Residents at RidgeCrest Assisted Living Center got a special treat on Monday and I was lucky enough to be able to experience it as well.

Around 40 antique cars rolled into the parking lot as the Horseless Carriage Club of America came to town. The group is on a week-long tour of the region and stops include Yadkin County, Stuart, Va., and ends with Main Street in Mount Airy on Friday where half of the street will be closed down.

When I got the call from RidgeCrest Monday afternoon, the person on the phone said there were antique cars in the parking lot. I assumed that meant cars from the ’50s and ’60s, maybe the ’40s. I headed over there anyway to take a few pictures.

As I approached the parking lot, however, I saw that I was very much mistaken in that assumption. The parking lot was filled, not with cars from the ’50s and ’60s, but cars from the 1910s, ’20s and ’30s.

There were Model T’s, Ford Touring Cars, old Cadillacs and even a Stanley Steamer. As I walked among these cars, I could not help but be in complete awe. The Stanley Steamer is going to be 100 years old next year. In case you missed that, this car, that I watched drive out of the parking lot, is going to be 100 years old next year.

The residents of RidgeCrest had the chance to look at these cars up close. These are the cars that many of the residents learned to drive on and here they were, fully functional and in the parking lot.

I even talked to a couple of the people who are in the organization. These people hailed from Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, yet they acted like a big family. They enjoyed Cokes in glass bottles and Moon Pies as they hung out in the parking lot, socializing and answering questions about the cars.

People of all ages took a week out of their lives to visit this region. They take time and money to maintain these cars so that they are able to drive them around the country on tours such as these.

Anyone who gets the opportunity to see these cars around the region or on Main Street on Friday should take the time to stop by and talk to the owners. It is not every day that we get to see something like this, functioning cars from long before many of us were even born.

Morgan Wall is a staff reporter for The Mount Airy News. She can be reached at mwall@mtairynews.com or 719-1929.