Revving Up: The Rock’nAugust Country Cruise Comes to Morinville

by Stephen Dafoe

The Rock’nAugust car show, a staple of summer entertainment in St. Albert, regularly draws many Morinville and Sturgeon County residents south to enjoy vintage vehicles.

But before the event, running Aug. 8 to 12, the Country Cruise will have cars and other slick vehicles coming to Morinville for a slow ride through town on Sunday, Aug. 6.

Organizer and Rock’nAugust board member Rick Dory said the Country Cruise first came about during Covid out of the Rock’nAugust board to bring something to St. Albert community members when many other festivals and events were cancelled.

“The decision was made to include Cardiff, Morinville and Legal as our wish was to share this little ray of sunshine with our neighbours to the north,” Dory said. “The response was tremendous, and the appreciation was mutual, which really made our Country Cruise a win-win.”

Dory said that vehicles would leave Century Casino in St. Albert around noon. Cars should roll into Morinville around 12:25 to 12:30 on Sunday.

The cars will enter Morinville on 100 Street, down 95 Avenue to Grandin Drive. From there, they will travel west on 100 Avenue to 100 Street, heading north to 101 Avenue and down to 107 Street, ending up at A&W. From there, the cars will travel east along 100 Avenue to Highway 28, eventually heading to Legal.

That route will take vehicles past three seniors’ centres. “Rock’nAugust always tries to include senior centres on our cruise routes, so we try to pass by the ones in Morinville, and the one in Legal became our finish point,” Dory explained.

The organizer said that while they had no cruises planned in 2021, the feedback from homeowners and car owners was a great demand to bring back the community cruises.

“Our first cruises were a learning lesson as we did separate east and west cruises through St. Albert,” Dory said. “In the planning stage, test cruises took just 45 minutes. The actual cruises, with 120 cars or more each, ended up lasting 2 hours. Too long for many of the cars involved driving at a congested pace.”

With the return to doing the community cruises, there was a balance of bringing awareness to Rock’nAugust week and meeting the wishes of the car owners and community at large. That necessitated a rework to shorten the drive times, breaking it down to four local cruises.

“While the decision was made last minute in 2022 to include Morinville and Legal because we weren’t sure if we would have any cars turn out on the Sunday of a long weekend, we gave it a shot, and the response was very good from the car community,” Dory said of last year’s drive. “So, our plan is to make the Country Cruise an annual event.”

Dory said last year’s event saw 60 to 70 cars in the Country Cruise and the hope is to get that amount or more this year.

“You get two driveby’s if you set up your lawn chairs on 642, so bring out your coolers, bbqs, drop those tailgates and enjoy the rolling show and shine,” Dory said, noting he hopes to see the community out there for the cars. For more information about Rock’nAugust, visit https://www.rocknaugust.com/