Event Coverage Three Hot Rods, Three Teardrops, and Three Stooges

I have always loved to get out on the open road and visit different places with my 29 Sedan and teardrop. This year I have convinced two other dudes to come along for the adventure. I have met Roger 40StudeDude out on the road a bunch of times and have always enjoyed his blogs and stories of his travels, so will do my best to entertain you along the way. John from Acme speed shop also writes a mean travel journal.but we won't have a cute Acme gal tagging along with us. Come along for the ride, and if we happen to be coming through your town, watch out for us and give us a wave.

We are leaving Calgary on August 7th, OK I am leaving on the 7th, the other guys are leaving on the 9th. John "Roddermonster" has committed to driving someone around for their wedding on the 8th so I will meet them in Spokane, WA on Sunday night. From there we head to Portland to see the Spruce Goose at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum, and World of Speed Museum in Wilsonville OR. It has been a bucket list thing for Pete to see the goose for a long time. I saw it on my honeymoon in 83 when it was still in Long Beach.

If you use google maps, this is our tentative map https://goo.gl/maps/Sv71Z The end goal is Hot Rod Week and the GG show in Pleasanton, hopefully with lots of laughs and smiles on the way. If you are somewhere along the route or know something cool along the route that we should see, let us know and we will try to include it in the trip. We have some extra time to burn, because our original route was to go straight south, and catch a couple days of Speedweek before heading west. But it looks like mother nature and some greedy miners have changed that plan.


This is me and my Model A


John, also known as Roddermonster here on the HAMB with his 34



This spot reserved for Pete and his Sedan Delivery, and his teardrop that he is still building, and yes we are leaving in a week. Nothing beats a late night thrash and a deadline

 

If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done...

Sounds like a good trip..... Have a good time......

Lynn W

 

You guys will be close , but not close enough to see when you get to Idaho. Stay safe.

 

Love these kind of posts. Have a safe trip and keep us up to speed with blog and many pictures, please. Love your "A" and teardrop.......Have fun.

 

Safe travels

 

Have fun be safe.

 

Take lot's of photo's of your travels. HRP

 

Every time I shake off the "teardrop bug".........
Enjoy, and post plenty of pics and updates!

 

If you are in Portland on the Wed the 12th, "Beaches Cruise In" at P.I.R. would be a fun stop. Car counts (along with some newer stuff) range from 1000, to 1600, every Wed night. The drags are going on as well, 1 car with up to 2 occupants, is 5 bucks !

 

and the power of the HAMB strikes again! We should not be too hard to miss during our travels, so give us a wave, a honk or (preferably) a cold drink if possible. This trip has been on the bucket-list for a long time and it has all the makings of a real blast. No hard-set itinerary, no wives and NO CAR TROUBLE.

 

This should be pretty rad! Good luck!

 

Thanks Marty, I think that may be one we need to add to the list.

 

Go Barry, Go!!!

 

Have fun and watch out for deer!

 

Cool

 

OK, New Years Resolution......Get Shit done!
I now have the utmost respect for guys like 40StudeDude, Bob K, Acme Speed Shop, and others that write about their adventures on the road while doing it. My biggest obstacle is that I am a boondocker when traveling, meaning I don't stay at hotels and don't like staying in heavily populated areas. Therefore WIFI is a limited resource. Electricity for my laptop and other devices used to be a problem but I installed a PV panel on the teardrop this year and now have lots of juice to keep me going.
So now it is January and I will try to remember what we did 4 1/2 months ago.

 

Here is the last guy to join our group. Pete had been thrashing on his teardrop until the night before we left.

 

Lol, stuff happens . I look forward to reading your posts, and hopefully looking at some pics.

 

The adventure was to be a clockwise travel plan, heading from Calgary to Bonneville for Speedweek and then over to Pleasanton for the GGuys show and then up the coast to Portland and back to Calgary. After we found out that Speedweek was cancelled we decided to reverse the direction of travel into a counter clockwise direction so that we would be going south on the coast which makes it easier to pull into the lookout points that take in the majestic views of the ocean. What is it about large bodies of water that makes us stand there and breathe deeply?
Our vacation dates had also already been laid out so with B'Ville cancelled we had some time to burn before GGuys. John had previous commitments to chauffeur a wedding with his 34 on Saturday, and Pete was still thrashing on his teardrop so their departure from Calgary would not be until Sunday morning. I decided to leave Friday and get a couple extra days in. I headed for Spokane to visit some friends.
A couple hours out of Calgary on Hwy 3 you will drive through the middle of Frank Slide. On April 29, 1903, at 4:10 a.m., 82 million tonnes (30 million cubic meters) of limestone crashed from the summit of Turtle Mountain and buried a portion of the sleeping community of Frank in the valley below. The dimensions of the rock mass that fell are staggering: 150 meters (500 feet) deep, 425 meters (1,400 feet) high and one kilometer (3,280 feet) wide. Estimates are that 90 people perished in this event. If you ever get the chance to stop at the interpretative site, it is well worth seeing. Here is a link http://history.alberta.ca/frankslide/default.aspx



This is the Worlds Largest truck. Its in the park at Sparwood BC. The park was packed so this was as close as I could get for a pic

 

I love shadow pics going down the highway.


First campsite was awesome. After an uneventful border crossing, I headed through Eureka, MT and headed south along Lake Koocanusa. No, its not an Indian name for a lake. Lake Koocanusa was named in a contest won by Alice Beers of Rexford, Montana. The name is made from the first three letters of the Kootenay (alternately, Kootenai) River, Canada, and USA. Because the lake straddles the Canadian and US border. Koo-can-usa. Who says you can't learn incredible facts on the HAMB?

First night overlooking Lake Koocanusa

The sign I encountered just before stopping for the night. I was safe, I was a hundred yards south of there.

Just in case you cannot read the sign. My wife would love to camp here. Ha ha.

The view out the teardrop window in the morning. Man it does not get more quiet and peaceful. I should have taken a picture of the stars that night.

 

If any of you use Google maps to plan your adventure. Here is a link for our route. https://goo.gl/maps/yZi6NpbRycm It covers the route up until we got to Lewiston ID. After that we separated and I went home through Montana to try to acquire a Spartan Manor trailer located deep in the wilderness. My last leg https://goo.gl/maps/vKUdRRsv4cs John and Pete went straight north through Coeur d'Alene, ID

 

Yeah, Buddy, pics are what it is all about, and stuff does happen. After getting home, lots of shit hit the fan. Family shit, job shit. Got laid off in November. Now on Wife support as John puts it. But hey, life is an adventure. Lets keep going.

 

I spent a day and a half in Spokane catching up with old friends and just tooling around. Dumb and Dumber were supposed to meet me in Spokane Sunday afternoon. Traveling like a couple of tourists with no direction they were late. We had a communication problem....I will leave it at that, and they blew through town without stopping meet at our rendezvous location. They should have been in Spokane by 2pm and so by 6 I was a little pissed. When I finally tracked them down, they were already halfway to Colfax, WA on 195 which was our planned route. We met at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. There was some discussion about calling it a night there, but a local suggested that it was not a safe place. So off to Colfax we went. I like School parking lots for quick overnights, especially in the summer when they rarely get used. I found the High School on my GPS so that was our campsite.

 

Next morning Pete was off in search of a cup of Java and returned with a couple cups for himself and John. I am not a coffee drinker. I prefer my caffeine cold and bubbly with a splash of rum. Maybe not before breakfast though.
One of our goals was to try a bunch of mom and pop diners when we traveled. We cruised through town and found a little hole in the wall called the Top Notch cafe. Great food, great service. Pete ordered a short stack of pancakes. He saw an order go to the table behind us and asked the waitress if that is what his order was going to look like. She just replied "yeah". Pete said, "Come on, I am just a little guy"

One down, two to go....

Best one liner of the trip so far, John says "if you can't finish them, you could use it as an ass gasket the next time you need to take a dump." For those of you that don't know the terminology, an "ass gasket" is the piece of paper with a hole in the middle that you put on a toilet to shield you from "the germs on the seat"

 

I am not getting paid to advertise for these guys, but if you are anywhere close to Colfax and hungry this may be for you. The beast challenge is 2 one pound patties, 8 slices of bacon, 4 ounces of ham, 8 slices of cheese, lettuce, pickles, onion and tomatoes on a 5 inch bun and 1 pound of fries. Yum! If you complete it in 25 minutes it's free, if not it's $37.37. Who's up for the challenge???? Oh you also get a t shirt either way. The t-shirt says "I beat the Beast" or "First among the Losers"

 

After full bellies and a full tank of gas we are on our way. John, (roddermonster on the HAMB) took the lead followed by Pete, and I

 

I have to tell you, if you ever encounter roddermonster, on the road and he gives you directions, back away, get your map and figure it out for yourself. Most people who have traveled with him, know him as by his Indian name "Johnny Which-a-way" He got a new GPS but is still "directionally challanged" or "F#$%in lost" as some put it. I know sooner or later he will read this but facts are facts buddy
Minutes after the photo above was taken, John missed the turn for Walla Walla where we were going to stop for some of the best onions in the world. When we stopped for gas in Connell, I asked Which-a-way if he decided not to go for onions. He said "Its just up the road".....and out came the atlas. For whatever reason, we let him lead again coming out of Connell. He led us on a fine tour of Pasco, WA and finally pulled into a parking lot admitting he was a "little lost" It was now really starting to heat up so I pointed him in the right direction and away we went. Heading down Clearwater Ave, all he had to do was get to the 82 and head south. In a fit of "Premature Evacuation", he turned left, before going under the interstate, which then took us north on 82. I should have let him go, but Pete was right behind him. I wound up the old A Bone and blew by him doing about 90. The next overpass to turn around was 5 miles up the road. I always wanted to see that section of Interstate......in both directions.
Three strikes in one day, you are out. Forced to the back of the pack.....in shame HAHAHA

 

Many years ago, I was traveling with a 24 foot trailer through Washington on the way to the Oregon Coast. We camped along the Columbia at Maryhill State Park. My wife and two daughters are not early risers so when I get up, I usually jump on my bike and go explore. I rode up the hill and found the Maryhill Stonehenge by accident. I had told Hewey and Dewey about it before we left and we agreed it would be cool to stop and see it as we had some time to burn. The Maryhill Stonehenge was the first monument in the United States to honor the dead of World War I (specifically, soldiers from Klickitat County, Washington who had died in the then still on-going war).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryhill_Stonehenge


Cool gas station at the bottom of the hill

 

Leaving Maryhill, we headed west on I84 right alongside the Columbia River. We had decided to make a detour to see Multnomah Falls. I had driven by many times, but never stopped to take a closer look. Pete says they have the best Hot Dogs in the whole world. So we stopped, we saw water falls and we had Hot Dogs.

 

Cool sunset coming into Portland.