Fun, but the pressure was on...

Danbury's Super 8 had the breakfast arrangement for us, groups of people gathering along with us, some talkative, others quietly sticking to themselves. I made my usual waffle and put some grape jelly on it, as was becoming a regular thing before packing things back into the truck ready for the daily adventure.

We cranked up the truck and headed out, this day being a real indulgence for me. I had the goal of reaching Squam Lake in New Hampshire, while I had been arranging to call in on Neil who specialises in Chrysler running gear parts and who's been a great help to me in learning more about them. Along the way we were to drop in on Fred in Florence, so that gave us the direction we would take as we drove... and somehow we topped up the thermos as we now had tea bags (hard to buy, strangely enough, if you just want something plain in tea) as well as coffee to use on the road. And some 'creamer' supposed to be not so creamy.

This was our route for the day:



Immediately we went past Newtown, where all hell was to break loose in December, and I snapped this at Southbury:



It's a branch of the Newtown Savings Bank that doesn't look like a bank at all. I don't know why it appealed to me at the time, but 'it just looked different' is the obvious reason. We stopped at the rest area at Southington, just a little north of there, which was a really well-equipped and tidy spot:







I'd been noticing that all the rest areas and 'welcome centers' had baby change tables in the men's toilets, this one stood out because of the Aussie branding. I'm assuming that the womens' toilets also had them. Sorry... I mean 'restrooms'.

Connecticut is a small state and so it didn't take long to get into Massachusetts. But before we did we spotted this crazy in a Mercedes:



I can't remember, nor can I read, the message on his back window, but 'NRA Instructor' across the top of it comes with a sad meaning in the light of subsequent events. The photo is so bad because Janet tended to jerk the camera when taking pics. The exit ahead is to Longmeadow, just inside Massachusetts.

We had a bit of a contretemps here with a turning we took. We stopped for a cuppa at Springfield and we pulled off the highway to find a spot suitable. The carpark of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame filled the bill, but before we got the coffee poured there was a bit of movement in the garden that caught our attention.



This was the first squirrel either of us had ever seen and I think I was a bit lucky to get close enough for this pic. It soon ran away, of course:



Hitting the road again I stopped briefly to take this shot from a little lay-by on the highway...



...I think it must be looking over Springfield or Holyoke, then I spotted that I'd left the tailgate open on the canopy. I pulled onto a side road to stop and fix that and discovered I was heading onto a toll road that goes to Boston!

That didn't really suit us, so I pulled off the road before the toll gates and walked up to one of the toll collectors and asked how I could get out of there. "Just do a U-turn through those witches hats," he said, " that will take you back out where you came in."

So it was around midday when we pulled up at this house in Florence where I knocked and didn't get a reply. I looked around and it almost seemed deserted, but there was a Chrysler Le Baron outside which fitted in with Fred. Then Janet pointed to a grey-headed man walking up the street towards us saying, "He looks like someone you might be visiting."

As he got nearer, he said to me, "That's a fine pair of Mopars parked there!"



I then asked this bloke, who was obviously out for an exercise walk, if he knew the people living in the house. "I know everyone who lives in there!" he replied. So we met up with Fred, but our visit was brief as he had a 1pm dentist appointment. Which was probably good for us too, as we had to keep moving, though we did stop for lunch before we went further. I did get a pic of the scene as Janet talked to Fred, and we added another school bus pic to our collection across the street:





We hit the road and didn't stop again until we got to the Rest Area just in Vermont. There was a stack of people here and we had trouble finding somewhere to make our afternoon tea out of the sun. We couldn't waste any more time, though, as Squam Lake was still some distance away and we had to get back to Windham to see Neil. One thing in our favour, on these roads there were no dawdlers:



Fortunately, we didn't have any holdups or take any wrong turns and we arrived at Holderness and made our way around the lake to find a spot to take some pics:



Like I said, it was an indulgence for me going there. It's the lake where On Golden Pond was filmed and there are signs around the place that play on that fact. It was also the furthest we would be from home in our American Adventure, quite apart from being one of the prettiest places you could find.

As we drove out we stopped at Ashland for fuel, Janet shot this pic as I topped up:



Signs of the day running out there, right? And we had some distance to go to get to Neil's place. Past moose signs, through to Concord...



...where the matter of toll roads came up again and we had to divert, then we struck traffic... and I was phoning Neil to find out which way to go.

When we arrived at his place it was dark. A coffee and a chat, then his children came in to meet us before they went out for the night. We made arrangements for me to come back and go through his shed with him after I'd installed Janet at the Red Roof Inn in Salem. And I would take back something to eat after I'd done that...

Neil has been buying up Chrysler parts for many years. His 'shed' is heated for winter and boasts a good hoist and a lot of gear he uses for rebuilding gearboxes and diffs. It was staggering to see what he had in both old and new parts there, more A833 4-speeds than anyone else in the world has got, I'm sure, while there was plenty of rear end stuff too. He rebuilds steering columns and the odd engine as well, but most of this is aimed at giving him something to do in retirement.

Going through it all took time and I was quite concerned that my commitment to buying food for Janet would lead to disaster, but there was still a McDonalds open and we had something to eat.

During the day Mike Argetsinger had phoned. He wanted to know when I'd be arriving as he was very keen to meet me before Saturday when the presentation was on at the International Motor Racing Research Center. I promised him we'd get away early and be in Watkins Glen before Friday was out, but we were still about 360 miles away... an early morning was called for...

 

Leaving Salem early on the Friday morning, so early I was afraid of disturbing the other inhabitants of the Red Roof Inn as I started the truck, we ducked around the toll road and headed generally west:



After a time winding our way around some back roads we finally reached the welcome sight of the twin arch bridges we'd come across as we entered New Hampshire. These are at Chesterfield:



So we re-entered Vermont and headed for the road that crosses the Hogback Mountain. This took us through Brattleboro, where we stopped and took some pics...









Janet particularly liked that last sign, which was on the apartment building next to the one photographed in full.

We headed towards the Hogback Mountain and stopped at the summit where a restaurant enjoys tremendous views over the hills. The colourful autumn hues add to it all, of course...



From there we headed through Wilmington - 'B' on our map...



...and through the rather less upmarket Woodford Hollow...



This we found typical of all parts of the USA, 'trailer homes' in bunches, typically on the outskirts of towns. There must be a relatively large percentage of Americans live in these things.

On to Bennington, where I was reminded that one of the things I really wanted to see was a covered bridge. We quickly found one and started to drive onto it... but as we did...



We saw that a woman at the other end was photographing our progress with her camera! We stopped and said hello to her and she e.mailed me her pic:



Driving across the bridge was expected to lead us to another, but it wasn't readily evident and we turned back. We stopped in the clearing there and had our morning coffee made with hot water cajoled from the desk girl at the Red Roof Inn. Our Thermos was proving handy and money-saving.

The bridge was pretty seriously constructed, it used a lot of timber...



... but we'd seen it now and we had to keep moving. Watkins Glen was the goal and we knew people were waiting there for us. And we were almost in New York again.

Once clear of the toll roads of Albany (which was a trick for the Garmin!) we finally hit the Interstate and started to plough through the remaining miles. And there was a lot of them:



Along the way we saw this A-Model Ford, which was travelling in company with a few other old cars. And note the 'Rest Area Closed' sign!



The day was moving along, as the sun being in the west indicated. And it was a fair way, especially after losing some time dodging toll roads around Albany...





The road, however, was good and we dropped off the Interstate at Cobleskill for lunch, which we got at Burger King. We had quite a discussion about whether we should go via Ithaca or Elmira, Janet being afraid that the Garmin might take us on another jaunt through nowhereland if we left the Interstate. She won...

One thing we did see sticking to the Interstate was the huge distribution centre for CVS Pharmacies. We'd found one of these the first day in LA and saw them everywhere, but look at the size of this place!



There's fifty bays for semis to be loaded there, and out of sight there's a stack of trailers awaiting their turn. How many trucks must they have on the road?

Skirting Elmira we got onto the secondary roads and finally we dropped into Watkins Glen, which was a welcome sight:



We went straight to the Motor Racing Research Center, but Mike wasn't there as he'd had to go to the airport to pick up someone. We were despatched to a motel up the hill on the western side of Seneca Lake (the Longhouse Lodge Motor Inn, great views!) and when Mike returned he smartly called up and came to introduce himself. He also arranged to pick us up and take us to dinner that night, which was in a building quaintly built into the hillside in the main street of the Glen.

I sampled the New York steak strips and the night drifted on. Then we went back to the motel and settled in for what was left of the night... we had now had a full week on the road and Janet was starting to complain about discomfort sitting in the truck.

Tomorrow would be another full day, but without leaving Watkins Glen...

 

First, a 'must' from the Friday pics by Brian Brown at the Research Center:



Tom Schultz is at the left while Center Director Bill Green discusses things with Don Capps

Saturday we awoke to a very cool morning...

The view over the lake was somewhat mysterious. Mist rising off the surface was quite turbulent, though it was difficult to photograph it because of distance and lighting conditions.



Mike late expressed the opinion that it was a result of the warm lake suddenly being exposed to the cold snap that had come in. This was also the reason we were in the motel, Mike's family's 'summer cottage' by the lake doesn't have heating and he didn't expect his wife or mine would tolerate the unexpected cold.

Breakfast at the motel was of a high standard alongside the Super 8 offerings and we met quite a few people. Janet started up a conversation with an Asian guest and asked, "Where do you come from?" To her surprise, the answer was "Queens."

The main aim of the day was to present a copy of our F5000 Thunder book to the Research Center, while the whole day was to be spent on related matters. Mike wanted to show me the original 6.1 mile public road circuit and also the present day circuit, there was the presentation by Tom Schultz relating to the history of Elkhart Lake racing and we would be going to dinner again with Mike, Tom, Brian and attendant wives as well as a couple of others.

But first things first... there was washing to be done again and we readily found the laundromat an loaded up a washer...

[quote]Saturday – I was taken into Watkins Glen to do the washing at the laundromat – domestic life goes on…[quote]



Janet sat it out there and transferred the clean clothes to a dryer at the appropriate time. Later we heard stories about these dryers being used to capacity on wet race weekends!

Meanwhile, we went for our drive in Brian Brown's Cadillac with Mike giving a narrative as we drove around the circuit and stopping to look at the memorial for Sam Collier:



Photo from Brian Brown... and note the great scenery!

At the modern circuit I was surprised to see how good it was 'in the flesh' compared to the maps I've seen over the years. Its location is just wonderful, too, the setting obviously contributing to the enjoyment so many hundreds of thousands of people must have had up on the hill out of town over the decades.




As we did this, Janet went her own way:

Gathering at the Research Center before the presentation we had some spirited conversations on all motor racing matters... again Brian's camera caught us out:



Bill Green, Mike Argetsinger, Don Capps, myself and Tom Schultz prior to the presentation.

The book was well received and Tom's presentation kept those present listening intently as he discussed the whys and wherefores of the creation of Road America. It was fascinating to learn how the circuit, which is one of my favourites, was designed. Back at the Research Center we had a 'drinks and nibblies' session and Bill Green insisted on buying the last spare copy of the book I had with me. I'd already made sure Mike had a copy, of course, and there's such a tight weight limit on passenger baggage that I couldn't carry all that many.

There was some discussion about expansions to take place at the Center in the near future. Jean Argetsinger, Mike's mother, was the moving force behind the building of the Center on the side of the Glen's new library some years ago, but it's outgrown this location and needs to expand. To that end they are fundraising heavily to make it all possible.

Afterwards we went to the Seneca Lodge for dinner…

It was packed out, but Mike was able to manage to get us a table. This delightful experience put an end to the whole IMRRC experience for the weekend, Mike was heading home Sunday morning, Tom flew out that night IIRC and so on.

We felt like we'd been treated like some kind of royal guests, it was amazing…

I had met so many for the first time. Don Capps I didn't know was coming, F5000 driver Bobby Brown turned up too, we had great conversations and I now realise that I met five contributors to The Nostalgia Forum in that one day. Brian later posted pics on TNF too. Mike's wife, Lee, was a pleasure to meet as well and a copy of Mike's new book on the 20 years of Watkins Glen's hosting of the US GP went into my bag too.

Back at the motel we reflected on all of this and looked forward to a slightly more 'normal' day on Sunday.

 

Sunday's breakfast at the motel was tinged with a little disappointment...

This had obviously been the highlight of the trip so far and yet it was all over! But we still had places to go and people to see. In fact, not far at all for our first pursuit... an attempt to catch up with some people who live at Interlaken, just 25 miles or so from the Glen, whom I had met in Sydney nine or ten years earlier.



And the sign across the road from the fall seemed to me to be a little strange... but behind it is a part of the great outlook of the Watkins Glen area. The circuit is up on that distant hill, by the way.



Also nearby was a winery, I think it was called the 'Lion Winery', but what occurred to me was that the lion symbol was a take-off from Peugeot's lion design:



I did take a full sequence of photos around the 6.1-mile road circuit but I won't post all of those here. Mike told me that this downhill set of esses was just one of the reasons Stirling Moss wished the racing was still on the public roads when he first ran there in the late fifties:



And this view of the lake and part of the town as the circuit descends from its drive through the countryside tells just a little more about the area's beauty:



We actually went and did a bit of shopping before leaving town, but we did have to get moving as I had arranged to meet up later in the day with a Dodge Charger owner who advertised the rear axle out of his car for sale. It was apparently from an earlier model and he wanted to take the car back to original, and as the type he had for sale was the type I was buying we struck up a deal. He had put on his ad, "Pickup Only" and I responded with, "I'll be in your area in about three weeks, will that be okay?" He didn't know I was in Australia at the time, of course.

The destination was the little town of Owego, back along the Interstate to the east of Elmira...


Along the way we saw a garage sale and bought a further item of luggage, a bag Janet thought would be convenient for her to lay out two or three days' clothing in advance and not have to raid her two big bags each and every day. It would prove very handy before we left the country.

We also saw this barn as we travelled through:



It set me thinking about the large number of dilapidated places we'd seen while travelling... and led me to look for more.

We were also wondering about the constant reference to 'Mums' for sale everywhere, I snapped this picture during this part of the drive:



While I now know it's chrysanthemums, I don't know why they were so heavily advertised. I did understand, however, the many yards full of pumpkins for sale... but I never got a picture of them.

My first task on arrival in Owego was to find an ATM…

The town was smaller than I expected and this wasn't as easy as it might have been, but it did instruct me in a basic truth. Banks are out to get us! Quite apart from the $3 fee for getting some cash out charged by my bank, the ATM hit me another $3.00!

We located the address we'd arranged to meet at and found it was actually a Dodge dealership, or a part thereof, and the car was in the back of the workshop where the rear axle had just been changed:



We disrupted all our luggage to get the rear end into the pickup and headed back to Tioga Downs Flea Market, which we'd seen advertised at the exit from the Interstate. It was getting well along in the day and we had a quick look around, I had decided it was high time we bought something in which we could boil water to top up our Thermos with every day.

Looking around the place, which was an assortment of different stalls under a common roof, I found four electric kettles of different descriptions. Finally, and only after trying them with some water and power, I decided to buy an old 1940s vintage Sunbeam model. We did buy a couple of other small things, but this was to be a major purchase and something we'd use every day for the rest of the trip. Well, almost every day.

We were going to swing back to the eastern part of New York and then head off towards Niagara Falls over the next two days, so we drove down the Interstate to Binghamton and checked out the motels there. The Motel Coupon booklet had a reasonable price on the Super 8, but we enquired first at the Econo Lodge right next to McDonalds for a comparison. Super 8 won the day and we went in there.

Which is where I finally got a pic of one of these:



I'd seen one on a pickup the day we arrived in Indy, but my attempt to photograph it was spoiled by a windscreen wiper. There are three sizes (you can get them with just two, by the way), 1⅞", 2" and 2½".

That night I tried the McDonalds version of a burger sold by Hungry Jacks in Australia. It has Swiss cheese top and bottom of the angus beef patty, mushrooms on top and some mayo. I get it without the mayo of course, but I was troubled by the garlic taste through it. Later I would learn that this comes from a 'salt' put on the patty which can be left off on request. But the thing was not a quarter-pounder like we'd have in Australia... it was a third of a pound, you have to peel away much of the bun just to be able to get through it!

Oh yeah, it was $4.17 for the burger, I think the Hungry Jacks (almost miniature...) version at home was about $6.75.

 

Monday October 15...

After breakfast in the hotel lobby (more waffles! And I loved that blueberry jelly...) we headed off in the direction of places with names like Damascus, Deposit and Hancock... all close to the Pennsylvania border.

Up to this point we'd been travelling with a veritable millstone around our necks. We had the commitment to be at Watkins Glen on the Friday afternoon, but we had to go all those places we'd been on the way. We had actually hoped to spend more time just touring in upstate New York but the delays leaving Indiana had prevented this.

Now we had no serious timetable apart from being at Las Vegas in time for the SEMA show... plenty of time, really. And with a Canadian friend of ours at home having waxed lyrical about New York in the fall we were going to just spend two days travelling in a veritable circle of mostly secondary roads back from Binghamton towards Poughkeepsie, up to Catskill and then parallel to the Interstate from Albany to Niagara Falls. Not on the Interstate, however, as that's a toll road. And the minor roads would give us a closer look at the surroundings.

As it turns out, we didn't take so many pictures on this day. We were on Route 17 as far as Liberty, then after that we slipped onto Route 52 through Ellenville - 'B' on this map:



Something must have jogged me into photographic action there as I wanted to snap the appreciation this town showed for the fall colours. Through the town there were banners on the telegraph poles, here's a couple of them:



I'm sure you can see what I mean. From the centre of the town we climbed and as we looked down in the valley to the right we were delighted with these views:







The first looks back at Ellenville, the second progresses further up the valley, finally we see Spring Glen, the next little town along. I'd pulled off the road on this little lay by to take these shots...



So as you can see, there was plenty of colour around us and it was a real treat to drive along this road. Just a little further we snapped this one:



We got through there to Newburgh and crossed the river near there. We then turned north up the eastern side of the Hudson, somewhere or other we took this pic of a pretty creek scene:



This was somewhere near Poughkeepsie as I recall, we saw a sign for a garage sale and went in on a side road, they weren't keen to let us look around and then we spotted this house across the road from them:



Without time pressures we were taking it really easy and looking around at all sorts of things. But by the time we got to Catskill we realised we needed to make a bit of a break for it as darkness started to arrived and we headed across Route 142 to the I88, down it briefly to Cobleskill and took a room at the Super 8 there.

We'd been to Cobleskill on our way across to Watkins Glen, that would have been for fuel and that visit to Burger King. Now we were in a motel full of workers whose pickups filled the parking lot. On the second floor, of course, but we still found a parking spot where the truck could be backed up against a wall to keep the goods in the back safe for the night.

So even an easy day could turn into a night-time rush to get to somewhere appropriate to bunk down! At least Tuesday would be all in daylight as we headed for Niagara Falls, wouldn't it?

 

We got away fairly early from Cobleskill... though all the pickups belonging to all the workers staying there had gone before us.

The plan was to run parallel to the Interstate to Buffalo and on to Niagara Falls. In this way we'd both avoid the tolls (it's a toll road the whole way from Albany to Buffalo) and we'd see more than you can see from the Interstate, be able to stop at our leisure and just take our time.



We boiled up some water to take along for coffee and tea, dressed to face the cool autumn day with plenty of cloud and pressed on across the road towards Sharon. This was only a short hop, but as we came around the downhill bend after seeing the 'township of Sharon' sign we were struck with the beauty of the place. And as Janet has a close friend named Sharon, we had to take our first photo of the day:



So the colours of New York in the fall were still impressing us as we drove on to Sharon - 'B' on the map, took a left and went through Sharon Springs. Occasionally we'd see a big old car in a front yard, remnants of a bygone age when you see the little cars there are getting around all over the USA now... this is a Mercury Marquis:



Then another delapidated barn caught my eye before we got to Cherry Valley. I'm not sure what the geography is here, but we went over a slight rise where there was a back road, possibly an old road, and this great little view point came up... as usual too much for the camera to capture:





We had this vista for miles as we travelled along the highway, then descending another hill we spotted this tired-looking old covered bridge. I had to photograph it, of course, so I went into the driveway and got quite a surprise at the warning notice:





Some people are just like that, I guess... just like some people would think this normal:



I think it might have been Morrisville where Janet was able to satisfy her desire to find a thrift shop. A child care place had one out the front and she picked up a coat for herself there…

...then at Cazenovia we stopped by the lake for a cuppa...



This '56 Plymouth popped into view a while later, it was for sale so I had a bit of a look around it. And I never did find out what the trailing wheels were for on the concrete mixer trucks that front load:





We left Route 20 here and went into Syracuse to look around, then we kept on parallel to the Interstate and came to Waterloo. A sign indicated that there was an outlet centre there, so we drove on in. Janet was in paradise, credit card at the ready... looking for boots to start with:







Mind you, I got her to stretch the card to cover some shoes for me too.

And then there was a bit of a pantomime going on as we wanted to drive out. Someone was having a loud discussion with the police about something, who knows what it might have been, we weren't hanging around to see it resolved... we'd now wasted enough time and needed to get cruising.

Into the afternoon sun we drove...



And this is the path we took:



Buffalo we found as it was getting dark and it was actually dark before their rush hour traffic let us through there. A huge Amvets shop on the right hand a corner where we were turning left, lights ablaze well into the night, appealed to Janet, but we really weren't in a position to have a look and I was keen to get to the Motel 6 we'd selected for the night.

After we booked into the motel I put the proposition that it would be a good idea to see the falls both by day and night, so we got back into the truck and drove for miles through suburban back roads before eventually arriving at the falls. It really surprised me that there was so much low-level housing at Niagara Falls, but we didn't see it again as we followed more direct highway-type roads on the return journey.

The US side of the falls is lit up, as you can see:



...while the Canadian side is quite differently highlighted:



Actually, it was quite funny as we drove into the carpark there. Three State Park Police cars converged on us, two of them then turning and going away as we pulled up. I got out of the truck and approached the remaining one, it seems they hadn't seen my temporary numberplate in the back window and wanted to check us out.

Once we got back in sight of the Motel 6 we stopped to get something to eat. It had been an interesting day and most enjoyable, capped off with the awesome sight of the falls at night. We looked forward to seeing them again in the daylight...

 

We were getting into a routine, but staying at a Motel 6 sort of broke that a bit... no breakfast at the motel. So after leaving the motel we pulled into Dennys for breakfast. Janet there got stuck into bringing her diary up to date:












This diary was now becoming more complete than she'd been doing for the first week and a bit. She would write down things during the day, then each night would spend time bringing it all up to date while I was on the internet in the room. The late night looking over Niagara Falls had thrown a spanner in the works.



Here’s how she saw the morning...







Obviously we went from there straight to Niagara Falls. There you cross the flow from Lake Erie to the US side of the falls as you head for the carpark, which is treed nicely and quite pretty in the fall, and having been there the previous night we knew to go to the Canadian side first...














The sheer size of the falls, the quantity of water rushing over the top and creating all that spray as it falls to the end of the gorge the river has cut over eons, it's all very impressive…







...On the far side is Canada, which seemed to us to be making a fair fist of capitalising on the existence of the tumbling torrent. They have made use of the flow with hydro power stations, while the presence of a casino indicates they are intent of lifting money from the pockets of tourists.



















Looking downstream from this point at the top of the gorge there is the American falls, with the US having built a viewing platform cantilevered out from their shore just upstream of the bridge that leads to Canada:









As we walked around the pathway leading to the American Falls we encountered squirrels again, in two colourings:














They were well used to people around them and ran freely about, unlike the little chap we'd seen in the carpark in Massachusetts.




Past this distraction we looked over the works going on at Luna Island, the gap in the middle of the American Falls. Works are not unknown, at the falls, obviously, as the construction of the various infrastructure has gone on over many years. Luna Island, the signs told us, was once occupied by a paper mill too. And the point where the lookout is on the US side of the Canadian falls has been blasted and rock-bolted because of a presence of some danger to visitors.




Undoubtedly works will continue as the weight of the water going over the top is always going to bring what you might call 'pressure to bear' on the landscape and create such a need... as it has here with Luna Island:









We'd decided we were going to go into Canada and we had to walk around over the bridge seen above. For some distance you walk alongside the rapids that take the water to the falls... and there are warnings of danger that indicate that sometimes there might be spray about to create a hazardous walking environment. Note the sign:









It was hard to not also note the logs that were lodged on the rocks and the growth of optimistic plant life from these things sticking out of the water...












The entry to Canada is on the US shoreline...









...but the immigration check is the other end of the bridge and the people there didn’t please Janet…






...The Customs and Immigration man we met there had no sense of humour, I can tell you. Janet decided that it must have been a qualifying point for the job... but it's also true that it was worth the trouble as the views of the falls were great from that side, especially those of the American Falls:














Not that the Canadian part wasn't worth photographing, mind you...









After looking for some souvenirs and postcards, we took a brief break in the parkland they've created for visitors.












But the purpose of our visit was to see the falls and we'd now seen them from both sides... here they are all in the one shot:









As we walked back I got a shot of this disturbing sign:









And we got a final look at the overall picture as we walked back across the bridge, this also gives a good view of the cantilevered viewing platform:









Back to walking along the path by the river we got another warning about the paths... notice the difference?









Once again we marveled at the persistence of the plant life out there, almost like it was in the Antarctic or something...









...and we followed the pathway that led back to the pickup in the carpark. As we walked to the truck I noted something else worth recording, while after all that walking the pickup was certainly a welcome sight!






















As we drove out of the Niagara Falls urban area we took some pics to show the (typical US) way the homes are so often built close to the street...



















We wanted to get to Ohio that day, planning this route...






...while remembering that Janet still wanted to look in thrift shops:

 

But of course we had to eat... we had some food with us and stopped at this lakeside rest area to enjoy that:









And as we cruised on towards our destination the afternoon rolled around and we saw the schoolbus thing in action…







I didn't make that mistake again, as seen in this pic:









...yes, when the schoolbus stops all traffic has to stop!




Some more notes from Janet’s diary:







At Ripley I pulled up briefly to get a snap of this Chrysler Newport that was parked outside a house, but otherwise we were travelling straight through...









...that was the end of our six days in New York. Through Pennsylvania the sun was getting low and by the time we got to Cleveland OH it was dark. Janet’s notes continued:







We navigated as far through the city as we could amid the rush hour traffic, stopping only to get something to eat, finally pulling up on the western side of town at a Super 8 motel. It had been a fairly big day and our determination to be stopped before it got dark had been thwarted again!

 

Our hope on the following day, Thursday, was to go up to Detroit and then across to Muskegan in Michigan. But getting out of Cleveland took ages and I decided to forego the Detroit visit and simply head across to South Bend where I had some more rear axles waiting to go into the back of the pickup. Other issues meant this would be our path for the day...



The day began with a brilliant red sky...





It also began for Janet with an e.mail from her sister…



Super 8's breakfast rations were well-used and we met some interesting people in the dining area. It was here that we first met anyone from Iowa, but over the next few days we met a whole bunch of them! As had become our practice, we grabbed a pre-wrapped cake each from the breakfast assortment and took them to continue our breakfast somewhere along the road at morning tea time. As we drove out of the motel I was surprised to see this:





I've no idea what it was about, but we weren't going that way so it didn't bother us…



...But like I said, it took us ages to get out of Cleveland and the string of towns to the west of there, though we did add to the time by diverting when we saw a sign that pointed to Cedar Point. I'd heard about this place so we went there for a quick look-see... even though it was raining...





The roller coaster out on the isthmus in Lake Erie certainly was impressive (as were a lot of the expensive homes on the way out there):





Somewhere before we got to Toledo we saw a garage sale sign and stopped for a look…



...The lady there told us that if it wasn't raining now it would be soon. And if it wasn't dry now it would be soon. "That's the way it is in Ohio!" she said. Janet bought a few things there, then we drove off, barely getting around the corner before seeing this strange sign:






The cornfields rolled by and Janet was trying to get photos as we drove. Typically she would wait until it was too late to click the shutter, but some results were achieved. Some places were small, some were large, some were inactive...











What she was trying to capture was the shape of the barns, something we don't see in Australia. What struck me was that each place seemed to have a barn, another shed, a house, a pickup and some kind of RV, whether that be a motorhome or a caravan or a fifth-wheeler.



We also captured an image of a post office delivery vehicle, these being right hand drive so the driver can deliver the mail from his seat into those letterboxes that are placed right on the edge of the road. Apparently these are built by Ford:





My revised schedule for the day meant I had to make arrangements with the bloke at South Bend. I had purchased two rear axles, one complete and the other minus brake drums and diff centre, from him early in the year. But I was unable to make arrangements for them to be picked up, so I'd asked him to hang onto them until I got there myself. When I made contact again just before leaving home he told me he had another bunch of stuff I might be interested in, so I was a bit keen to find out just what he had.



We had to cross virtually the whole way across the top of Indiana. And a slab of that country is Amish habitat, which we found out when we suddenly found we were seeing lots of horse-drawn vehicles in their own special lanes each side of the road.





They had some really nice looking horses pulling these things. And they kept up a good clip, too, with acceleration showing up as a fairly strong point when they had to come out of a drive and cross the highway traffic. Despite their despair about using modern technology, the wagons are fitted with turn signals and other electrical stuff…



We refuelled for the run into South Bend and then I spent a good hour and a half at Randy’s sorting how to load my booty into the truck. It was raining again as I did so, so we reversed up to his shed and emptied everything out, we had to fit the two axles I'd previously purchased in, then there were four more B-body axles, three without centres and one with a centre, and there was an empty 489 centre casting. I made every effort to get it all packed as far up the front as possible, but still the truck was starting to look a bit low in the tail.



By the time this was done it was getting late, we had to find somewhere to eat and somewhere to stay, bearing in mind that Friday morning would see us carrying on up into Michigan a little way to visit Jerry Entin. Looking (in the rain) at what South Bend had to offer in the accommodation stakes I wasn't pleased. "Yes sir, that's right, our rates are up tonight because there's a big game in town." $108!



Darkness, rain and all, we pressed on across the border... we found a Super 8 in Sawyer, not all that far away, though the GPS seemed to go a bit beserk with some back lanes to get us there. The motel is in the background of this shot, which I took the next day to show the signs with fuel prices displayed on them:





Fed, watered and showered, we bunked down knowing that Jerry was keen to see us get up to his place in the morning. I think this was one of those nights Janet had some of that moonshine we'd picked up in West Virginia. Her diary was starting to fill and the miles were starting to add up.


By the following afternoon we'd have been on the road two full weeks and we'd be well on our way back to Bloomington, wouldn't we?


Or would we?

 

Friday morning we repacked the pickup ready for our next stage. A quick breakfast at the motel and then on the road, we'd checked with Jerry for his address and knew roughly how we were going to get there, the GPS seemed to be telling us the right things this time and we got up to speed. A relatively easy run...




Janet notes that the elements weren’t working for us…



And the phone rang. "Are you on your way yet?" "Yes, Jerry, we've just left Sawyer." Then followed a bunch of instructions, too many to take in. "We've got the GPS set, Jerry, I think that's the way it's taking us." "Okay..."


Along the Interstate we saw this truck... count the axles!





Yeah, now I know it's hard, the water droplets on the screen have got the auto-focus bamboozled (who said you don't need a DSLR?), but you can see wall to wall wheels on that truck. It's a Michigan thing, apparently.



The spring I'd installed on the throttle back at Bloomington had snapped, but when you buy these you get a few in the packet and I'd taken the trouble to keep a spare. It didn't take long to instal, of course, but it made catching that truck again a problem and I just caught it as it was about to take an exit. Hence the poor photo.


Then the phone rang again. “Did you come to..." I tried to tell Jerry where we were, he then tried to convey as much detail as he could, meaning that you really needed to take notes to follow him. "It's all right, Jerry, the GPS will get us there..."


It wasn't much later that the phone rang again! "Have you gone past XYZ yet?" "I think we're just coming up to that, Jerry..." "Right. Now in eight more miles you'll come to a set of lights, you go through them and then take the next left. That puts you on a service road, I'm waiting for you in my white Ford, just come up behind me..."


Okay. Let's do what the man says. He phoned again just as we were getting there and we got the directions right, drove up behind him and he said, "Follow me!" Turning towards Lake Michigan, he took us quickly down one road, turned right up another, past some local scenery and turned right again and rapidly pulled up in a driveway at a little factory or workshop.


"You have to meet this guy, he's got some great stuff here," Jerry said after introducing himself.



Pretty soon he was introducing me to Bill Wiswedel, the owner of the business called Olive Engineering. We were in Holland MI and about to see some fabulous race car stuff. Here's some of it, check them out:



































Bill was very nice to us and answered all of my questions. I don't know what Janet thought of this introduction to people we simply didn't know, and racing cars are very much a foreign thing to her.


The ex-A J Foyt car was impressive, though it would have been more so if the quad-cam Indy Ford engine behind it had been in its rightful place. Bill explained that one of the chassis not seen in the pics was one of three in the world believed to be a particular car, but this was the right one. And that another chassis wasn't finished because it was one of a number laid down and it didn't get finished before the makers proved that the concept was an utter disaster.


Going from shed to shed it was amazing what he had there. There was a mid-thirties Dodge that had been turned into a more modern-looking car by someone in the fifties, a light plane frame hung from the rafters, aircraft and car engines were abundant, unfinished chassis and complete cars lay around in large numbers. And an ex-Indy ex-F5000 Eisert was there with evidence it had once been road-registered!


Jerry explained to me that Bill has an annual car enthusiast party and hot-rods and race cars and classic cars turn up in numbers. Oh, and it was time to go!


A total ball of energy, Jerry jumped into his Ford and ushered us to follow. Soon we were in the carpark of Applebees in Muskegon and being introduced to Ron Mack and his son-in-law, Rick Knapp.



We ordered lunch and then Jerry's wife, Carmen, arrived. She also ordered and then asked Janet what she wanted to do for the afternoon while Jerry took me off elsewhere. "Oh, and by the way, how many days are you staying with us?"


We were in the process of being kidnapped!


"I like going to second hand shops," Janet told her, so their afternoon was soon planned. After we ate, Ron and Rick departed, pretty soon afterwards Jerry ushered me into his car and drove me to their workshop…














I looked over Rick's new in-the-embryonic-stages Mustang, which is getting the 570hp engine shown in preparatory stages in the pics, there was an E-type there too, while the ex-Can-Am car I'm sure was a Genie and I lost track of what the other car was. Except the 427 Cobra, I knew what that was all right, I saw one of them before... in 1965 at Lakeside... and that's Ron's pride and joy.


I was about to take more pics and ask Ron more about... "Come on, we're going now!" Jerry told me and we drove to his home, picking up my truck from the Applebees carpark on the way. Once there I helped Jerry load some jetskis onto a trailer and hook it up to his Ford, then we headed off somewhere I was to learn about on the way.