Photos, web site,

Here is the mountain shot on 395. Check out www.bergstromsphotography.com click on photod...LA Rdstr show 2010, see all of the roadsters driving in. Page 8 pix #259 is a real nice one!!
I will be posting again next week on the Goodguys in DesMoines and the cruise to Goodguys Nationals in Columbus, OH

Final day

I met Jim at Rod Bods today, toured his shop to see some of the projects that are happening. His 3 window, chopped, fenders widened 2 inches, the wheel base streched 3 inches. It has a LS1 Corvette engine, Kugal suspension front and rear.
A nice chopped tudor, another 3w that belongs to a customer.
I added some photos of the mountains along Rte 395 to Reno. A shot of the gas pump with some high priced gas, $4.29...but it was 91 octane!!
Jim and I drove to Stead air base, pulled his plane out and backed the roadster in, covered her up for a few weeks of rest.

Tuesday

I left Bishop about 8 AM this morning. It was an uphill drive, Bishop is 4140 ft above sea level, I passed one sign at 8300 ft. There were a couple of signs saying to turn off AC so car won't overheat. No problem there, I had the seat heaters and the hot air heater on, it was chilly. About 11 AM I shut off all the heaters and pealed off the sweatshirt! It was a good drive, nice scenery, good road. the car ran fine.
I arrived at Rod Bods about 1 PM. My hotel is just a few blocks away. Next door to the hotel is a post office, I stopped there an got a "if it fits, it ships" box. I am going to mail some things home.
In the early morning I will clean the car, then go to Rod Bods about 1 to take the car to his hanger. I will have Jim bring me back to the hotel. Thursday morning I can catch the shuttle to the airport. I have a shuttle picking me up in Mpls and driving me to St Cloud.
This part of "the topless tour" is about over. I leave next Thursday in the red Vicky for Des Moines and Columbus, OH for 2 weeks..too much fun!

Monday

Short trip today. I left about 9AM for Bishop, CA. A short but hot drive across the high dessert. When I left it looked like rain, within a few miles the skies cleared and it warmed up. A prety drive if you like sagebrush and joshua trees, I do. It is only 260 miles to Bishop, I arrived here about 3PM, found a little, cheap, dumpy motel. Tonight I ate at BBQ Bills across the street, good place. In the morning its off for Reno

red Phaeton Deuce

Forgot to mention the phaeton picture. Its a beautiful deuce phaeton for sale and at a good price....sure would look nice in my garage. I need to find a garage stretcher!! Anyway I have his number, its been for sale for several weeks on the hotrod hotline site, I saw it there a few weeks back, now I saw it in person. drool drool!

Sunday

Another day in paradise!!! Clear blue sky, 80 something a light breeze and a big bunch of roadsters. We arrived at the fairgrounds about 7:30. We headed out to walk the vendors and the roadsters. We had several vendors to see and was nice to talk to them before the crowds arrived.
At 10 AM John and I took the trolley to the NHRA Museum. Always a neat place, always changing. This time it was a tribute to Mickey Thompson. Also the Jackman Bros deuce sport coupe was there ( a favorite of mine from the 60's) and the Dago Deuce that belongs to Richard Munz from Madison, WI. It is the full size car that matched Stanley Wanlass' bronze sculpture which is a 4 ft long bronze, just so cool.
John had to leave at 11AM to catch his flight back to CT. I am on my own the next four days. I will miss his company and his navigational help. Its just Me and "Lola" the GPS for the rest of the trip.
At noon I went to the LA Roadster lunch room again. Another fantastic lunch and you got it, it was free food! Thanks for the extra perks Jim!
I am staying in Ontario again tonight. I thought a good nights rest would be good. I only have 460 miles and 3 days to get to Reno. I will drive half way tomorrow then continue on Tuesday.

Saturday

We arrived at the Fair Plex at 7:30, drove in and parked with 800 of our roadster buddies. What a show this is. Free admission, free lunch, free dinner tonight, a pewter mug, dash plaque and every time you see a LA Roadster member, they are thanking you for coming!!
A huge swap meet with lots of good parts. Many vendors under the tent, 800 roadsters and probably another 1000 "other" cool cars. There were 6 fuel dragsters that were doing a "cackle fest", the cackle of the engines stung your ear drums because they are so loud and the nitro methane fuel would burn your eyes.....so cool!

I saw many friends from all over, NE, CT, CO, IL,OR, CA KS, AZ, and more too. This was another real great day.

Friday

We had a great day on Friday (again). We started off at Fred's Wiring, a builder of real nice cars. He is such a friendly guy too. Next was a private collection. This guy has cars and lots of stuff. An old auto shop converted to his shop, including a soda fountain, display room and shop.
At noon we went to a party/lunch at Thumper and Flo's house. There was 100 hot rods and probably 300 people. Hamburgers, pop, beer, margaritas all free!! What a deal.
After lunch it was time for SoCal Speed shop open house, we had a pass to park inside the gates again this year, (Thanks to a good friend of mine) What a treat. From there it was over to Bobby Walden' open house. We got back to the hotel about 9 PM, a fun filled day.

Thursday

We left the hotel at 7 AM this morning, the first stop was Lil Louie's shop. He is an awesome pin stripper and molding maker. You should see the beautiful chromed moldings that he makes. Next door is Gabe's interior shop, another super craftsman.
From there We went to a private collection. A nice mix of street rods and customs, two buildings full, right on a main street, downtown. Next was a car lot, full of neat old cars, rods all for sale. There was also a building around the corner full of his personal cars. He took us to an airplane hanger full of more cars, a deuce roadster, 47 convert, F100, and more. In the other half of the hanger was a race car collection...just unreal!
We stopped for lunch at a great Mexican place and then headed for Marcels, Barry Whites, always great to visit those guys. They are both in Corona. Down the road about 10 miles also in Corona was Extreme Hot Rods. A huge great shop at his house. Mary had a great meal for us, thanks Mary!! They all made us feel so much at home. I'll attach a few photos, I took over 50 today, but will show you just a few.

Tuesday/Wednesday photos

Tuesday/Wednesday shop tours

Bruce Meyers private collection in Beverly Hills was the first stop Tuesday. A beautiful home and large garage full of neat stuff. All of his cars have history not just old cars but "important" old cars. Foose's shop was next, got the grand tour, helped him clean the undercarriage of the AMBR/Ridler winner Impression. Lanzinis paint shop then Scandavian Street rods (all 32's here)Hot Rods and Hobbies, a shop with about 25 to 30 projects going on. Goodguy Gary Meadors Chrysler woodie convert with a viper, several Jags,a deuce woodie, Mercedes, willys phantom, and more. Wood n Carr, with 5 woodies under construction. Bill Hines shop, what a time capsule, he is 89 years old and still building customs. Jr's House of Color was next, saw a Hitler Mercedes from WWII being restored there plus several high dollar sports cars.

Wednesday it was off to Bodie Strom's BS Industries, he is building 2 mustangs for SEMA, a 51 Merc, 60 Ford Starliner is done plus several other projects.
Jay Leno's Big Dog Garage...65,000 Sq Ft of neat cars (no cameras allowed) Hollywood Hot Rods, building several 32's a RPU for Raybestos give away car, awesome stuff, Old Crow Speed shop, just full of neat hot rod stuff, a 32 Phaeton, belly tank racers, and neat stuff. Next was the Tonight Show. We had special tickets that got us into the "Green Room" (which was actually painted brown) for snacks and drinks, then into the show for reserved seating, way cool.
Tonight I met up with more friends from Colorado, Five or six cars arrived today, it was good to see them all again. Really fun guys.
It was a GREAT two days......more tomorrow.

more Monday pictures

Poor Boys shop.......

Monday

We found a coin op laundry and took care of all the dirty clothes. We headed for Limeworks in Whittier where I bought a new steering wheel and column drop for the RPU. The next stop was to be Poor Boys Hot Rods. We stopped for a sandwich and noticed the tail pipe rear support had lost the bolt and rubber insulator. No problem I had spares with me. As I crawled under the car I also noticed the center exhaust bracket had broken at the weld. While I was under the car an older gentleman walked up and was telling us how he drove his 32 from NJ to CA in 1947. Took him 7 months, he had to stop and get part time jobs to pay for the trip. What a neat ol guy. He suggest that he lead us to a Midas Muffler shop to weld the bracket, about 3 miles away. So off we all went. The shop was very helpful, had me on a lift in minutes, I took care of the rear bolt and insulator and he welded the center bracket. All set to go again.
We made it to Poor Boys, got a quick tour, talked with owner Dan for a bit. He used to work for Boyd during the TV show days. The next stop was Kugel's. looked around there and got to talk with Jerry about his roadster runs at Bonneville. He drove it there and back. While there he went 225, his son did 223 and daughter did 215 MPH, all pretty cool.
We headed for the hotel about 3:30 to beat the rush hour. We drove the car pool lane and made it here in 30 minutes
In the morning we meet Jim and the Hot Rod Tours guys and tag with them to several shops and private collections.

Made it to Ontario, CA

After a great meal, beers and night at the Virgin River casino in Mesquite, NV we headed south on I15 towards Ontario, CA. A short 310 miles. We left at 8 AM to beat some of the heat in the Mojave desert. We stopped for lunch at Peggy Sue's dinner in .Yermo, CA. Always a great place to eat at. Traffic was quite heavy for the middle of the desert. Many people go to Vegas for the weekend and head home to CA. Its a 4 lane sometimes 6 lanes interstate and all lanes were full, we still cruised at 70 to 75 and were being passed quite often. We arrived at the hotel at 1:15 PM. this will be home base for the next week.
Monday morning will be laundry time and then off to visit hot rod shops. The plan is Limeworks, Kugals and Poor Boys, that should be a fun day. Good to have made it. No car problems. The car ran likke a clock.

snow storm in the Grand Canyon

We left Tuba City and headed for the Grand Canyon. At Marble Canyon (the place that I was caught in the sand storm 2 years ago) the clouds were looking threatening. We stopped at a roadside Indian Jewelry vendor booth and waited for a awhile. When the Indian ladies started to cover their tables with plastic sheets we decided it was time to put the top on. A car pulled in coming from the direction that we were going told us he was in a bad hail storm and the ground was covered with hail. We all felt the storm had moved on. We took off towards Jacobs Lake. It started to rain. As we approached the ranger station at the entrance it was still raining a little. When we reached the actual Grand Canyon it was raining and a little sleet. We checked out the canyon, ate lunch, took a couple of photos and decided to head back. With in a mile of the canyon it started to snow. It got worse and worse. It was coming straight towards the car and was blocking the windshield. Within another couple of miles the road was 3 to 4 inches deep with wet slushy snow. We had to stop every mile to clear off the windshield. A ranger truck pulled up behind us with his red lights flashing, he would block traffic as we got out to clear the windshield. This went on every mile for all 35 miles back to Jacobs Lake. That was a nerve racking drive! As we pulled into the gas station the ranger turned around and headed back. I didn't even get to tell him thanks. I'm sure we would have been rear ended if he was not behind us. The people were driving like idiots. We gassed up and headed west, the snow stopped turned to rain then cleared off to just cloudy skies. We made it onto St George, UT and onto Mesquite, NV...time for a beer or two!!
Two times I have been to Grand Canyon north rim...two times stuck in storms, I think that is the last time I'm doing it.

Friday

We left Cortez this morning to drive to Mesa Verde Indian cliff dwellings. When we arrived at the front gate there was a big sign "expect delays, road construction, gravel road 10 miles" I said no way, had enough of road construction. We turned around and headed for the "Four Corners". When we arrived there we learned that the actual monument was under construction also. I took a picture of it thru the construction fence. When we returned to the car there was a family looking at it, the kid ask if he could take a picture, so I asked "why don't you get in and let the folks take your picture" He was thrilled,cool to see little kids liking hot rods.
We drove on to Monument Valley, neat sight, and onto Kayenta, AZ. I called ahead to Marble Canyon for rooms...all booked! The next town was Tuba City, there we got a nice room in a month old hotel, The Legacy. We spent the afternoon in the pool and hot tub. Very easy day.
In the morning we will head for Grand Canyon, Zion Nat'l Park, and then spend the night in Mesquite, NV at the casino.

Thursday

We left Grand Junction and drove to Gateway to visit the home of the $3.24 million, F88 Oldsmobile concept car. This is a great collection.All of the cars are very nicely done, no junk. They had just brought in three new ones that the owner bought at the Mecum auction in Indy last month. We had a nice chat with the chief mechanic, what a cool job to have.
The next stop was Cortez, CO. It was a short day, we have extra time to get to Ontario, so we are taking some easy days. We relaxed at the motel, talked to the guy next door from Maryland on his Honda bike, riding all over all alone.
I could not get the laptop to hook up to the internet for some reason, so no blog last night.

more pictures

Wednesday night

We got up this morning, had breakfast, found a car wash and took the top off...finally! We took of for Estes Park and of course it rained on us for 15 minutes or so. We arrived there, gassed up, toweled off the car and headed for Trail Ridge. Just outside of town we saw a young Elk right by the road side eating, cool sight. As we arrived at the Park toll booth we discovered Trail Ridge was under construction. We went any way to see how good or bad it would be. About half way up we hit the construction, drilled black top...no problem. About 3/4 the way up the sign said "pavement ends". We stopped and talked to a car that was coming down and he said it was not too bad. (of course he was driving a SUV) We headed on up, not too bad, had a pilot car guide a group of cars, the road was multi level where they were scraping up the black top. We made it to the top, 11,700 ft high. Took a photo by the snow bank and headed down the other side. There we found the construction much worse, the road was just dirt, gravel and mud. 20 MPH, dodging rocks, puddles when I could, it was a little nerve racking. We made it, the car was mud all over, inside too and we were mud splattered. On the way down we saw a herd of elk grazing, a mama moose and her calf right by the road side. I was not going to stop for a photo and spook her so no picture.
We stopped in Granby for lunch, washed the car again and continued on. A long drive thru a pretty but desolate area. Not much traffic, very few homes. We finally hit I70 at Wolcott, 120 miles east of Grand Junction. We hit Grand Junction about 6 PM, found a hotel and a place to eat.
A fun day, got some sun, a lot on out legs. We both match the red seats in the car now.