Day 13 - Five states in one day!!!

Tuesday, July 18: PA, NY, CT, RI, MA. And we arrived in Mansfield, the last car from our Santa Clara Valley group to arrive, about 2:00pm. And it was hot today, record heat. As we got to Mansfield and turned off on the street to the convention, the first Model A we saw was Jack C. and Don S. sitting at a redlight. They got in on Monday. Quickly went in to register and Pat went to buy the new fashion facts book and was informed that she had just purchased the last copy. Whew!!

This morning, we left Hazleton, PA at 6:30, and drove through the Poconos, great scenery, we came out on I84 and ran that for a while, such a rough road, we hit one bump that actually whipped the gear shift out of high gear. Momentary panic, we thought we had lost the transmission or overdrive when the engine raced. When we crossed the Hudson River, Pat looked over the side and saw a man fishing in a small boat and his yellow lab was sitting there beside him, shades of Norman Rockwell, right beside all that interstate madness. Pat wanted to stop and take a picture but the 18 wheelers sitting on my back bumper (even though I was doing 65) made me think twice about it.

I84 has a bunch of left turning splits, 5 or 6 lanes in one direction, and we need to exit to the left to stay on I84, and we are in the right lane, quite exciting, and drivers here don’t give a hoot that you have your signal on, quite a workout for the A.

We have a gas cap story. When Will L. lost his cap in CO, I started to put my gas cap in my pocket every time we fueled up since I no longer had an extra one. Today it paid off. We stopped for gas in Waterbury, Ct and sure enough, off we went driving down the interstate until Pat began to smell gasoline. She peeked over the windshield and frantically said “no gas cap!” I calmly stopped the car, got out and pulled the cap from my pocket and put it on. And here I was beginning to think that I didn’t really need to put the cap in my pocket. Highest price gas yet was in CT, $3.21 per gallon.

There are a lot of stainless steel diners in this part of the country, right out of the fifties. And some strange street names, Peeptoad Road???? In Terryville, I spied a large bell in a churchyard, just had to go and look at it. It was a Meneely bell, weight was 716 lbs stamped right on it, and it had a very nice ring to it. We called M and she said to bring it home, but it might just be a little heavy, I don’t think we could put wheels on it.

There are 29 SCVC members here, we had dinner tonite with 19 of them at the Picadilly Pub. And met Bob LaBrash from Phoenix who has been on the road in his A for two months, his goal, to drive in every county in the USA, Holy Moley.

Couple pictures, how about the chikin coupe from AZ?

Day 12 – Boy, she’s hot.

It was hard to leave Pat’s family in PA and head down the road. We were on the road at 6:00 am to continue east. It seemed a bit strange to be traveling alone in our Model A. We hit a lot of construction which seems to be normal in PA. Near as I can tell, at any given time, half the roads in PA are under construction. There were several antique stores open and of course Bob couldn’t pass them up. No treasures found today. Passed through some beautiful farm land with big barns and manicured lawns. This was Mennonite country. A black truck pulled up beside us and motioned for me to roll down the window. I could see his police emblem on his shirt sleeve so I’m thinking what did we do now? He said, “that is a great Ford”, phew!

Bob had to drive through State College in PA but he couldn’t recognize anything after more than 40 years. Oh, he did find the Hammond Engineering Building. Everything else has changed a lot and of course there is even a Starbucks across from the building now.

Our coupe got the shimmy today, apparently the result of adjusting the brakes while we stayed in Weirton. We stopped several times to make adjustments, trying to find the right combination of tightening one wheel and loosening others. Seems to be cured for the moment. We are overnighting in Hazleton and boy, she’s hot outside. (That’s local PA talk.)

A few pictures for your enjoyment. The bridges of Washington County, and Jason, Luci-jo and 3 week old baby Noah.

We think everyone has made it to Mansfield but us, although Jack is incommunicado. We should be in to Mansfield late on Tuesday.

Late breaking emails: John and Judy and Will and Dave and Susan arrived in Mansfield on Sunday. One new picture, John and Will celebrating in the Poconos.

Day 10, 11 – A little bit of news

Our small party of Model A’s is traveling is traveling at different speeds and
alone on the backroads of PA. Jack and Don have made it to Reading, PA to see family and give the car some TLC on a hoist. Last heard from John and Judy, they were circling Scranton, PA looking for a place to land for the night. All others are continuing in the general direction of Mansfield with a stop somewhere in PA Saturday night. Bill R. has parked his A in Chicago and headed back to CA. Pat and I are still at cousin Marlayna’s farm in western PA enjoying a family reunion with lots of good food and a chance to sleep in the same bed for 3 nights. Pat is having lots of quality time with the newest member of the family, Noah, who is only 3 weeks old. We miss our traveling buddies but will catch up soon.

Paid some attention to the little black coupe. The problem with the headlights
was interesting. Yesterday, I had tightened the fan belt by moving the alternator and didn’t notice that I had used up all the slack in the wire to the light box at the bottom of the steering column. Coming down route 250 in Ohio, every seam in the road had oozed filler, and gave us a heck of a jolt, just bang, bang, bang. Net result, the wire parted inside the insulation. I had to stick pins in the wire to find the spot with my ohmmeter, finally found the spot and put a new connector there.

Decided to change the oil, so went to a local express lube, at first they said
they couldn’t do it, but did in the end. Good thing I went in, the transmission was dry, and how it can pump all the lube out is a mystery to me. I now know that when it quits dripping, it is out of oil. Found a car wash being conducted by a local high school group of young ladies, so the A had about a dozen young girls giving it the works. Looks much better now, unfortunately, I did not have my camera.

News from CA is that one air conditioner is being installed in Bob and Shirley’s car with Ray and Linda’s A waiting anxiously. They will be meeting us at Mt. Rushmore on the way back. Still hot and humid here, but that is normal. Sunday (today), cousin Marlayna is having a “tapas” party for the Spanish side of the family while I am heading for Hopedale, OH to meet with high school buddies from a few years back.

Day 9 – The Flock is Scattering

Leaving Dayton at 6:30 yesterday, we drove for a couple hours in the typical fog that seems to enshroud the Midwest every morning until about 9:00. Three cars in a group on the secondary roads, two cars on the Interstate, and we aren’t sure which way Jack and Don went (they decided to make a beeline for PA).



The first two groups stopped in Newark, Ohio and checked out the Longaberger Basket Building (neat). Our group (Bob and Pat, John and Judy, and Will) then went on to Holmes County, Ohio to tour through Amish country. We had fresh homemade pie in Charm and stumbled onto a steam power show just outside of Charm where they were using the old steam traction engines to thresh, run a sawmill and generally smoke up the countryside with coal smoke. We stopped, walked around, took a bunch of pictures, and had some home made ice cream made on site with a John Deere stationary engine. We then pressed on to Mt. Hope and Lehmann’s Hardware store and the Lone Star Quilt shop. Holmes County is just a neat place, lots of buggies on the road, manicured farms, and life going on at a different pace from another time.




Our group of three ended up in Weirton WV, and we think Dave and Susan J. stayed in Greensberg, PA, and Ted and Susan K. in Wheeling, WV. We couldn’t raise Jack and Don last night. We will be completely scattered for the rest of the way into Mansfield, MA. From here on in, all the cars will be traveling alone, because we all seem to have different places to go and people to see. We will stay in touch with cell phones and emails and try to keep the blog up to date.

Last night, Pat and I went to a dinner with family and when we came out to leave found we had no lights and a booming thunderstorm bearing down on us. A few probes with the test light showed no power to the switch box. I think a wire has parted inside the wiring loom, power goes in one end of the wire and doesn't come out the other end. (We drove on some rough stretches of highway yesterday where each seam was a heck of a jolt to the suspension.) Dug out my last alligator jumper and lit the headlights (just as it started to pour down rain) and used my flashers for taillights to get back to our lodging.

Day 8 - Indy Motor Speedway

Two groups with 3 model A’s in each headed for Indianapolis this morning. It was so humid, there was a light mist covering everything and it was foggy. You could definitely hear the corn growing. The corn growers have placed “Burma Shave” signs along the road knocking the buying of oil and promoting the buying of ethanol. In fact, we pulled into a service station today and one of the choices was 85% ethanol.










The big event of the day was a visit to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. All six cars arrived at various times and Don S. was met by his lovely daughter Nancy. She was glad to be able to finally match our names with our faces and cars. Highlight of the day was to ride around the track (in a van) and get a track's eye view of what the drivers are looking at. Too bad we couldn’t take our Model A’s. The museum has beautiful old Indy 500 photos on display. There are a lot of vintage and modern racecars that have won the event on display also, as well as a lot of driver memorabilia. There is a large display case devoted to Willy Ribbs from San Jose, Ray probably knows him. Yes, we are making friends everywhere, today we met a couple from the Champaign Model A club. Invited them to come along with us but they declined.

Finished off with a long hot drive on the interstate 465 around Indianapolis and down I70 to Dayton. Jack and Don took the direct route through the middle of Indianapolis and then on secondary roads instead and got here 15 minutes afterward, they would have beaten us except for a detour which took them out onto the interstate for a few miles. There must be a message there somewhere.

Talked to Bill R, he toured the John Deere plant in Moline today and also Ronald Reagan's birthplace in Tampico, IL.

Day 7: Corn, corn, and more corn

As we drove through the hot and humid Iowa and Illinois countryside, you could almost hear the corn growing, it was as high as an elephant’s eye. Bill was our agricultural tour director, we think we know enough now to raise corn, soy beans and alfalfa.



When everybody was finally in this afternoon, we all gathered and had dinner together and then went out in the countryside to a friend of Dave and Susan who had volunteered his garage for any needed repairs. It was a beautiful country home and came complete with fire flies, lightning bugs to you easterners. And we did need a little repair work, Jack and Don arrived with a dead generator, so we stuck on the spare alternator that Jack was carrying, problem solved and now he even has bright headlights.

While we were there, we had ICE CREAM and met a gentleman (Dale) who makes and plays some unusual musical instruments, a hurdy gurdy, and a hammered dulcimer. We were all quite amazed at these unusual instruments.

Now, read more of the story from "John and Judy and a lesser band of A's" in the comments section.

Cast of characters

For those who asked, here's a cast of characters showing all the people you've been reading about on this blog (click any picture for a larger version):

Bob & Pat M., 1931 Coupe	Dave & Susan J. 1930 Coupe Susan & Ted K. 1931 Coupe
Bill R. 1931 Fordor	John and Judy G. 1929 Pickup
Will L. 1931 Fordor	Don S. and Jack C. 1931 Roadster

Happy trails!

Day 6 - More than halfway there!!!!!

Day 6 - Woke up and wonder of wonders, it was DRY!!!! And it was Speedway Motors day. From the ladies, “never saw the men so excited to get up and go” (Speedway Motors only two miles away). Judy opted not to go, Patti went to keep the tour under 2 hours and failed miserably according to her. From the men “what a great tour and it was way too short.”

Never saw so many pedalcars or engines or lunchboxes or tether cars or real race cars, and race driver memorabilia. Loved the Indy display, marveled at the yellow cab memorabilia display. (Mary J, they had over 400 lunchboxes).

Patti was at the door blowing the whistle, when we finally departed at 10:45. Got out of Lincoln after 800 red lights and rock-and-rolled across Iowa. The terrain is very rolling, 60 mph down for 1/2 mile, 55 mph on the flat for 1/2 mile and 45 mph on the uphill for 1/2 mile, over and over and over.



We stopped in Red Oak to meet the Hoeghs (young Bob’s inlaws). Bill R (Calif. farmer) talked farming with Monty Hoegh (Iowa farmer). Did you know that there are 480,000 trucks and pickups in the Midwest and 564,000 tractors and 85,500 combines????

We sent John and Judy out ahead as scouts and when the temperature and the humidity reached 85 degrees, they called it a day and we are encamped at Chariton, IA. We had a Chinese buffet next door to the motel, and not bad for this far from China and across the street from a really big Harley Davidson dealer.

PS from M: Thanks to John and Judy for the pictures - my dad is having "damn flaky internet problems" and couldn't get them online.

* Update 7/12 at 5:30am: got a few more pics from my dad so I added them above. ~M

Day 5 – Pioneer Village, rain, and bad wheel bearing

We 5 Model A’s (Bob and Pat, John and Judy, Jack and Don , Will L., and Bill R) and one modern (Sharon and Chris Pelikan) hit the road early yesterday and ticked off 100 miles and arrived at Pioneer Village in Minden, NE just about when they opened. We spent a big chunk of the day there looking at all the collections. Cars, trucks, tractors, farm equipment, bicycles, stoves, washing machines, airplanes, bells, radios, tools, there is one of everything under the sun there.

When we saturated, we sat down, had root beer floats and revised our travel plans a little. We made contact with John at Speedway Motors and arranged for an early morning tour of their museum, so we decided to stretch our day and get all the way to Lincoln, NE. We bid Sharon and Chris goodbye and hit the road again. In the meantime, it had started to rain, and it rained most of the way to Lincoln. Total mileage for the day, 235 miles. Jack and Don actually got here before us today, since they took a half hour jump start on us.

While at Pioneer, Will decided that he needed to do a side trip to Kansas (about 50 miles south), just so he could say that his A has been in Kansas. As the rest of us rolled into Lincoln, we got a call from Will, he was in a terrible rainstorm, lost, and had a front wheel bearing squeaking. We offered encouragement and kept our fingers crossed. He made it to our hotel, but I don’t think he would have gone much farther.

After dinner, it finally stopped raining so we started working and found that the inner race was seized on the spindle. I found an auto parts store that was still open at 9:50pm and bought a couple cold chisels and a propane torch. In the meantime, the guys were looking in the Model A roster and found Tom Woodman who came down and brought some heavy artillery in the form of a couple large hammers. It took a lot of pounding and chiseling, but we finally got the race off and dressed the spindle with a file. I gave Will my spare bearing and we finished at 11:30pm and fell into bed.

PS: The bad news - rain and wheel bearings, the good news - nice and cool. Today (Tuesday) we'll be crossing Iowa. Click any picture to see a larger image.

Day 4 – Frisco, CO to McCook, NE

Day started with another low tire for John G. Put a repaired spare on and left Frisco, CO and did a really long 2nd-gear (except for Will L.) climb up to the Johnson-Eisenhower Tunnel, 11158 feet. When we came out the other side it was raining and foggy and it rained for the next 100 miles. It is record rainfall in the Denver area.

After lunch, we finally broke out and had a pleasant drive for the rest of the day. We are now 1473 miles from home. Met Chris and Sharon at exit 66A on I76 (that is them holding the welcome sign), and Chris had a 21” tube for John G. which is now on the yellow truck. We lost Bill R. after lunch and found out later that he stopped to talk to an alfalfa farmer and ended up riding around on his tractor and getting all the scoop on farming and water rights in Nebraska.

We also found out John G’s secret for staying awake on these long straight roads: 5 or 6 drops of tabasco on the tongue, it makes the eyes water a little bit but sure wakes you up.



(Note, don't miss the fun updates from all the Model A drivers in the comments section on the previous post - they're great!!!)

A few Colorado pictures - day 3. (Only day 3???)

When we left Salina, we got all spread out through the Utah Canyonlands, lots of up and down and short climbs.

Pat and I stopped at a viewpoint to wait for the 3 cars that we knew were behind us. When nobody came along, we talked to a trucker on the CB and he said there was an old car stopped back about 20 miles that lost a wheel. Thank heavens for cell phones, we were just barely able to raise Judy G on the cell and found that it was just a flat tire. Total lost time was only about a half an hour. Course the first spare that John put on was also leaking, so John put on his second spare, (Murphy’s law: if it is possible to change a tire twice, you will have to change a tire twice).

Seems like we have been gone for weeks. Anyway, here are a few pictures of our day, it was a little damp for a while, (washed the bug juice off the radiator) and it was a little steep for awhile (second gear up to Vail Pass for everybody but Will, I think we are going to study his engine when we get back) but boy did we fly down the other side to Frisco, CO.

Little parking lot maintenance required, Jack’s points keep closing up, so we keep resetting them.

In case you are wondering, the advance scouting party has dispersed, they are out there in the heartland somewhere visiting friends and family, we will see them in a couple days in Illinois.

PS: In the rain picture, if you look real close you can see Jack and Don with no side curtains. *grin* (Click any picture to see a larger version)

How do you spell "anachronism"?

Just got the funniest email from the folks! Apparently Will L. and my parents stopped at a truck stop in Green River, UT waiting for the rest of the A's to catch up and looked up and saw a sign saying "free internet access!" So they thought, "well shoot let's try it." Opened up the rumble seat on the Model A, fired up the laptop, and this is what they looked like. Classic!!!

I wonder what all the truckers thought seeing a sight like this in their truck stop?

Everyone on the trip says thank you so much for all the comments on the blog. They're having a ball reading them all and say there's nothing better after a 12-hour drive than to (eat icecream and) read fun notes from your friends and family. They'll be pushing on to Colorado for the rest of the day.