic Cars in Great Shape

The 1959 Studebaker was in great shape, I remembered one of our neighbors in Adana had one when I was in high school. We chatted with the owners a little, took some photographs, and moved on. A little further down was a blue and white car with the sky reflecting on the blue side with the clouds. A red Pontiac with its hood open invited passers-by to inspect its engine although the hood and the headlights were quite interesting for me.

Going by a reincarnation of the original Thunderbird, 2002-2005 vintage, we came to the end of the green with a few trucks. The white Chevy and the green Ford were in very good shape. I was also charmed by the fancy hood ornaments they used to have on many car models. There was a relatively new car with a pair of dice as the air valve covers on its tires, a dicey trip? Going by another green Ford, a blue car, I stopped in front of a vehicle that could belong to a sci-fi movie. Its highly angular body shape with a few round, rotating lights was attention-grabbing for sure. Cruise nights make one relive old memories.

We were coming to the end of the tour and saw a couple of new cars that came since we started the walk. The dark green Ford looked very tidy, the rear end of the blue hotrod was unusually smooth. We found the same narrow opening on the low fence and walked out. There, we chatted with a couple of bikers for a while, took their photographs, and got into our car to drive back home. Another enjoyable afternoon outing. This Cruise Night was as enjoyable as our first and second visits.

Here are the photographs Jan took

These are the ones I took.