Home at last

We picked up the new bearing at Car Quest at 7;30 and headed back to the Flying A to quickly install it....yea right! About 4 hours later we were done. The bearing had a different step to it, so after beating on it for a while, we had to die grind the hub ever so slightly for it to go on. Got it on, no noise, tire stands up right...good to go. We left town at 11AM for the short 170 miles to Reno. As we left town we could see the smoke from the wildfires in CA, as we got closer the worse it got.
The trip was fine, we stopped at Jim's, he took us to Stead airport to bed the roadsters down for their 6 week rest. We will fly back to Reno Aug 14 and head to Austin,NV for the Alviso Roadster Reunion, the next morning we are going back to Winnemucca to the Flying A Garage and to meet with Rod & Custom's Americruise party, then back to Austin for the night to the "reunion" and then onto Wendover, UT for Speedweek at Bonneville.
This concludes the first half of the Top Less Tour......however I continue to travel, I leave July 3, in the new 50 Buick, for Des Moines and then Columbus for the Goodguys show and cruise. Lincoln Speedway motors, Pete & Jakes, Spitzer Auto, Brookville roadster plant to name a few......stay tuned.

Dale aka..... thedeuceguy

Tuesday June 24

A short day today, we made it 200 miles to Winnemmucca, NV. We are "stucka in Winnemucca". Barry's rear axle bearing went south. I found the Flying A Garage, I met them on the Americruise last year, It pays to have friend all over the USA. It is a private garage that works on cars for the upcoming museum, but they let us in and use the lift and even called their in the mechanic back in to help us. Of course no one has the bearing in stock so it will be here in the morning at AM. Slap it in and away we go, 170 miles to Reno. Should be there by 1 PM easy.
Check tonight's slide show for details of the shop, full of famous hot rods, race cars, WOW!
More bad luck that turns into good luck......the wheel did not come off, we found a good shop, made more new friends, still on schedule to get home Thursday night. We got the grand 25 cent tour of the cars, what a cool place. I think we will come back here in August on the way to Bonneville, Americruise is stopping in on Saturday in August, along with several more hot rods, will be fun.

Tuesday June 24

A short day today, 200 miles to Winnemucca, NV.......We are "stucka in Winnemucca". Barry's right rear bearing went south, we were lucky to get here. I found the "Flying A Garage" I met them on the Americruise last year. They were very nice and let us us their lift, called their mechanic back in to help. They are a private garage that works on cars for the soon to be museum, not an open shop.It was very nice that they let us in. We also got the 25 cent tour of the place.........WOW! talk about history of hot rods and race cars! Check the slide show for pics. If any one doesn't get the nightly slide shows, please email me at Thedeuceguy3@aol.com and I will send them to you.
Of course no one in town has the bearing, so it will be here in the morning at 8AM, slap it in and we should be on our way. Reno is now tomorrows destination, 170 miles away, should be there by 1 PM. More bad luck that ended in good luck, did not lose the wheel on the highway, found a great shop, nice place to stay and eat, did not put us behind that much......lots of luck.

Monday June 23

After driving almost 500 miles Monday and going nowhere, we spent the night in Boise, Idaho. We left Baker City, OR and drove switchbacks up and down and around untill about 6 o'clock. We were in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. It was a tiring day but fun. We found us a hotel and a steakhouse and quit for the night.

Sunday

Don's roadster

Sunday

We got up to a very cloudy and cool morning. We headed towards Bend, going over the mountains by Mt Hood was downright chilly. Mt hood is such a pretty sight, looks like a painting. We stopped at a HAMB friend's house and fellow roadster owner in Bend, OR. He has had his roadster forever, a real pretty car, purple with black fenders and a FORD engine. A 260 like I have in the 5 window, except he bought his from Carrol Shelby, showed me the invoice. Cool! I was drooling all over the car, and it is for sale too, (I could always use a full fendered one.)He has over 300,00 miles on it, rebuilt many times, looks like new still.We had a nice visit with Don and his wife, "DeuceDaddyDon" on the HAMB, Don Thomas in real life. He has a great hot rod history, past Pres of the LA Roadsters, drove with Dick Scritchfield, another LA Roadster member,(now living in Hawaii and owns a cool phaeton) showed me several magazine articles, I wish I couls have stayed longer.

From there we headed north east to Bakers City to spend the night, that was about 200 more miles. All went well, had a great day.

Saturday

Today was a much calmer day. We toured the Evergreen Aviation Museum and saw the HUGE Spruce Goose flying boat. That is a awesome museum, very high class. The plane was so neat. There were many many planes there, I'll post some pics tomorrow.
From there we headed north to see Mt St Helens volcano in Washington, we can now check off one more state in the roadster. That was a sight to see. The road we planned on using was closed due to snow, we turned left and took another road that was to take us to a viewing area, after about 10 miles the road kept getting more narrow and finally ended in a snow bank! We had to turn around and come back. We found another road that did give us a great view, check the photos tomorrow night.
Tonight we are in Cascade Locks, OR, just across the border, found a little hotel and a nice place to eat, its time to go to sleep!

Friday

Another view...........................

Friday

Today started off with cool weather, as we headed for the Oregon coast it became sweatshirt and windbreaker time. It was quite foggy, but still a nice drive. We headed north on 101 and then turned east towards our destination, Mc Minville, the home of Howard Hughs "Spruce Goose'.
About 1 PM we were cruising down the 2 lane state 18 highway, when we met a truck with a trailer of firewood, it hit a bump on a bridge and broke the axle off, here came a flying wheel with a stub axle on it bouncing and flying across the road. Barry dived to the right and hit the brakes, I saw a hole to the left across the yellow line and between everything. As I buzzed passed Barry I could hear a thud and glass breaking, a sick scary sound! I drove across the little bridge to a safe spot on the side and parked the roadster. I walked back to check on Barry. He was OK, but the car is hurt. The wheel hit the left side of the grille shell, missing somehow the actual grille bars, took off the headlight, then scrubbed down the hood side at the beltline hitting the windshield post and ripping out the bolt. Somehow it did not break the glass.
The state patrol was called and responded quite quickly. Once there they told us that it was not considered an accident, just exchange insurance and go on. We said WHAT?? They finally went over to see Barry's car and decided that it was over $1500.00 in damage so they would make out a report. They did not even want to go see his car, it was unbelievable!
The cowl has a big dent, the passenger door was pushed into the rear quarter, no headlight, smashed hood, broken latch, crunched shell and now when the electric fan comes on it hits the shroud and sounds like a thrashing machine. Yes it is over $1500.!!
We were lucky, it could have bounced a little and took out the front suspension or hit the windshield and took out Barry. In the morning we will fix the fan and then go see the Goose.
The Topless Tour will go on as planned.............................A scary day in a roadster is better than any day at work!!

Thursday...part 2

I almost forgot, I needed gas out there in the woods, finally found a small station, $5.69/gal....ouch! $60.00 to fill a little deuce tank. I was almost happy to pay it, I had 1 gallon left and the next station was way over 40 miles away. I'm doing my part to help the economy!!

Thursday

We slept in this morning and then drove over to Bob Drakes Ford reproductions.We got the special 24 cent tour. Very interesting. He has three buildings, shipping/receiving, sales, marketing/museum/R&D. Most all of his products are now made overseas, they have one employee that lives in China to oversee the production, then each piece is inspected here before shipping it out.
While there Barry borrowed a jack and checked his front wheel bearing seal, it has been leaking grease. We could not find a replacement so just cleaned it up and put it back in, worked better so far.
After Drakes we headed for Crater Lake, wow, what a place. 2,000 feet deep, 6 miles around, still snow covered and a skim of ice on the water. There was deep snow in all of the ditches, on the roof of one of the buildings, but we were in t shirts. It was a long drive, up and around on switchbacks and then back down and around, we drove about 200 miles and ended up about 80 miles north of where we started!
Tomorrow we will head farther north, taking rte 1 along the coast, should be a cool and a pretty drive.

Wednesday

We woke up to no hot water in the room, boy a cool shower will open your eyes quickly..but the internet connection worked great. It was sweatshirt weather, then by noon as we got close to the shore it was time for a windbreaker too.
My goal was to find the drive thru big redwood tree....well we found two and drove thru both of them. We drove thru very pretty country and really smooth roads, even the construction was smooth. Lots of very windy hilly roads, really cool to drive. We did see one Toyota that crossed the center line one curve and lost her front wheel, fender and smashed the door by a 18 wheeler, that happened just minutes before we got there...oh well it was just a Toyota!
I got to see Paul Bunyon and Babe the blue ox, giant statues about 50 feet tall, I saw them when I was 5 years old, that was over 40 years ago....oh yea, maybe more like 58 years ago, but cool to see....again. (check the newest slide show for pics)
We made it to Grants Pass OR about 5 PM, found a hotel and a local brewery/steak house and had dinner. A great day..............but then they all are if you are in a roadster cruising!
In the morning we will see Bob Drake reproductions and head on north.
I will make another slide show or two and send out tonight.
Steve, I have a hacksaw, I will help make that 39 sedan a roadster this winter, just let me know when.

Tuesday

I could not get on the net last night, $100+ room and no go, tonight a $50 room and works great!
Anyway, we are tonight in a little mountain town in Northern Cali.I forgot the name. This morning we visited Brizios, talked with Roy and Bill Ganahl there. I met Bill last year on the Americruise. A great young man.(Pat Ganahl the hor rod journalist is his father) I counted 11 employees at Brizios and at least 20 projects being worked on. Bill was working on Eric Clapton's latest, a 50 Ford shoebox.
Next door we stopped in to say hi to Donna at Sanderson Headers, always a pleasure. We then drove over to see the Rodders Journal world headquarters, not much going on there, the latest issue was mailed last month and the next just went to the printers last week.
It was a cool morning as we drove over the Golden Gate bridge, then hooked a left up and up and up to the top of the hill, what a view, and then a one lane road down the other side, WOW! We were stopped a a 5 minute red light, really, it is just outside of a one way tunnel,when 2 guys from the car behind us ran up to take a photo. they were from the UK, north of London. I took a pic of them shooting us, they laughed. We have seen so many foreign travelers on this trip, I guess they are trying to help our economy!!
I dont remember what we did Monday except drive and it was COLD. Sweatshirt and a windbreaker over that.
Tomorrow we head for the Redwoods, I am going to find that tree that you can drive thru, I remember it from when I was 5 years old, last time we missed it, not this time!

Sunday

Another great day at the roadster show. Weather was very nice, warm but with a breeze. I saw a few more old friends from all over the country today.
I had Ken Reister and Foose sign a die cast model of the Impression Ridler car that I brought along. I knew they were going to be there. We picked up our mugs at 3 PM and headed north, drove for a couple of hours to get put of the city traffic for the morning. Not much more to report tonight. Tomorrow its San Francisco, Brizios, Sandersons and Napa Valley.

Saturday

We left at 7:30 to head to the Fairplex for the Roadster show, the reason we did this trip. What an awesome show, free entry, free dinner Saturday night, a pewter mug, and they all thank you over and over for coming.
A quite large swap meet, always full of neat parts and cars, not garage sale junk like most are. Several hundred roadsters, and several hundred other rods. Many vendors. This is a FINE show. I saw a 32 sedan delivery for sale for $200,000. I like mine better! A knock your socks off 32 3 window for $150,000 ...wow!
I saw many people that I knew, Gary from Cornhuskers, Norm Jones from Texas, Billy O and Chris from CT to name a few. We had to purchase T shirts, and other trinkets from the show. We walked the swap meet, new vendors and the roadsters, tomorrow I will check out the "other" rods. We also went to the NHRA museum that is located on the fair grounds. It is always different every year. This years HIGHLIGHT was the restored "Ala Kart" the AMBR from 1958 and 1959. I have always wanted to see this car, finally! One more thing I can cross off my "bucket list" That car is down right beautiful!!
We got back to the hotel about 5PM went swiming to cool off and over to Friday's for dinner and a beer.
One more really fine day.

Friday

We drove to Gabe's Interior shop friday morning, he has moved to a new really nice shop. Darrick had him put a couple of snaps on his top while we were there. Next was the Early Ford Store in San Dimas, it is in the historic downtown, amongst neat old buildings, antique shops, cafes, a really "cutsie" old town. The store is jam packed with NOS for parts, he has almost everything. Darrick bought a pair of water pumps for spare for the ride home. That was a really neat place to visit.
After lunch in a little Italian place we headed off to SoCal Speed Sop's open house. We had "special parking" reserved spots inside the gates, made us all feel like "special" people. Thanks Jim Landree from Hot Rod Tours for the help on the parking passes! There were several hundred rods there, up and down the street, many projects inside the shop buildings, book signings by many hot rod heroes. I bought a Gene Winfield book and had him sign it. We visited his place on Tuesday. He will be 81 on Monday. We stayed there until about 6PM and then headed for the hotel and out to eat. If you check www.jalopyjournal.com and go the the HAMB message board, read the threads about socal, you will find several pics of my roadster and Darrick's cabriolet. Cool! An other fine day.

Thursday

We left the hotel this morning about 9AM to visit Marcel Metal Works, just a short 20 miles away. We had a wonderful visit with Dad Marcel and sons Luc and Marc. They both remembered me driving there before, asked if I went East to get there again. We were there for about three hours. They were not busy and wanted to talk and talk. We saw Ron Brown's new roadster that they are working on. There was also a 39 Lincoln that they were putting a metal top on, replacing the old wood and cloth one. The one I liked was a Kugel Muroc full fendered 32 roadster. Boyd's personal 40 Ford convertible was there, no one knows the future on it. The bill is not paid yet and has been there since last fall. Ron Brown drove in with his deuce roadster to check his car, I finally got to meet him.
We walked across the street to see Barry White SRRC. His shop was stuffed with finished cars and projects. Barry was doing a final assembly on a deuce roadster that is to be given to a guy's wife this Saturday for a birthday present, a pretty car. He stopped working and talked with us for about an hour. He recalled fixing my tie rod end in 04. We left there after one and drove towards the hotel, found a cafe to have lunch at, went to Auto Zone for some oil and stuff and back to the hotel.
I am fighting a sinus allergy thing so went to the room to take a nap. The others were going to relax at the pool.
Barry got back here about 4:30, his car all fixed and ready to rock. It was a good but laid back day.
We opted not to go with Landree's tour group when we heard they were leaving a 6:30 and driving 2 hours to the first stop.......we were all to tired to do that!
Hopefully in the morning we will go with Landree and then on to SoCal open house.

Wednesday

We went to Foose's shop this morning, the "tour group" from Mpls had a flight delay so they did not arrive until about 11:30. After a guided tour of his shop we went to Lanzini body shop and then to Scandinavian Street shop. He had 17 Deuces in his shop, that is all he does is Deuces....my kind of place. From there it was off to Boyds and Kugals. Several nice cars in both shops. It was a warm drive in the afternoon traffic. I couold not live here with all the traffic ! We got back to the hotel about 7, adjusted the float on my carb so hopefully it will stop flooding over! Darrick had as couple of little things to fix. Barry took his car to Boyd's to fix the wheel, 4 new tires, and a polish job on the aluminum suspension pieces. He had a few little things to fix also. Tomorrow will be some more shop tours.

Tuesday

Finally got a computer that will work. We went to Bodis Park (Ghost town) 8 miles of ROUGH road, but really neat to see one there. Check Bodie CA park on line, many old buildings just left there, empty since 1940. The trip to Yosomite at 10,000 feet was awesome. Beautiful scenery. Yesterday we went to Gene Winfield's shop...tons of chopped mercs all over the lot. Looked like 1958 time warp. We made it to Ontario last evening, took a swim, washed the dirty cars. This morning we are off to Foose's to meet Jim Landry for lots of shop tours.

See Ya.

Quick update

I forgot to mention the last couple of days, Barry hit a big pot hole and bent his right front wheel real bad, he also thinks it broke the plies in the tire, anyway he can't go over 62 mph......might be the best thing that happened so far. Some of the desolate roads we have been on he would have been driving 85 mph plus all the time. Sort of a automatic speed control!! Tuesday morning he will head to Boyds to see about the wheel/tire and order a replacement.

Sunday

We got up at 7 AM, Darrick had some problems with the fan hitting the shroud,after a little trimming all was well. We had breakfast, "Deuce Special" 2 eggs, 2 panakes, 2 bacon, 2 sausage for $5...sounded like a deal (they didn't have oatmeal). We headed for Las Vegas, we skipped going to the hoover Dam because of time. I dropped Rodney off at MGM, Barry picked John up up at the airport and we all met up at excit 33 on I15, from there we headed on the 2 lane towards the west. We drove thru Death Valley, it was hot and desolate. Darrick popped a fuse on the gauges had to figure that out and fixed it. That was somewhere in the middle of Death Valley, elevation was 214 below sea level. Then the lone haul from sea level to 2000 ft up a LONG incline, Darrick's flatty go a little hot, had to cool her down a couple of times, but we did all make it out alive. Tonight we are in Tonopah, NV. Had a good dinner, found a nice cheap hotel and we all crashed. We will hit it again in the morning at 8 AM. We are going to Bodie State Park a real ghost town, google Bodie, CA and you will find some awesome photos of the town, looks as if they left yesterday, but it has been empty for 50 years. Talk to you all tomorrow night.

Saturday

We woke up to heavy clouds and quite cool, really cloudy and rain predicted to the north of us, just where we were going. After a short discussion, we decided to skip going back to the Rat Fink reunion and head south to stay dry. It was a very cool drive, sweatshirt and windbreakers.we drove thru Bryce Canyon and Zion National parks, very pretty drive. South to St George, by then it was hot. At lunch we spotted a windshield repair tent across the street, I checked him out, $20 later both windshield chips are all but gone! I changed into shorts while he was fixing the chips and off we go towards nightly stop in Mesquite, NV, just inside the border and 75 miles northeast of Vegas. It was hot there. We found rooms and also reserved one for Darrick and Terry. They arrived about 9:30 after driving 980 miles.....they were tired. They had dinner $4.99 prime rib , Rodney and I had dessert and we headed for bed. The hotel was priced right but wantged $10 more for internet, hey got to save somewhere, I did not pay it.

Friday

We drove 300 miles today thru Bryce Canyon Park. We took all back 2 lane roads. Arrived in Salina, Utah at 5PM found a room had dinner then drove 30 miles to Manti to the Rat Fink Reunion. We will go back there in the morning. Lots and lots of windy roads, not a day to make time but great sight seeing.
Heard from Darrick, the generator went south last night in Sioux Falls, they spent all day fixing it, they called at 5 their time, its fixed and they are rolling. Still hope to see them in Vegas this weekend.
Not much elase new today, we all got wind/sun burned. I look like a racoon with a red nose ! Like I have aid before........"a bad day in a roadster is better than any day at work"

Thursday

We woke up to a windy cool morning. Bundled up and headed down the road to the Grand Canyon. A beautiful drive. Drove from 5000 feet to 9000 feet. it had snowed yesterday so was a pretty sight. While at the canyon we met tourits from France, Italy, Holland, Netherlands, England and Germany, no Americans ! They all wanted to know about the cars and took photos. I am sure they will go back home and tell their friends about the "crazy old guys" in the hot rods!! Tonight we are in Knab Utah. Yesterday we drove 300 miles today only 175 miles but lots of sight seeing. Tomorrow its Bryce Canyon and on towards the Rat Fink reunion in Manti UT.

Wednesday

We had no wiFi,cell service or dish tv last night, so this post is a little late. We left Cortez Co in the morning in the cool..had sweatshirts and wind breakers on. We stopped for a mid morning breakfast and met 25 bikers from France. They had a ball checking out the cars and asking questions, taking lots of photos. By noon it was warm and we were in t shirts again.
We drove thru Monument Valley, down the dirt/gravel 5 mph switchback road. We placed our "Goodguys Rod & Custom" decal on the sign at the top of the decent. While driving thru a construction zone with fresh gravel I caught 2 rocks to the windshield, I now have 2 nice nickle size chips there! We drove onto AZ, about 5PM we stopped for a quick break and to check the clouds boiling above us and to put on the windbreakers again. In about 5 minutes all hell broke loose, wind, blowing sand/gravel, we took cover temporarily under the gas station canopy. We checked inside, they had 2 rooms left! We quickly took them. The wind just kept getting worse. We found shelter for the cars in a shed used by a river boat excursion company. We headed to the local bar/cafe for some beers and dinner.While walking and running to the cafe, we were pelted by stinging sand and gravel blown on us. We watched 3 SUV's loose their back glass...., blown in. Two portapottys blew over and went scooting across the highway.......empty thankfully. Shingles were blowing off the roofs....we just set there and drank beer and watched the action. Finally at 8PM, 3 hours later, the wind and gravel stopped. It was totally calm, clear skies, untill about midnight, then more wind, rain and noise. What a night!

Part 2 for Tuesday

Oh yea, in case you all want to know, the highest gas price has been 4.28. They have 85 octane for a little less but have not tried that yet. You may want to check out www.streetrodding.com, some good photos of Goodguys in CO there, one pretty blue deuce for sure!! Ha Ha
To off set the gas price we found a great little motel tonight for $45.!! Gotta cutback some where.
It even comes with a coffee pot, fridge, micro....cool!It;s 11 o'c;lock, I'm tried, time to crash.

Tuesday

We drove to Montrose to visit old friend Joe, big surprise for him! From there we went to the Gateway Museum, such a Classy museum. All the cars were 100 point restorations, nothing shabby at all. The 3 million dollar f88 Olds was a sight to see! The scenery today was outstanding as well as the road conditions. We drove into Telluride, Co and then onto Cortez, arriving about 8PM. About 400 miles, visits and a museum tour...a good day. In the morning we will head towards the north rim of the Grand Canyon going thru Monument Valley on the way.

Monday

We had a great breakfast with John and then it was off to the Denver Deuce factory. That ended up being a 3 hour photo shoot of our roadsters with the Denver skyline as a backdrop.....fun. It was on the top floor of a parking ramp next doot to the old Tivoli Brewery. They want to use our finnished cars in some of their advertising and signs or what ever. The shop is a very nice place, bigger and better than the old Rod Bod shop.
We drove west from Denver thru the mountains and stopped tonight in Salida, CO. A beautiful drive up, over the mountains and next to the river the last several miles, very senic. It was a gorgeous day, high 80's and sunny, no clouds, lotys of sun screen, but my face still got burned, I think wind burned mostly.
In the morning we will stop to see old friend Joe in Montrose, CO and then onto Gateway Auto Museum. I have not seen or heard from Joe since he was in our wedding 43 years ago, he does not know we are coming...this could be fun!!

talk to you tomorrow...................Dale

Sunday

We spent the day untill about 2 PM at the show. Another beautiful day, clear blue sky, about 85 degrees. Picked up Rodney at the airport and found a hotel in south Denver. In the morning we will have breakfast with John Stranges, a retired Walgreen colleague from old days in CT. Plans then call for a trip to Streamline Speed Shop to see the new "Denver Deuce" metal roadster factory. (the old RodBod Co sold out to Deuce America Co) then over the mtns we go.
An exciting change in plans for this weekend, we are going to the Rat Fink Reunion at Trixie's place in Manti, UT, that should be a BLAST!!

later.....................Dale