Take me (back) to the Black Hills - May 24, 2014

The song was totally in my mind, who sang that?

The Black Hills of Dakota were beckoning and I was happy to head that way, leaving Wyoming and continuing along the I80 into South Dakota...




...lots of spectacular scenery lay ahead.


Towards the Black Hills. The I80 continues its long easterly course after leaving Wyoming.


You see all sorts... This is a fifth-wheeler towing a car trailer with what looks like a golf buggy on it. Not allowed in Australia!

After a stop for some fuel at Spearfish - where I got a fuel discount card! - I drove on through Rapid City, having some lunch there after striking rain. That was interesting... about two miles into the rain the passenger's wiper stopped working!

This was a repeat of what happened to Janet and I last trip, there are some plastic bushings in the wiper linkages that die of old age, becoming brittle and just breaking up, and one day they just fall apart. I thought all was fine as the driver's wiper was still working... until about two minutes later it stood up in front of me and stayed there!

The rain stopped, so it wasn't a problem, just a small matter of getting a couple of the $2 bushes and ten minutes to fit them. After my lunch at Arby's I drove on into the Black Hills of Dakota:


A little rain... This is in the Black Hills south of Rapid City. I'd been through some rain, but that ended soon enough. Glorious scenery awaited...

Then, as I turned off towards Mt Rushmore, I noticed this bridge:


The timber bridge. This grabbed my attention as I rushed under it. The bridge is made of laminated timber, similar in style to the factory where I used to work for Ralph Symonds at Homebush Bay.

It was certainly different to the norm so I thought it worthy of a bit of investigation...


A closer look. Here you can see how the timber is laminated to give the needed strength, formed into curves at the same time, I'd imagine. Steel brackets are used to join everything together.

Still, the main quarry of this drive (like that pun?) was the carvings on Mt Rushmore, steeply climbing in the heavy traffic I soon saw them. I didn't want to stay here as the 'monument' side of things is of no interest to me. I just wanted to see how big they were and how they fitted in with the surroundings.


Mount Rushmore. My reason for wanting to see this, more than anything, was just to get an idea of the size of it all. What a task the sculptors took on!


Fitting in the rocks. This is to show how it all fits in to the rocks from which it was carved. There was a lot of visitors as it was the Saturday of a long weekend.


A part of the scenery. Driving away there is this last glimpse, I think it's George Washington's head visible. The rocks are imposing, the carvings are a tribute to man's ingenuity.

But I was very interested to see the Crazy Horse sculpture in progress further into the hills. I've seen a bit about this on TV recently, where I learned that the widow of the sculptor (who started on this job in 1948) has been directing operations since her husband died

Some time in the past couple of days I'd heard this lady had died, but the family is carrying on. I guess that's why you might have ten kids!


Even bigger! If you've never seen anything about the carving of Crazy Horse, perhaps you should take time to look it up. A very interesting story... this distant view, taken from a mile away, shows the enormity of the project.


...and bigger! On telephoto from the same spot.

Huge, isn't it? Dimensions they give are as follows:

Length: 641 feet

Arm length: 263 feet

Overall height: 563 feet

Horse's head height: 219 feet

Crazy Horse's head: 87'6"

They spend a week or so preparing for each blast, sometimes taking hundreds of tons of rock out with the dynamite at a time.

Sometimes, going by their display video, they prepare special blasts for holidays when lots of people will be there, colourful timed charges that make a great spectacle of what they're doing.

I tried to get a shot of the model in the centre with the real thing in the background, it didn't work out all that well, but you can get some idea from it:


The concept. Taken from within the visitor's centre, this shows both the real thing and a model of how it's intended to carve away the rock.

The centre is huge, immense! And such lovely timber finish, too, I really liked the way they've done it...


Visitors' centre. The centre is huge, obviously large crowds come to see the works. There is usually a bus trip to take people to the foot of the carving, but the weather this day didn't allow the buses to run. They use old school buses, by the way.


Gift shops. There are two, one featuring Indian stuff, the other about the carving. I bought a couple of little things, one I thought would be very appropriate for someone at home.

But the day was getting older all the time and it was time to put myself within range of getting to Dickinson, North Dakota, by morning. I chose to leave by the road that goes straight through the hills to Spearfish, over the wall of the Pactola Reservoir...


Pactola Reservoir Driving towards Deadwood on the 2-lane concrete road over the dam wall I thought the lake was picturesque.

...a change of scenery and certainly nothing to regret. Whoever penned the song about the Black Hills probably felt strongly about their beauty. Pretty country!

It also went through the town of Deadwood, which I now feel I didn't photograph well enough. I missed the old buildings and the atmosphere of the place, but I did get two shots:


Deadwood. Another connection with old Westerns... the town of Deadwood. It certainly is different, though I didn't take enough pics to properly show it.


Deadwood's homes. Lots of Deadwood is built on steep slopes surrounding the gorge through which the town runs.

At Spearfish I again topped up with fuel - and got my discount - and then headed off towards North Dakota. Along the way I made phone calls that set up some visits with people I'd planned to meet, but for the most part it was a matter of keeping on going on the long straight roads of the prairie...


Heading north. Long straight roads and bare prairielands awaited me on the run into North Dakota.

I was close enough to roll on into Dickinson early the next morning, as had been arranged back in Columbus. So I stopped at Bowman, pulling into the parking area of a truck stop...


Truck Stop. There were a few more trucks around than in this shot from Google Earth, but there was certainly plenty of room for me to park and bunk down at this truck stop in Bowman, ND.

...and climbed into the bed in the back... it had been a nice day.

 

Sunday and Monday, May 25 and 26, 2014 are the subject this time. A big loop round North Dakota and including a dash into Canada:




I drove up from Bowman to Dickinson as the sun came up on a cloudy morning...


Sunrise and a promise of rain. Off in the east the sun was barely squinting through the clouds. Rain was falling out there, but it didn't fall anywhere I was. Fortunately, as the wipers still needed to be fixed.

Fortunately it didn't rain anywhere I went, those wiper bushings had yet to be purchased and fitted. The long straight roads...


Straight roads across the prairie. It was easy running into Dickinson along these long straight roads.


The featureless prairie. People speak disparagingly about the area, but it's all in the eye of the beholder. The prairie is plain and featureless most of the time, but it still provides grasslands for cattle to graze.

...made for easy travelling and I reached Dickinson quite early.

The mining industry, principally oil 'fracking' but also some gravel mining, has taken over and the town has swollen a lot in the last year or two. Here's another oil well pump that looks a bit different to others I've posted:


Oil wells. Oil production is in full swing in North Dakota, 'fracking' being employed to get the oil out of thin layers of shale two miles underground. This pump is one without the long arm, the motor being on the same side as the swinging part and so it looks something like a mother cuddling a baby as it operates.

And taking this pic led to an interesting situation. As I went to drive away, I noticed a police car was coming up behind me. I put my blinker on to pull out and he hit his siren briefly, so I stopped again and stepped out of the van. You'd have thought I'd murdered his mother!

"Get back in the car, sir!" he demanded in no uncertain terms. I asked why he'd stopped me, but he kept on insisting that I had to get back in the car, something about the scene being some kind of enforcement zone. Anyway, after I finally got back in he told me I didn't use the blinkers, but I had.

So I put the blinker on and went to get out and check and see if it was working. And all hell broke loose again! "Back in the vehicle, sir!" It turns out that the actual problem was that the brake light and blinker globes, which are shared, had burned out because the brake light switch wasn't adjusted correctly. Some duct tape around the pedal arm provided a temporary fix to a problem which should have been evident much earlier.

Going into Dickinson was much friendlier. Tim, my newfound acquaintance I met in Columbus hadn't made it home, but had made other arrangements for me involving two of his friends, grabbing a welcome shower the home of one of them.The second of Tim's friends was Kevin, a young man who's working in North Dakota to make extra money but lives in California. Nothing was too much trouble for him and he even gave me this cap:



North Dakota cap. A high-quality cap featuring the buffalo and the year of both the separation of North and South Dakota and the year both were admitted to the Union.

Kevin was very good to me. He shepherded me around and got me to the spare parts shop which was open on Sunday. The wiper link pieces were cheap enough, but a bit tricky to fit, though the brake light globes weren't hard.

And at one point - when Kevin shouted me lunch at a nice steak restaurant, actually - I saw this Dodge Viper arrive at a panel beater's place next door:


The Viper has been attacked! While we were having lunch, this Viper arrived at the workshop next door. Damage is more than just extensive, but apparently it's worth fixing.

When I bade my new friend goodbye and drove out of town I didn't get far and found myself tired. I pulled into a truck rest area and had a sleep in the back of the van, rising early so I saw a lot of mist. In fact, I kept thinking that the day was very slow getting under way.

Each of those oil wells burns off surplus gas, too, which is visible in these conditions...


Fires add to oilwell appearance. Not so visible in the daytime, the oil wells mostly have these flames coming from them.

Every farm had a well or two on it, every time you turned you saw yet another. But not here:


Erosion changes the scene. Not featureless here, this section of the country near the river has been eroded badly.

New Town saw the end of this kind of scenery, I made a point of getting fuel there, sufficient for me to get into Canada and back out, as I knew the price there is higher. Here it was $3.64.9 per gallon and I spent $33.00 filling it up.


Nicely done. When I pulled in for fuel at New Town this nice B-body (a Daytona?) was just pulling away.

This area was well-eroded and no doubt flows a lot of water as ice melts each year. And there's water in the lakes in the area around New Town further north...


Lake Sakakawae. This lake is a major attraction in western North Dakota. This section is in an Indian reservation, but there's still plenty of boating and fishing going on.

I was taken by the haystacks last trip, when they were being piled up. This time the winter was just over and the residue was all that was left. This farm has a bit left over, others maybe not so much, but it's all part of the cycle in these parts.


The hay's being eaten! Those haystacks we saw last trip were still a subject of concern. The last bales are still left on many, but it's clear they've done their job getting the cattle through a nasty winter.

Another different oil well pump, it looks like it has a broken back! It appears to me that the tanks are for storage at each pump, though in some places batteries of pumps are on the go and more storage is called for.


Pumping more oil. This pump is just like the others, but its broken-backed appearance provides yet another visual feature to notice.

I reached Canada about 11am, going through the usual border inspections and interrogation. Fortunately there was no traffic and no delays and Saskatchewan awaited me.


Into Canada again! I had that parcel to post so I drove to Oxbow for the purpose. The prairie in this part of Canada is pretty featureless too.


Trees for the cattle? Something new in the scenery in Canada was this kind of clump of trees left in farming paddocks. I concluded that they were there to give shelter for the cattle in winter.

The clumps of trees stood out immediately. Later I saw many signs warning about transporting elm timber due to a disease called 'Dutch Elm Disease'. Eventually I found the Post Office at Oxbow and posted my parcel...


Post office. This is what a Canadian post office looks like... it's just off the main street of the little town of Oxbow.

Driving into Canada to post this to Mike in BC had saved me about $50 postage.

After driving East alongside the railway for some time I had lunch at a little diner with some interesting wall decorations near the border with Manitoba...


No spurs! This warning was one of the little items in the diner where I had some 'tucker' about half-way from Oxbow to the Manitoba border. And it clearly shows what time I ate.

... and then I crossed into that province for the short drive to my re-entry point to the USA.


Into Manitoba. I followed the railway along an easterly route for about 60 miles, stopping for lunch just before the Manitoba border.


Another border crossing. Heading out of Canada back into North Dakota, this is the Canadian Customs point, around the bend is the US entry point.

There was a lot of water lying around at a couple of places, melted snow I suppose, still soaking in during the late spring.


Water aplenty. A couple of times I drove between paddocks covered by shallow water like this, near Bottineau.

And I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this:


You wouldn't see this at home! A farmer takes his refilled gas (anhydrous ammonia?) tanks back to the farm. Such sights were common.

But shortly afterwards I saw another one, this time the two tanks being side by side.

Remembering that the purpose I'd originally set for driving into North Dakota was to reach the geographic centre of the North American continent, I headed down to Rugby and found it without problems:


Centre of North America. This was what I'd come into North Dakota for... to see the point reckoned to be the geographical centre of the continent.


From a distance... The sign points to the distant parts that form the extremities so far away from this point.

My next goal was to get to Grand Forks, which was reached just before dark. On this side of North Dakota the farming emphasis is on crops rather than cattle and it reminded me of some of the Darling Downs...


Cropping. The eastern part of the state is more reliant on cropping than the west, where cattle seem to be almost the whole focus. The land here looks a lot like the Darling Downs out towards Dalby, but with fewer trees for the most part.

Lakes abound in this country. Some are large, some small, but this one had some spoiling on its banks with a shabby old barn falling down and lots of wrecked cars lying about. The property was occupied by a tow truck driver...


Spoiling the neighborhood. This delapidated old barn and stacks of crashed and damaged cars was unusual to find on the shores of one of the many lakes.I stopped for a look because I needed a bit of a break from driving and because I was curious. After that I pressed on to Grand Forks, by which time it was almost 9pm, and refuelled at the Loaf 'n' Jug service station to get my discount with the card I'd picked up in Spearfish. The tank was pretty low and it took 29.76 gallons and I got $1.49 discount to make the purchase $102.65.

Then I went next door to McDonalds and ultimately slept soundly as I looked forward to a lighter day on Tuesday...

 

An interesting thing about North Dakota was the frequency with which locals would ask, "How come you came to North Dakota?"

My response always was, "Because I want to drive through every state of the USA." But then they tended to become insistent, "But why did you come to North Dakota?"

At this time I'd explain that I had seen something about the 'Geographic Centre of North America' monument in Rugby, and I'm going to see that, but the retort I'd get then was:

"But why did you come to North Dakota, there's nothing here to see!"

North Dakota, by the way, was the third new state I entered on this trip. Seventeen to go...

Also, at this point I was starting to frequent the McDonalds stores to set up for the night.

I would pull up and park as close as I could to the store, which gave me their wi-fi in the van if I wanted, take the laptop inside and find a power point to plug it in and charge it up, eating some of their 'fine fare' as I checked the various forums and brought things up to date with my travel 'blog'. Here is the Google Earth view of the store I went to at Grand Forks:



This narrative is copied from that blog, which I did on a site called 'Travelpod', which is now deceased. 'Travelark' came along then and I transferred it all to that one (an option Travelark presented), but I never completed 'blogging' the trip at that time. I only got about half-way before a couple of factors led me to abandon it. Like there only being so many hours in a given day and a near-total lack of internet access over three days I was in Canada. Once I got that far behind I just had to give up. This is the reason that the tense might sometimes change in this narrative.

At that time I had yet to learn of the excellent arrangement that Walmart have, where you can pull your campervan or motorhome into any spot in the staff carpark and it's legal to camp there. You have all the things you might need inside, wi-fi, toilets, fresh mangoes and grapes. Very handy and I was to start using it later. In the meantime the McDonalds' carparks saw me regularly, which did lead to one little problem later on...

 

I had a definite destination this day, Tuesday, May 27, 2014. I've now been on the road for a week and I was headed for River Falls, Wisconsin.




I woke up in Grand Forks and started driving south towards Fargo. It was simple freeway running, with the scenery showing still that eastern North Dakota is cropping country rather than grazing... still like the Downs, perhaps Moree-Narrabri blacksoil country. But with much more moisture around.

And photo opportunities, though this is from the previous afternoon:


Elusive Baja. On my previous trip I'd run out of opportunities to get a pic of the Subaru Baja. As we had Subaru Foresters at home, and this model isn't sold there, I was keen to get one and this one was at a rest area at Devil's Lake, about ninety miles before Grand Forks.

Only forty miles out of Grand Forks I pulled up at another Rest Area near Hillsboro for a quick refresh and saw a truck which has been busy delivering other new trucks:



Truckload. Methods of delivering trucks in America have been something which has attracted my attention, this was one I hadn’t seen before.

Again I struck a lot of roadworks, with two lanes closed and traffic from opposite directions using the two lanes that remained. A couple of times I've seen whole decks removed from bridges, on this stretch I saw one like that, but more of it was simply tearing up the concrete to renew it:


Road renovation. These machines are tearing up the concrete, with the road being rebuilt over a few miles. Broken concrete and bent and twisted reinforcing rods are piling up.

As I neared Fargo I snapped this shot of a massive battery of silos for grain storage...


Malting plant. Silos are seen in abundance, further evidence of the grain-growing nature of the area. This one is at a malting plant.

It was actually a malting plant, with another large grain processing facility just a little further on.


Witches hats? Who needs little witches hats when you can have these big plastic things? Narrowing to one lane was very common as there's so much roadwork going on. This is near Ashby.

Yes, more roadworks... but I still found the roads to be really good. Fargo I breezed around on the Interstate and then I entered Minnesota, the first of two new states I'd enter this day.

I'm told that Minnesota claims to have 10,000 lakes, and there certainly was a lot of water lying around. I don't think I saw a single farm dam, I saw a lot of little puddles and small lakes where farmers were forced to plow around them and pattern their plowing on the landform due to the lake's presence.

And I saw a lot of homes built on the lake frontages, good living indeed:


Living by the lakes. Most of the decent-sized lakes were surrounded by homes. Some might be weekenders, I guess, but living by the lake is a big thing in Minnesota.

And as I drove into the early afternoon admiring the lakes I also noted that there was lots of new power poles being laid out for erection alongside the Interstate…



Poles laid out. Ready for cranes and teams to come along and stand them up, these large steel poles were laid out in the paddocks in large numbers.

…and, of course, I would soon encounter them where the teams had done their job:



Newly erected. As I neared Alexandria I was to see them standing tall, some matched in pairs, this is the turnoff to Garfield and Lowry.

This was about half-way between Fargo and my next stop and it was one of the things keeping me occupied as I drove. The van was performing well and I was simply loping along the Interstate.

Another thing in which Minnesota, and Wisconsin, excelled was in the provision of facilities at the rest areas. They still aren't as numerous as the bare dirt and Windyloos we get at home, but they're nice when you get there...


Great rest areas. Minnesota and Wisconsin were very good for rest areas. This one is at Avon in Minnesota and had very nice facilities. It was a change after the rather bland efforts seen in the Dakotas.

And still more to learn about...


Luggage carrier. This was something new to me, a good idea, but I'm thinking that the adaptor from the tiny towbar square to the larger one makes it stick out too far. And that smaller square I've never seen before, we have nothing smaller than 40mm.

Did I mention lakes? Or puddles? Here's a montage for you...


10,000 lakes? Minnesota claims to have 10,000 lakes. The GPS was constantly showing bodies of water off to the left and to the right as I drove, some lakes were big but these ones were very small. I wasn't counting...

Minnesota ended my day with a bang, though. I'd been keeping in touch with Paul during the day and I was starting to run just a little behind the schedule I expected to keep. One reason for this was being enticed into Waite Park, St Cloud...


Something to smile about. Identifying the town by painting the name of the place on the local water tower is very common. And last trip we saw one tower that simply had a smiley face on it and no name. But Waite Park in St Cloud had both.

...where the freeway signs said there was a Wendys and I'd found they had a suitable size small lunch for me. Well, at the off-ramp it then disclosed that Wendys was FOUR MILES to the left. I followed on, snapped a pic of that water tower, then entered a labyrinth of traffic lights.

Yes, I got my lunch, but by the time I'd gone the four miles (and kept thinking, "This is eight miles out of the way...") the GPS was telling me there was a shorter way back to the Interstate. Or at least that I would go back to the Interstate to meet up with it further on.

Through yet more traffic lights! All the way...

So it was the beginning of the peak hour when I reached Minneapolis, suddenly the cars on the Interstate were all coming to a stop and a sign told us it would be ten minutes to get to a certain point ahead.


Caught in a jam! In trying to get to Paul's by about 4:30pm I found myself in Minneapolis at the start of the afternoon rush hour. And here there's an accident being cleaned up... about ten minutes after I joined the end of this queue.

After doing my time in that crawl I was relieved to see the accident that had caused it, but from that point on every step of the way led to more traffic jams, it took a long time to get out of there. And it started raining.

But that stopped and I entered Wisconsin and was soon at River Falls, where Paul and Connie live. I met them when they came to Australia back in 2007, I was doing a photo shoot for a couple of stories for Australian Classic Car magazine at the time, Paul and Connie were there visiting their daughter who's married to a local Adelaidean she'd met over the internet.

Paul fairly soon sat me in his hot-rodded 1946 Dodge pickup...


Paul and his little truck. I think Paul told me he'd owned this truck... or at least the original chassis and cabin... three times. It's been on the road in this form for a few years now, powered by a 318 Poly engine.

...and drove me to a restaurant they regularly frequent. It's called 'Perkins' and it's part of a chain, the young girl who served us was certainly enthusiastic and the food was good.

We talked until late that night and I slept in their spare room. During the course of discussions Paul told me he'd bought a Peter Helck book about motor racing at a Thrift shop....


Great Auto Races - Peter Helck. Peter Helck was there when these races took place and his artwork is astounding in detail. He also survived into an era when such books could be published in numbers and thus became one of the best eyewitnesses to convey the story of those days to later generations.

...and I couldn't believe this, though that is unreasonable as I've experienced finding such things myself in these shops. Peter Helck was a painter and pencil artist of great note and was present for a lot of motor races back in the very earliest times. 1908, for instance, at Savannah. It was partly this book, which I'd borrowed years ago from a friend at home, which inspired me to want to go to Savannah later in this trip.

Then he told me he'd bought it for only $2.50! And that he'd read it and I could have it!

I duly breakfasted with them the next morning and, freshly showered and shaved, drove off down their driveway and away from their home. It's set on a hillside overlooking farming country, they're about two miles from town and the house was built by Paul's father after he tore down the old family home on the property.

 

More lakes. Wisconsin would bring more lakes, Chippewa Falls is between two of them, but I stayed on the Interstate and went past Eau Claire.

Wisconsin is called 'dairyland' and hitting the road through this state is to see endless small dairy farms. But not like ours... see if you can pick the difference:


But mostly dairy farms. This photo shows several dairy farms. It's like this much of the way across Wisconsin, small dairy farms... but you don't see many cows!


Special on red paint? Most of the barns are painted this colour, I guess there was a special on it at some time. Here we do see cows, but I suspect they spend most of their time feeding in the low-roofed section of this shed complex.


Typical rural USA. I do like the style...


...and more of it. Not like home at all, is it?

It appears to me that the farms here operated by feeding the cattle in sheds with fodder grown as crops out in the fields. I saw very little of cattle grazing on grass as you would at home.

My destination in Wisconsin was actually Elkhart Lake racing circuit, which is very near to Lake Michigan. But it was easy to see that I'd be running too late to get there in time this afternoon.

I kept in touch with Mike Argetsinger during the day as we'd been unable to get hold of Tom Schultz, the official historian for the circuit. Mike was trying to find someone to be sure I'd have some sort of guidance at the circuit.

I planned, therefore, on stopping a little short of this destination for the night so I'd have an easy run in there in the morning and look over both the old road course and the modern-day circuit.

Hence I came to Fond du Lac... but not before I'd crossed Lake Butte des Morts...


Oshkosh. While the city of Oshkosh is on Lake Winnebago, you enter from the north by crossing Lake Butte des Morts. I haven't yet learned what all the French influence in the area is all about.

,..entering Oshkosh. Oshkosh is on the shores of Lake Winnebago, which you can see in the little map showing where I am, it's an industrial town and known for rural machinery.

Disappointed to a degree with the day's results, I settled in to get this all up to date in the evening...


'Home' in Fon-du-Lac. I parked myself about where that white pickup is and spent the night there. The McDonalds staff were friendly... or was it tolerant? Maybe the guy making faces at the Google Earth camera car was there?

...slept well and finished it in the morning. Breakfast would be ready outside my door and I'd get an early start.

More Wisconsin to come...

 

I was pretty sure I was halfway across the US by now... May 29, 2014.



From Fond-du-Lac I headed to Elkhart Lake to look over the racing circuits, old and new. Mike Argetsinger had arranged for John Calhoun to guide me around the old road circuits, which was very kind of both of them.

Immediately I turned off the highway to go to Elkhart Lake I was struck by the beauty of the place...


Turning in to Elkhart Lake. This is the road where I started to head for Elkhart Lake. Back in the early fifties this little town started up a motor racing event in the school holidays to try and draw tourists, such a pretty spot, it had no trouble building from those events.

When I looked around town and saw the lake in front of the Osthoff resort I understood why this little town could readily become a popular retirement place, weekend residence or holiday spot.


The lake. This view of the lake is from just outside the Osthoff resort, right in the town.


Control room. My brief tour of the Elkhart Lake racing facility included the control room with all its monitors.


Bikes arriving A big motorcycle event was on and trucks were arriving to set up for the weekend event, which prevented me looking around the circuit.

As I was doing all of this I struck my first problem with the van. It wouldn't start! That is to say, turn the key and the starter didn't work.

It may have had something to do with the inhibitor switch that's built into automatics to prevent starting in gear, but moving the old automatic gear selector lever didn't seem to make any difference. So I clutch-started it and drove to a quiet place and jury-rigged some wires - one from the battery into the cabin and the other from the cabin to the starter - so I'd be able to start whenever I wanted to. Touch the wires together and away she goes!


Where we're fromm? Some will readily understand why I took this pic... and I don't even have George's e.mail address.


Grand tour. Thanks to John Calhoun's guidance and maps I was able to tour the original road circuits used for racing in the early fifties.


Pretty lake... I grabbed this quick snap of the other end of the lake as I was driving around the old road circuit photographing the corners. It's worth adding in, I think.

After seeing the town and the old race circuit (the modern day circuit was in use so I couldn't have a good look around there) I headed south towards Milwaukee. I was still travelling in dairy country and seeing plenty of dairy farms and the odd cheese factory:


The road to Milwaukee. Heading south towards Chicago, this scene includes a cheese factory.

The assumptions I'd been making about how cattle are fed seem proven as I spotted this setup:


How cattle graze here. These small paddocks (maybe an acre each?) are the green grass the dairy cattle get. Even here you can possibly see that the cattle that are mobile are headed for the feed troughs in the shed.

You can see here there are three paddocks of about an acre for cattle to graze, but that many cattle would soon strip these paddocks if that was all they had. But you can also see that some cattle are heading towards the sheds, where there will be troughs of straw and possibly grain for them to eat.

In this way, it seems, they can cram many more dairy herds into a given area than would be possible if the cattle simply fed in the paddocks as they generally do at home.

Milwaukee came into view:


Milwaukee skyline. Traffic builds up near the cities and the skyline of these places offers a change from the monotony of the concrete roads.

Here I took a detour in the hope of finding David Hobbs at his Honda dealership. David wrote a short contribution for our F5000 book a couple of years ago and I hadn't heard from him since that time. Unfortunately he wasn't there as he'd gone to Monaco to do his regular voice-over commentary for one of the TV networks. It was only a short diversion, so it didn't hold me up much.

There are, I'm told, two seasons on American roads... winter and construction. I was seeing plenty of the latter:


Roads to rubble. Tearing up the roads continues to be a fact of life. It looks to me like the darker section of the pile to the right is asphalt piled up for reclaiming, the more distant pile is broken concrete.


Rebuilding. This is just on of many bridges I saw getting complete new decks on them.

Diversions as I headed on to Chicago. And another traffic jam!


Another skyline. After a quick run through Milwaukee it wasn't long before the busier skyline of Chicago loomed on the horizon.

Michael and Lee were waiting for me to arrive and Mike had parked his car in the street to ensure there was a parking spot in his mid-city area when I arrived. The traffic problem had delayed me by about thirty minutes so it wasn't too bad, we slapped a residential parking permit onto the van as soon as I got it in place.

And then Mike wanted to take me downtown to look over some of Chicago's sights...

Which will follow next...

 

Michael took me on a train, this is on the famous elevated railway that you see in most movies and TV shows with Chicago in them. Along the way we went over the Chicago River and saw the famous line of bridges that connect the north and south roads at this point:


The bridges. You've seen them before too, right? Yes, these bridges appear in movies and TV shows as well, they add character to the scene.

When we got out of the train we went down to street level and it was just like in the movies...


The elevated railroad. Traffic dives under the trains, the elevated railway gives Chicago residents access to their city.

We made our way to the Millennium Park, which is built over the railway terminal. There were thousands of people there in the post-working hours daylight enjoying the late afternoon sun and the features the city had to offer. There was the Harris Theatre


Harris Theater. In the Millennium Park there is this area for the performing arts. The whole park is built over the railway terminal.

And something called 'the Bean':


The shiny bean. Another feature of the park, this 'sculpture' seems to have been formed from stainless steel and Lee recalls that it was unfinished when erected and had sections rivetted together.

There was some fun at this fountain, too...


Millennium Park 'fountain'. The picture of the face is a movie, the spray from the mouth comes every minute or two. Stand there and this will happen to you!

With Chicago having been reborn after the great fire of the late 1800s, the scope for architecture has been great and buildings of the last century reflected the changes in this and also building methods and materials.

I guess this is why Michael kept highlighting the various buildings we'd see... I don't remember them all, but some I do:


Old and new. Michael was keen for me to see some of the architecture. Here the old blends with the new.


Wrigley building. In the centre of this pic is the Wrigley building, Chicago also features Wrigley Field (for those who recall the movie 'Silver Streak'). Chicago has some very tall buildings too.

There was a lot of competition between those building these structures and also the buildings in New York for the world's tallest building over many years. Some Chicago buildings held the title for a little while, but not these.

We walked along Michigan Avenue for a while, crossing the river at the DuSable Bridge, the ferries looked pleasant...


Traffic on the Chicago River. There are ferries and water taxis operating on the Chicago River right in the middle of the city. This view is looking towards Lake Michigan from the DuSable Bridge.

In time we came to the grand structure that is the Chicago Tribune building. It was too tall to get it all in at once from that distance...


Tribute to the Tribune. This is the Chicago Tribune building. Or at least the upper part of it.


More of the Tribune. The view is blocked by the temporary buildings being erected, but the lower section of the Chicago Tribune building, which is graced with fine architectural embellishments, has even more to offer...

Michael explained to me how the Tribune's writers would have extra work added to their assignments in distant places:


Set in stone. The boss would have his writers bring home artifacts from their distant assignments, these would be set into the facade of the building. Hundreds of famous locations are represented in this way.

We had the pleasure of seeing this 'sometime' happening, too... mist rolling in from Lake Michigan to give more character to the setting:


The mists come in. Sometimes there is a heavy mist comes in from Lake Michigan to create this effect.

There's plenty of mist in this pic, too... but the main theme is the beach right on the edge of the city itself:


A beach in the city. Oak Street Beach is on the lake and right at the foot of the buildings that house the commerce of the city of Chicago.

The Lake Michigan shoreline of Chicago has no industry on it for something like thirty miles. No factories, no ugly stuff at all, by decree of a far-sighted statesman of the past.

We headed back to the railway and the meal Lee had prepared for us. She'd done a very nice chicken salad for us and it was very enjoyable dining on their back porch as what had been a beautiful sunny day rolled to a close.

That night we talked until late. Too late, probably, as Michael wasn't particularly well the next day. But we covered a lot of ground and he showed me a lot of things. Of particular interest were the items handed down by his father, Cameron Argetsinger.

I retired to my quarters in the basement guest room ready to sleep. On Friday we had a quiet morning and then went out to lunch. We were caught up in traffic in Lee's Forester on the way back, but it wasn't far. I decided to wait until the rush hour had died before I'd head for Indiana.

I would be meeting up with Michael again in a couple of weeks, both of us having plans to be at Watkins Glen. This time we'd be staying in the Argetsinger holiday cottage on the shores of Lake Seneca.

I drove out of Chicago after 7pm, my plan was to get part way to Indianapolis and sleep, ready to wake early and drive on to Justin's place in Bloomington about 9am. I camped at the Woolcott Rest Area on the I65 before Lafayette.





Towards Indiana. Every step of the way this journey is made up of what I saw today, what I will see tomorrow. It was finally time to work on the Indiana part tomorrow.

The traffic never stops on these roads, and fuel prices were high in this part of the country... but I was still enjoying myself.

My Chicago hosts:


Lee and Michael. My wonderful hosts for the time I spent in Chicago, retired health professional Lee sits with author Michael on their back patio. Michael has a growing number of books to his credit and is heavily involved with the International Motor Racing Research Center at Watkins Glen NY.

 

It wasn't much of a drive into the night from Chicago. I was only a little way South of Gary when I stopped for the night at the Wolcott Rest Area and got a good sleep in the back of the van.



I had hardly hit the road in the morning when this photo opportunity caused me to stop...


Wind farms. There are plenty of wind generators in central Indiana. I think this is a very nice pic of them taken just after I started motoring on Saturday morning.

...I think it's the nicest pic I've taken so far on the trip.

I phoned Justin as I drove closer to Bloomington, skirted around Indianapolis and got some fuel south of Martinsville. He was waiting for me at his house, which has recently had a bit of a tree fall in the front yard...


Justin's house. The collapse of part of the tree has hampered mowing, but this is the home Justin and Lore bought about 15 years ago.

We went off to some cafe in town and he bought me breakfast. There he explained that he'd be putting me in a room with kitchen facilities because Lore wasn't up to having me stay with them. This was a severe disappointment to me as I really wanted to stay with them.

We then scoured the town for garage sales and I bought a few little things for presents for folks back home etc.
He spent a lot of time with me, shopping, talking, we had meals together. On Monday he went to work, of course, but I had some time to catch up on other things. Here he is:


The lad. Justin's still as casual as ever about everything. Here he sits in the sofa of my room as we discuss things.

We had visited Bill Parker on Sunday afternoon, he was working on his recently-acquired Harley Davidson at the time. Bill was a big help to me last trip, this time I had to pick up a pair of heads off a Poly V8 while I was there and I arranged to do that on Monday before Justin came over for dinner.

Bill's other recent acquisition is a 1960 Chrysler, his wife likes it but there's some restoring to be done on it yet:


Bill's 'new' Chrysler. Now in a collecting mood again, my friend Bill Parker has acquired this 1960 Chrysler Saratoga on which he'll do some restoration.

I borrowed Bill's timing light to see if I could fine tune the van a bit, arranging to go around to Justin's on Tuesday when he was working from home. A bit of a checkover of things showed I needed to top up the engine oil while I knew the gearbox oil wasn't high enough. I took care of those things there but I couldn't use the timing light without taking the fan shroud off and that was just too hard.

At least I had a chance to have a bit of a better look at the neighborhood...


Justin's street. Suburban Bloomington... looking up the street past Justin's house where my van is parked in front for me to top up lubricants.


Looking south. The opposite direction. The lush growth of grass can readily be seen.

As it turned out, I never saw Lore during my stay. But Justin was trying to work out whether or not he'll be able to take a couple of days off in July... and I hoped he could.

The plan was that he'd drive with me across Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska and into Colorado, which includes going up Pikes Peak. Then he could fly from Denver back across to Indianapolis as I go on to complete my trip.

That would be four days with us driving together, I hoped he can do it.

I left Bloomington and drove up through Indy towards South Bend...



First there was a new-looking Dodge Sherriff's car:



On Patrol. Between Martinsville and Indianapolis I saw this Dodge, it was at a place called Greenwood.

A couple of pics of farms:


Typical farms. Looking across some farmland north of Indianapolis.


Plenty of silos. This place seems well-endowed with silos.

And, of course, there was always one or two of these around, these being taken on the new US31 bypass around Kokomo:


Passing truck. You can spot the differences between semis in Australia and America... can't you?

Justin had warned me I should get the GPS updated, but I saw little point in it. So it was able to go crazy when I was on a new stretch of freeway between Indy and South Bend:


Fooling the GPS. Without my Garmin GPS having been updated since the last trip, a new freeway stretch had it very confused.

As always, I was on the lookout for collapsing or abandoned structures, one of the fascinations I have with the USA. This old barn, therefore, caused me to stop and take a pic:


Collapsing barn and shed. There's a stack of this kind of thing around America.

So I drove on until I was just about out of Indiana before I camped for the night... with one last pic to complete the set:


Sunset. Appropriate that I should end the Indiana pics with a sunset after starting them with a sunrise... this is at Bunker Hill, about 75 miles out of Indianapolis.

Maybe Lore would be able to see me when I get back here in four weeks?

 

Wednesday morning, June 4, 2014, saw me at the controls again... skirting around the main part of South Bend and heading north to Holland where I had to drop in on Bill… He’s at Holland on this map of my trip into Michigan:



We met Bill last trip when Jerry Entin rushed us through his workshop. He didn't have these then, though:



Bill's Curtis. Powered by a Buick V8, this is a replica of the car that won the Carrera Panamerica back in the fifties.


Indy Ford turbo engine. The likes of A J Foyt and Mario Andretti used engines like this at Indianapolis in the late sixties and early seventies. Bill has bought it to put into an original car he owns.

I called in on Jerry too. Janet and I had stayed at his house and he and Carmen really did look after us. Carmen remembered well how much she had enjoyed her day out shopping with Janet while I'd gone off doing car stuff with Jerry.

But I couldn't stay long, I had to get to Detroit that afternoon. Which is also why there's not many pics of the journey across the lush green of farmland Michigan.

But eventually I did see signs I was making progress:


Closer to Detroit. Eventually the signs mentioned my destination!

I met up with Wayne Hatty, who I'd arranged to stay with as he had a good room in the Embassy Suites at Livonia, about 25 miles from the centre of town. We had a very entertaining evening as a welcoming party had been turned on for everyone, then at the end of the evening Janet's message to her 'dear treasured family and friends' was read out and there were many who came to me and offered their condolences. That message had been written three weeks before she died.

On Thursday we went to the Ford Museum and Greenfield Village together, which was well worth the entry fee. Just a couple of things we saw:

Ford Ferguson tractor. Virtually the first thing I saw as I entered the museum was this tractor, the prototype of a type built in the thousands in the thirties and forties.

“What an amazing exhibit!” I thought to myself. This tractor had been the subject of a royalty dispute between Ford and Harry Ferguson in England, Ford refusing to pay royalties on the linkage Ferguson had patented. Settled in favour of Ferguson, it cost Ford millions and enabled Ferguson to develop the ‘Ferguson Formula’ 4-wheel drive system for cars.


Bugatti Royale. What a car! Huge... only six were ever built.


Chrysler300. Makes against which Ford competed in the marketplace aren't ignore, this Chrysler was a standout in the early NASCAR racing days.


Steam Engines. A large display of steam engines and other machinery adds to the interest and variety in the museum.


Failures too! Some cars sell well, others flop. The rear-engined Tucker V8 from the forties and the Edsel were among those which never saw success.

So the museum is huge and very varied in its displays. Aircraft, machinery and many cars made by competing companies. Even the Lincoln in which John F Kennedy was shot.


Nice old petrol tanker. This Dodge fuel tanker from about 1937 is styled like the Chrysler Airflows of 1934.


One huge locomotive! The Allegheny locomotive was the largest steam locomotive ever built, its lifespan was cut by the coming of diesel. It weighs 605 tons, a lot more than the replica of Stephenson's 'Rocket', the replica of which sits alongside it.


Replica Rocket. Exactly 100 years after the original was built, Ford had this replica built by the same people who'd made the original in England.

The Greenfield Village is where Henry Ford reconstructed homes of many Americans, not to mention their workshops, their town halls and more, as a permanent tribute to the working man who made America. Easier access to the many exhibits is available with the provision of T-model open-air buses.

Edison’s whole 2-storey workshop has been rebuilt in the village, with working examples of his work:


Recording Edison's way. This worker at the Ford Greenfield display shows how Thomas Edison made his first recording on this very machine.


Playing back Edison's phonograph. This is the playback... and sure enough, the 'Mary had a little lamb' lines came through quite clearly.Upstairs is a huge room with shelving full of bottles and experiments and all manner of equipment, while there’s a simple chair sitting there on a patch in the floor:



Edison’s Chair. Even though the floor through the rest of the room has been replaced over the years, the chair sits on a patch to which it was nailed in 1928.

The guide explained that when he’d finished reconstructing the building and fitting it out in the Greenfield Village, Henry Ford invited Thomas Edison to come and inspect it. Edison sat in that chair and looked around and nodded in the affirmative when asked if all was right, then he went back downstairs.

For came rushing back up, “Nail that chair to the floor!” he told his workers, “Thomas Edison was the last man who ever sat in that.”

This is the Wright Brothers home:


From Kittyhawk. This is the reconstructed home of the Wright Brothers family transplanted from Kittyhawk.

And on the streets there were things to see as well…


Multi-wheelers. Trucks in Michigan have more axles than elsewhere, when unladen they tie the axles up so the wheels aren't on the road. This is a good example.

There are lots more things in the museum, if there’s something you’d like to see I’d be happy to post a pic if I have one.

 

From Detroit I was to go to Toronto. When Janet learned she wouldn't be able to make this trip with me, she decided that her eldest son, Ashley, could use the money she had set aside for the trip to take his family to visit his wife's relatives in England.

And then we made the decision that Ashley could fly from England across to join me for a few days. So in Toronto I would pick him up, we'd spend three days together, which would include an exhibition in New York we both wanted to see, then I'd drop him off to fly back to England and from there home again to Australia.

So this is the path of my departure from Detroit and those three days:



June 10, 2014...

With the full days in Detroit and then picking up Ashley for the drive to New York I was busy enough, but to top that off I got sick and I was having a hard time keeping to schedule at all.

Before I left Detroit I wanted to see some of the sights created by the motor industry downturn. There was plenty of evidence around the city itself with buildings abandoned and vandalised... then there were houses like this:


Downturn reflections. Many of the homes in these streets have been abandoned. The owners gone, there being no chance of resale, the banks don't want them and nobody looks after them.


Once stately. You'd like to have lived here when it was new, wouldn't you? But take a look now...


More. Whole streets look like this.

Leaving that area and heading for the road to Canada I refuelled, knowing that it was much cheaper in the USA. At the rather old-style service station I was approached by a young man who asked if I wanted him to fill the tank for me, for which there would obviously be a fee…


Marathon West Warren. People often ask if I felt unsafe in America, it was here that I felt the most ill at ease. This Street View pic is from 10 months before I was there, they might even be the same young people hanging around as I topped up the tank.

…I didn’t want to upset him as I rejected his offer, but as he returned to his friends sitting near the door I really did feel just a little unsafe. The least safe I’ve felt at any time in America.
Now I was in a rush and needed to get on the road. The arrangements with Ashley had been made weeks ago and he'd be in the Toronto airport with no means of contacting me at 4pm.

I figured I had a little leeway as he had to go through Customs, of course, but I still didn't know what the roads to Toronto would be like. So it was now over the bridge…


The bridge to Canada. Detroit is just across the river from Windsor, where (you guessed it!) the Canadian car industry is located. It's called the 'Ambassador Bridge' but I don't think it's named after any Ramblers.

...into Canada and on to Toronto to pick up my stepson, Ashley. He was to join me for three days as a part of Janet's wishes. En-route to Toronto I experienced a couple of these:


Highway 401. The poorly signposted road to Toronto and the east. It carries a lot of trucking, but the reason I snapped this was because I wondered if the 'superior' referred to Lake Superior.

Also these:


Organised rest areas. Every so often there are stopping points called 'onroutes' in Canada. You can eat, refuel and stretch your legs. The vehicle in the foreground, by the way, is one we don't see in Australia, a 3.5-litre V6 Honda Ridgeline.

I had planned a quick visit to some people at Georgetown, not too far from the airport, but that had to be made in a big hurry because of my concerns about the traffic and his inability to make contact with me. But it all worked out okay. Once I picked up Ashley we headed without delay to see Niagara Falls before it got dark. What I failed to notice was that the vent window on his side was now open and it blasted me with cold wind that would lead to me getting a nasty cold and follow-on over the ensuing days.

Nevertheless, we got to Niagara Falls and I left Ashley to walk around from the Canadian side while I took the van to do battle with the Customs people and await his arrival on foot. Actually, I walked back to meet him and snapped a couple of pics while I was so doing:


The Niagara Falls. Hard to describe... the power and majesty of these is great.


Ice at the falls. While for the most part the signs of winter are all gone, these remaining chunks of ice downstream of the falls remind us it was a tough winter.

We spent the night in a motel not far away, returning to the falls so Ashley could see them by night and take this pic:


Lighting display The Canadian side of the falls is colourfully lit by night.

The next morning I found the Amvets op shop Janet had so dearly wanted to get back to last time and picked up a few things as gifts for friends back home.


Belated visit. Janet had wanted to visit this store after seeing it all lit up at night on our first trip, but we couldn't find it in the daytime.

Then we drove on down through New York - beautiful Upstate New York. It was superb in the autumn, it's green in the summer, and it rolls on endlessly. But there are things that don't appeal so much…


Barns in distress. As you're driving through this country you often seen sights like this, or in the stages leading to this. There's even a tractor rusting away in the foreground.


Huge barn. I was too sick to back up or walk back and get the good side of this one, but it's the most elaborate (not to mention HUGE) barn I think I've ever seen.

I was frankly feeling too poorly to take many pics, you are seeing basically all that I got, but I didn't neglect one to show the overall picture that was unfolding as we drove:


Upstate NY vista. It's one of the prettiest parts of the country, whether it be summer or autumn. Not sure about winter, but last time in the autumn it was unbelievable.


Not for all. Obviously somebody's enjoyment of this countryside was spoiled by less pleasant events.


Not looking so good. Ashley took this pic of me while I drove on, my state of health on the day was starting to show.

That night we stayed at a place called Monticello, where Ashley fulfilled a long-held ambition – to eat at an American Diner...


Monticello diner. After seeing so many people in movies and television enjoying meals and company in diners, Ashley wasn't keen to leave America without trying one. And Miss Monticello was fine.

I certainly wasn't concentrating well as I left the ignition on all night and we had a flat battery the next day, but that was easily solved as the man in the workshop next door had a big booster battery he could carry around.

He has that because he races every week at the local speedway... you meet all kinds here... but I don't remember what happened to this little fellow in the end, he was on the ground right behind the van when I was packing:


My friend. Well, he came out to greet me in Monticello.

Our commitments in New York took up the two days...



...though I thought it was a good thing to compare the conditions of the drive to the same trek last time... with Janet in the pickup:


A comparison... When Janet and I drove up this road from Ellenville I stopped to take some pics, including this

And with Ashley in the van, parked in the same spot crossing the mountains out of Ellenville:


...worth looking at. This time things were different!

After a night in a Connecticut hotel we got up early and drove into New York City. The traffic was light to start with but became heavier as we went on... as you would expect. But not all that bad considering that it was still wet around us.

Finding parking was yet another fun job, of course. But I really didn't expect to see gas lights in Brooklyn…


Brooklyn's gas lights. I've never seen these before, either.

Something we didn't see last time (but should have... and wanted to) was the Statue of Liberty.


Saw the statue! From afar, but that's good enough. It's hard to believe we were just 100 yards from being able to see this last time... when it was a beautiful clear day, too!

I finished up dropping Ashley at JFK at 4pm on Friday. Let's not mention that the twelve miles from Brooklyn to JFK took an hour and a half, shall we? And getting from there to Shelton in Connecticut two and a half hours.



I called one of the keen 318 Poly engine guys who lives in Connecticut and dropped in to see him before the night was out. Nick Tiberio was very welcoming and so was his wife, he’s just so fastidious with his preparation of his car and it shows:


Nick’s trophies. With lots of car shows on in his local area all the time, Nick has picked up numerous trophies. His interest go beyond cars, too.

Oh yeah, the coffee was good too!