JackMcCornack Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 I'm sort of a newbie (to this thread at least) and just yesterday heard about this gathering; I'm headed for Ohio (from Oregon) and y'all are right on the route (well, not exactly, but sufficient for blatting purposes) so I'll try to hook up in Custer SC if there's room for a weirdo Locost. And man, mine's way weirdo. It's set up for fuel efficiency (you'll note the MAX MPG license plate) and has a 32 horsepower Kubota industrial diesel under the hood. Hey, somebody has to bring up the rear, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Automoda Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 Hey rzempel. I'm in between SLC and Provo. I'm leaving tomorrow too. Where are you staying and when are you leaving tomorrow? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scannon Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 Jack, We're all weird in our own ways. Welcome, I'm looking forward to meeting you and seeing your diesel Se7en. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzempel Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 Hey rzempel. I'm in between SLC and Provo. I'm leaving tomorrow too. Where are you staying and when are you leaving tomorrow? I'm at the Holiday Inn Express, and will probably roll out around 8. I think Gert is here, too, but staying in the Best Western around the corner. When I got to Provo, the traffic was so bad (probably because of the construction) I turned north on the 189. What a great decision. I had forgotten how beautiful Provo Canyon is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzempel Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 And man, mine's way weirdo. It's set up for fuel efficiency (you'll note the MAX MPG license plate) and has a 32 horsepower Kubota industrial diesel under the hood. Hey, somebody has to bring up the rear, right? I've been following your build for some time now, and I am really looking forward to seeing Max. And meeting you, too. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Automoda Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 Oh, you guys are in Park City or something. I wont be rolling out till later. I'd have to get up mighty early to catch up with you guys, and I still need to pick up a qt of royal purple and get some more minutes for my trac phone. So I'll see ya in Jackson. I've got a KOA to set up at 15 miles out of Jackson before I head to the hotel Saturday evening. See ya there... if I'm presentable. I wouldnt want to be seen with bugs on the windshield or anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzempel Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 Yes, Park City. I'll be leaving early because I don't care to hang around hotels. but, I'll be dawdling along so you may catch up with me anyway. And gert is trailering until Jackson. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lancylad Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 Leaving in an hour, Stewart we will be in Billings on Sunday, lets touch base along the way, we havn't booked a place in Billings, have you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lancylad Posted July 10, 2011 Share Posted July 10, 2011 Had a great drive to Great Falls today. Incredibly windy all the way. Car ran terrific- looking forward to pushing on to Billings tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzempel Posted July 10, 2011 Share Posted July 10, 2011 (edited) I'm sitting here in Jackson, sipping freshly brewed coffee and watching as the sun begins to warm the valley. It hasn't quite reached me, yet. But, that's OK, nobody else is up yet anyway and I love this early morning stillness. We had a very nice pre-tour day yesterday. I left Park City early, and on the advice of a local took Highway 89 into Jackson--it goes through rather than around the mountains. I expected everyone else would take the more direct route, so imagine my surprise when, while stopped on top of the Salt Creek pass for photos, Gert and Rosie pulled up. After a short chat, we both left. I poked and dawdled and stopped in almost every town of substance (and some of none), but still arrived in Jackson by 2:30. My wife had flown into Jackson Hole, and she was at the Ranch Inn with news that Gert and Rosie had unloaded their gear and were parking the trailer at their friend's house. In short order, Bill arrived, followed by Herb and Dion. Once all the trailers were parked we gathered for a nice dinner at the Snake River Brewery, joined by Gert's friends Burt and Teresa (I hope I got that right). Today we have a nice run to Thermopolis. When she saw our intended route, Teresa opined that we, "sure aren't taking a very efficient way to get there." Really? Imagine that! Well, my coffee is getting cool, and the sun has reached the center of town, so I'm off until later. I'm looking forward to meeting the rest of the tourers, and missing everyone else. Until later.... Edited July 10, 2011 by rzempel add photo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GBOLT Posted July 10, 2011 Share Posted July 10, 2011 Thanks for the update. Scenery looks spectacular. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitcat Posted July 10, 2011 Share Posted July 10, 2011 Rzempel: Great post/photo, keep 'em coming! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lancylad Posted July 10, 2011 Share Posted July 10, 2011 Just getting ready to leave for Billings. No wind - screaming hot! Looking forward to hitting the open road again. Boy do I love my 7! See you guys soon - Steve and Linda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzempel Posted July 11, 2011 Share Posted July 11, 2011 (edited) Alright guys, day one is nearly in the bag. We're done driving, and I have a cold brew in front of me. All that remains is a nice dinner to cap a (nearly) terrific day [more later]. We pulled out of Jackson early, about 9:00. The sun wasn't quite done warming the air, but it was still very comfortable. I didn't have many hopes as we joined the parade of rented Harleys and Motorhomes on the highway out of town. There was an unending stream of traffic that all turned into Teton National Park with us. At the little guard shack where they fleece the tourists (have you seen the prices to go into a National Park these days?) I was ready with my magic pass, but Gert said something to the ranger ("these aren't the droids you're looking for...") and he waved us through without payment. Amazing. That place really is amazing. No words or photos can really do it justice. The Grand Teton are simply incredible. We drove through the park, and once we left, there was astonishingly enough, no more traffic. Apparently all those cars, RVs, and motorcycles were stuck in the park's honey trap. We buzzed up and over the mountains, descended into the Wyoming grasslands, and hit a wall of heat. Let me tell you, cooling systems were fully tested today. In Shoshoni (yes, they spelled it wrong), it was 96. We lunched in a quaint little "owboy cafe' in Dubois, walked along the town's quaint little boardwalk shops, and looked into the quaint general store. That was enough quaintness for the day. So, we left. Into more heat. Oh yes, should I also mentin the wind along the aptly named " Wind River?" Probably not. I will admit, it wasn't all heat and wind today. There were some gorgeous scenery as well. Particularly as we got closer to Thermopolis. There was a simply stunning canyon to enjoy. I slowed down so that I could read the signs along the way pointing out the Cretaceous (600 million yuear old) rocks, and a few million year younger ones, too. We arrived in Thermopolis--if you guessed that the Thermo part of it's name means it's hot, you're right--so we stopped at the Dinosaur Museum. I had no idea, but this is apparently the number one rated dinosaur museum in the entire country. It looked like a bunch of old bones, to me, though. 'Might have been sour grapes, though...as we arrived, I heard a huge noise under my car, and on inspection I found my exhaust hanger bracket is broken (this is the "nearly" referred to above). Now I'm in a small dying town in the middle of nowhere with a broken car and no stores or shops open because it's Sunday. I guess I'd better wrap up and go find a way to fix my car. Until next time.... Edited July 11, 2011 by rzempel add photos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitcat Posted July 11, 2011 Share Posted July 11, 2011 The Tetons are amazingly beautiful. I was there in '60 and again in 2000. Jackson Hole exploded over that period, scenery stayed beautiful. We had the same heat experience: mid '90's coming in, water froze in the campgrounds up in the mountains that nite. Good luck w/the repair! As some poster here aptly noted, adventure begins when plans fall apart (easy for me to say tho, sitting at work, living vicariously:)). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeanG Posted July 11, 2011 Share Posted July 11, 2011 It seems to be a good trip and great adventure so far. Keep it up and have fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racergt Posted July 12, 2011 Share Posted July 12, 2011 Sounds like I'm missing a great drive, other than that 'thermo' thing Looking forward to more pics! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzempel Posted July 12, 2011 Share Posted July 12, 2011 Another great touring day is in the bag. Yesterday, I left off as I went off to dinner and with a broken exhaust mount to repair. I asked the girl a the motel desk if there were any hardware stores in town which might possibly be open. I described what I needed--perforated metal pipe hanging strap, she relayed it to her husband who happened to be on the phone and in the neighboring 'big city' of Riverton. He assured her, and she assured me that he had exactly what I needed. So I went to dinner with the guys. We chose the "Happy BBQ." Mostly because it appeared to be the only place in town that was open for business. Unfortunately even though the BBQ was Happy, the waitress wasn't. We had a great time anyway, and the food was pretty good, and the company was fabulous. After dinner, I returned to the motel compound, and was greeted by a tall guy waving something int he air, "Which one of you has the broken car? I have the tape." I identified myself as the ailing party, and "Tom" proudly handed me a roll of teflon pipe thread tape. Hmmmmm, this wasn't going as planned. I explained the situation to Tom, who as it turned out is a former US Marine who left the service after two tours in Iraq...apparently none the less for the wear, except possibly the unfortunate addiction Methamphetamine which was quickly destroying his teeth. No matter. Tom, like all tweekers had a stash of "stuff" in the basement. Tom happily went off to rummage through his stuff and shortly returned with a 8 inch diameter band clamp. We wound it around the frame and exhaust pipe, and I crossed my fingers and hoped it would hold until I can get a proper repair. We shall see. In any event, we were all anxious to get started in the morning, as today was scheduled as a long day of driving. About 30 minutes in, and about 30 miles into the middle of nowhere, Herb's car decided it was tired and didn't want to run any more. Great. Herb pulled over, followed by Bill and I. And, curiously, abut ten minutes later, by our new friend Tom the Tweeker. A quick diagnosis found that one of Herb's coil signal wires was broken, so we rigged a temporary patch and continued into the next town where we stopped at the local auto parts store. We were puzzling out the best repair given the limited selection of parts in the store when, fortunately, one of those grizzled old (not really..he was only 70 or so) guys that used to inhabit all parts joints looked on and said, "I got what you need...you need a coupla these special connectors from my box of stuff." Or, word to that effect. with the special connectors in hand, repairs were completed in short order and we were on our way again. And almost immediately ran into several miles of road construction. Or deconstruction. Or something. It was miles of dirt road, in any case. Once through that, we seemed to fly to the mountains. As we drove up into the mountains, and straight into one of those situations that exist only to suck the joy out of life, we came up to 1) a doofus who wouldn't let anyone pass. Really. When Dion tried to pass in a two lane passing zone, that idiot actually tried to cut him off. There wasn't much time to hurl invectives, though. Another mile or two brought all uf is, including mister considerate, to a near halt behind a giant earth mover being towed through the hills. It was absolute agony. Finally, we each managed to sneak past by using our superior power to weight ratios. I had the smug enjoyment, just before I made my run, of watching Mr. courteous try and fail to accelerate to pass. His POS just didn't have any go left at that altitude. I resisted giving him a special salute as I passed. The road after that was glorious. All the traffic in our direction was still behind the monster machine, and there was nearly none coming the other direction. There were trees, meadows, deer, flowers, snow...all that stuff. No, I didn't take any pictures, I was busy driving. You'll have to go yourself. Too soon, the mountains werre behind us, and we had a long slog through the grassland. the grassland is beautiful enough, but unfortunately, the roads are awfully straight. We had lunch in Buffalo and continued on our way, knowing that we were waaaaay behind schedule. As we left Buffalo, we had the first real rain; though Gert at the front had only wet asphalt from rain that stoppe as he approached, and I at the end got big wet raindrops falling on my head. It only lasted five or six minutes, so there was no reason to put the top up. On and on, through the grass we went watching the super cells dump huge volumes of rain not far from us. We, fortunately avoided any of it. We did get a bit of high wind, and at one point one of Gerts windows blew out of the frame. It was quickly recovered, and we ultimately found our stop at Newcastle. Tom and Skip were waiting for us at the Motel. We all enjoyed a nice dinner together, and I think we're pretty much done for the day. Our numbers have grown, and I'm sure the adventure will as well. Until next time.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitcat Posted July 12, 2011 Share Posted July 12, 2011 Jeez, great stuff. Almost glad I am not there, I'd miss these posts . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzempel Posted July 12, 2011 Share Posted July 12, 2011 Jeez, great stuff. Almost glad I am not there, I'd miss these posts . Thanks for the encouragement. I'll do what I can to keep the commentary coming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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