Glidden tour arrival day is lots of fun. We get to see what cars come in and meet friends from earlier tours. We were delighted to see Pat and Wayne Young, Patti and Mike Werckle, Mert and Dorothy Houdek plus many others. There are about 185 cars here, many I have not seen before.
There was a 1911 Stanley Steamer that we got to ride and then learned to drive it. It's generous owner enjoyed letting others experience the joy of driving a Stanley. It was easy to drive, lots of smooth power with that 500 psi steam. What a huff!Other cars seen in the parking lot were several Pierce Arrows, Auburns, and a Cord. There was another 1940 La Salle, this one a convertible coupe. A 1940 Chevy Business Coupe very similar to Mom's appeared. This car was driven 2000 miles from Seattle, WA and outdistanced us by about 500 miles. (few cars are driven to this meet, probably less than 5%).
Older brass included an Oakland, Kissel, Peerless, and Cadillac. We enjoyed meeting these cars and their owners on the road the following day.
Dinner put us together with a group from Buffalo. I dazzled them with my interest and knowledge about Buffalo, one of my favorite home towns.
Day 1 on the tour was busy, 140 miles or so through spaghetti roads north of La Crosse. Lots of turns and up and down. A roller coaster, shear fun in a new or old car. We ended at a vast collection of toys, cars, and other things in the rolling Wisconsin hills overlooking the Mississippi. This is Elmer's Auto and Toy Museum. Any toy you can think of is probably here and many more you can't. Ditto for the cars. This is a well hidden attraction, many folks in the area don't even know its there.
We cruised home through more serpentine roads, stopping for a catered lunch at the town of Arcadia Soldier's walk and the Brush Museum. The former is a US war memorial and the latter a collection of trophy taxidermy -- all captured with bow and arrow. This includes elephants, rhinos, bears and other really big game animals.
We collapsed after this one. The La Salle did fine, but she began to howl from her front wheel. Bad wheel bearing, I think. I tried to find one in La Crosse. No luck, so one will be Fedex'd in for Wednesday.
1 comment:
Hello Bill, Dick Pledger again. I really envy your adventure, especially getting to drive a Stanley steamer. I saw some in Estes Park, CO a couple of years ago, and went to the Stanley museum. There they had a couple of motors that you could play with; I recognized the valve-stroke feedback linkage, it is the same principle as was used on steam locomotives, and aircraft flight controls that I worked on. I have a 1911 sales booklet that I'll show you next time I see you. In it they say that it's easier to drive than a gasoline car!!! This in spite the myriad valves, gages, and levers that had to be monitored.
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