The concept of the Auto Enthusiast's Gathering on Thole Lake originated while Dan was mowing the lawn
at his home in Shakopee Minnesota. With nothing else to do but listen to tunes on the headphones,
Dan's mind tends to wander (no texting and mowing you know!).

While most of his ideas in times like this turn out to get tossed aside (which Lynn says is a good thing), every
once in awhile one sticks. The idea of hosting an Auto Enthusiast's Gathering was one that stuck,
and what eventually emerged was the genesis of Muscle By The Lake.

The concept was simple. Take a peaceful, flat, and beautiful area near the lake, and combine it with thousands
of pounds of the metal surrounding hundreds of gallons of high octane gasoline. Who wouldn't love that?!?
The idea morphed into an event that would serve as a gathering of folks who have the common interest of
enjoying, owning, driving, working on, looking at, and talking about cars...especially Muscle Cars!
Food, fellowship and fun...all wrapped around our cars and our families to preserve the hobby.

Dan has had a keen interest in classic cars for most of his life starting with his first one, a 1972 Dodge Charger
that he had while he was in High School and dating Lynn. His brothers each had cool cars while Dan was
growing up as well. Brother Dave had a 1969 Dodge Super Bee, Jim had a Mazda RX7 and an Opel GT,
and Bill owned both a Triumph Spitfire and an Opel GT.

Dan and Lynn had plenty of experience with car shows as a family while their girls were growing up and
are happy to say that the bug has been passed down to them. The girls each have worked on cars, gone for road trips, and to this day continue to enjoy playing "what year is that Mustang?"

The key to the future of this hobby is to ensure that the next generation gets interested and involved. As car
owners, we can help this by taking young people for rides, letting them help work on the cars, encouraging
them to sit in our rides at shows (yep...we do that on a regular basis!), and create friendly environments
such as Muscle By The Lake where they can come and enjoy what ever it is they drive or to just look.

Click below to listen to Dan's interview on the car hobby at the 2015 Iola Car Show (Dan starts at 47 secs)

Proverbs 3:5-8