Well, I got back from my whirlwind Northwest road trip and am safely
back in Arizona. I thought I'd share some of the events of the past
week.
1. Traveled just over 3500 miles in my new Chevy S-10 pickup and pulling
a loaded trailer I achieved about 18 mpg with the air conditioner
running.
2. The Vortec 4.3L V6 handled the towing duties admirably. No problems
getting up rather steep hills along the route.
Here's the series of events as they occurred:
1. Left Green Valley, AZ at 6:00 A.M. Sept. 2. Lost about 1/2 hour in
the rush hour traffic around Phoenix.
2. I intentionally took some less traveled roads to avoid the LA traffic
and made it to Fresno, CA at about 5:30 P.M.
3. Got up Friday morning and drove to Madera where I visited Peter
Ficklin, his winery and his Spitfire project. His son has a Mk3 as
well. Peter is doing a great job of lovingly restoring his Mk1 and when
finished, it will be beautiful.
4. I loaded a Spit 1500 along with a bed full of parts and headed
northward. I stopped for the night just south of Portland.
5. Early on Saturday, I cruised into Portland to unload the Spitfire and
parts and made my way to the All British Field Meet around 11:00 A.M.
The Spitfire offering at that event was very different from years past.
There were several late Spitfires which I had not seen previously. Only
one early Spit was present. The GT6 Lineup was very exciting. Several
beautifully restored round tails including the one that Leon Guyot
almost bought last year to take back to England. I was surprised to see
no Mk3 GT6's at the event.
Also surprising was the lack of familiar faces from Seattle and British
Columbia. If I didn't know better, I would have reached the conclusion
that there was a boycott of the event!
6. After the event I headed north again. I stopped by Dave Eaton's on
the way and visited with him for about 3 hours comparing notes on camber
compensators and looking at his growing collection of Triumph Spitfires,
Heralds and GT6's. Continuing northward, I spent the night in Tacoma.
I got up on Sunday a bit later than the previous days, I made the drive
into Seattle and up to visit Huw Upshall and take a look at his
beautifully fresh Spit 1500 restoration. He really did a great job. We
went to get a bite to eat and passed by a white TR6 that caught Huw's
eye in a junk car lot. We stopped but there was nobody there. The car
was sad but very restorable. Unfortunately, a later call revealed that
it was priced much higher that it was worth. But Huw is now excited
about finding a good TR6 project. I think I sense another Brad Kahler
in the making.
7. Afterwards, I went over to Barry Nelson's house to await his arrival
from the Swap Meet at the Portland ABFM. He got back and we loaded Tiny
Tim on the trailer and heaved the 1300 engine in the back of the truck,
exchanged pleasantries and I was off southward to complete the second
half of my trek.
8. I stopped in Centralia and after Huw bailed me out on my E-Mail
problem, I was able to look at the 487 messages that had collected over
the previous few days. I had loaded Win98 on my laptop and was unaware
that the Dial-up networking did not load until I got on the road. It's
nice to have friends that work for Microsoft!!!
9. Left Centralia on Monday morning and took my time heading toward LA
where my son lives. On the way down, I played tag with several of the
Indy Car teams that were heading southward from the Vancouver Event last
Sunday. Several millions of dollars worth of iron rolling down the
interstate. I stopped in Stockton for the night.
10. Apparently, some to the Indy Car teams stopped for the night as
well, because they were there again as I headed southward on Tuesday. I
arrived in The LA area just in time to hit rush hour traffic. It took
over 2 hours to go from West LA to Newport Beach where my son lives.
But it didn't matter much because he didn't get home from work until
after 7:00 p.m. We visited a while, loaded some of his used Spitfire
parts into the back of the truck and at about midnight we retired.
11. Got up at 5:00 A.M. Wednesday and made it out of there at about 6:00
to head east. That early in the morning, traffic was bearable and I
made good time arriving back home at about 3:00 p.m.
Some observations:
*Gas stations are rip-off operations! There seems to be no rhyme or
reason why one station has gas for $1.599/gallon and 2 miles up the road
it is $1.299.
*Palmdale, CA had the cheapest gasoline I saw in California. A couple
of stations had regular unleaded for $1.229/gallon. Most places on the
highways were up over $1.60/gallon.
*The California Highway Patrol doesn't care if cars pulling trailers
exceed the posted 55 mph speed limit as long as they are traveling along
with the flow of traffic. (don't quote me on that)
*Arizona has the highest posted Speed Limit of any state along the
route. Most places for both cars and trucks is 75 mph. With the wide,
flat roads you make good time.
*If traveling through Phoenix, avoid those times when the work traffic
is at its peak. Not only does it slow down considerably, but during off
peak hours, the carpool lanes are useable to all traffic.
Sorry to be so long winded! It's good to have Tiny Time home so I can
start his rehabilitation.
Regards,
Joe Curry
--
"If you can't excel with talent, triumph with effort."
-- Dave Weinbaum in National Enquirer
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