I have returned

Home at 9:33pm.
637 miles driven today and Dora is resting in my driveway ready to commute tomorrow.
There are a number of issues to deal with now that I'm home, but they can wait.

Outbound it was 4 days: 476, 696, 743 and 357 miles.
Inbound it was 3 days: 696, 789, and 637 miles.
And 93 miles driven in and around Moab.

Overall 4484 miles. Best tank of gas was 16.2 mpg, worst 10.8 (that day we ran out) and many around 15.

FRS ? from Q

Ben , Does JL still have my frs radio ?
If so could you collect it ?
Rgds Q

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Indiana

New Castle that is--not quite to Ohio.
789 miles today.
If my totals are correct, about 682 to go tomorrow.
JL and I will probably split up around Columbus.

From Moab to Salt Lake

From Q via email - Monday night

---

Arrived at Mikes here in Salt Lake circa 6 this PM after driving up from Moab with Bill. Not a bad drive, but it crossed some of the most desolate scenery I have seen on the entire trip. That area on Rt 70 west and UT route 6 was amazing.


Other than the road the only signs of humanity were the desultory fence posts and some old barbed wire. Straight as an arrow for miles with no services. No Gas, No anything. I can imagine the early Mormon settlers of the area taking days to cross the expanse … Slow enough in the rover and almost unimaginable in an ox drawn cart.

So ends the driving phase of the trip.

---

Total mileage covered was 2564
Highest altitude 10977
Max speed ( via GPS ) 81.3

Economy
Worst 14 mpg in MO against a STRONG headwind.
Best 21.5 in several runs.

The 88 performed better than I had any right to expect. Mechanical faults were limited to:
Leaky oil pressure warning sender ( last 1/3 of the trip )
One front spring bushing is going bad.
Horn stopped working in MO
The OD fills up by itself.. (bad oil seal somewhere..)

The 88 used No water, about 3 oz brake fluid, no gear oil, and about 3 quarts of motor oil.

Trail damage was limited to a few small dents and my neglecting to remove the rear mounted spare and bending the read door ...
The sliders took a few hard hits and all it did was scrape the paint.

Both Carlane and I have become very fond of the darn thing. And I can hardly wait to fly out here to take it on some new adventure.

My final thought about driving Cross country
Take 5 days on the back roads and it is an enjoyable experience
Take 3 days and it is an ordeal you have to take a week off to recover from.

Good luck Ben !

Rgds Q

Ps parking in St Louis is a PAIN

Pictures at www.roverist.com/moab9

MO-ing right along.

20 miles E of KC, MO and moving right along.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Kansas again

Hays, KS for the night.
696 miles.
We pushed too far and we a bit wonky towards the end.
Major headwinds through eastern CO and KS.
We saw "open range" signs in UT with the cow modified to be riding a
skatw board. Soon thereafter we saw a cow trotting down the side of
the freeway with a cop car in pursuit (trying to herd it away from
traffic). Also a NBC camera woman jogging after the action.
It looks like 1471 (or so) miles to go.

Sunday - Arches National Park

From Q via email - Sunday Night

---

We (Bill C, Eric and Carlane, Scott, Bill Fishiel and I ) got in some light (comparatively) off roading in Arches National park today. As scenery goes .. WOW..


Not all the roads between are wow but enough is off the scale to be damn impressive. It is astonishing how the geology and rock formations can change in just a few miles.


For the off roading , nothing broken, nothing lost .. either we are getting good at this or we are getting lucky…

Ben and JL had B-fast with us this am and headed out … They looked tired when they left I hope they are careful. At least JL fixed his power steering and brakes before he went .. He had a hole in a custom high pressure line in the hydro boost system…. Off to the auto parts store to discover it is the same as a stock Chevy part costing $22 .. So now the power steering AND power brakes are working…

Ben is one (working) diff short of a full set but as long as he doesn’t brake a half shaft the truck should be fine…

Eric, Scott and Carlane are off to Denver tomorrow AM, In Scots 90, Eric and Carlane are flying from Denver to Baltimore to collect and drive home the new 110..

Bill C (in Mike’s RR) and I are going up to Salt Lake City on Monday afternoon and Bill flies out Tuesday AM and I fly out on Wednesday..

It has been a great adventure , well worth the angst .. The scenery, terrain, and off roading are unlike anything back east .. Not “better” but vastly different.. Driving across the country in “ low and slow “ mode was a blast. Every day was a new adventure. You get a different perspective on nation and the lives of people as you drive through small town America.

I heartily recommend Rt 36 as a great way to see the country.. And for us, the velocity impaired Rover community it is not much slower than the major interstates.

I will figure out the mileage, distance and velocity made good asap.. But not tonight …

Todays pictures are at www.roverist.com/arches

Denver

Fuel and go.

Setting sail for home

2167 miles to go.
3 days budgeted.
Fueled.
Aired up.
Full mug of coffee.
It's light out and I don't have any sunglasses.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Last day blues

Today was a run with the NJLR group. I drove Cristina's D90 and lead
the group on Porkupine Ridge since I had done it on Fri.

I've done some packing. I'm banging my head against the wall about my
short in the aux power box. I think that is a failed cap used for
filtering noise. I'll have to check it out in the morning.

Saturday - Didn't break anything..

From Q via email - Late Saturday night

---

Today we did the fins-and-things trail. Mostly slick rock, some steep (45 degree) climbs a couple of steeper drops and some fair sized ledges to climb over..

We (Mike M and Nichole, Eric and Scott, JL and Jeff B and Carlane and I) had a good trip. Didn’t break anything and arrived home before dark… Carlane did about 1/3 of the driving in the 88 and did a great job on her first time driving off road…

Last night was the vendor night with 15 or 20 vendors (including our own Eric231) set up card tables and displayed their wares.. Great Basin had a cool diff modification that keeps the ring gear from stripping because it flexes by drilling a sleeve at right angles to the ring gear and installing an adjustable pin. It was also supposed to be some sort of swap meet but only one guy showed up with anything interesting . I scored a set of NOS mudflaps with the yellow lettering for the 88 pu AND a really cool 6000 lb Braden ELECTRIC winch. Total cost $200

Bill C had some t-shirts made for Carlane and I to commemorate our St Louis
adventure …

They were a BIG hit…

Pictures of the vendor night at www.roverist.com/vendors

Pictures of today’s off roading at www.roverist.com/moab8

Rgds Q

More from Q

From Q via email - Late Friday night

---

Mikes RR was still at the welders and the red 88 wouldn’t start yesterday am, so we didn’t make it to the gathering point for the trail briefing and start but we did get info by cell phone so we knew where to go if we could catch up.. Scott, Eric Carlane and JL having gone ahead.

The red 88 would crank fine, sputter when first cranked and then nothing.. Big fat spark from the coil wire, little or none at the spark plug wires.. I pulled the cap and the center electrode was ground flat and there was carbon all over the inside of the distributor.. New cap? .. No .., Cleaned old one with brake clean … same problem eventually swapped out the whole distributor … same problem.. The coil was bad.. The extra resistance to the plugs was too much for it… I should have figured it out faster but …

It turned out well tho as we went straight to the welders and the truck was almost done . 15 min and $232 later we were on out way. After a couple of minor navigational missteps we found the trail head and within 30 min had caught up with … Ben and JL, the rest of the group having moved on. Dora was not starting and there was much puzzlement all round.. I suggested checking the battery water and after adding a gallon she actually started…

Just that once tho..


Yesterday we did the porcupine rim trail. Jeff B broke a front diff, as did Ben (he also had a panoply of maladies as listed by Ben himself) Mostly it was ledges and baby heads (rocks the size of a … ) I have become remarkably tired of running on loose rocks the size of a football… Tomorrow we are going back to driving on slick rock (which isn’t slick at all btw)

 

 

The view at the end was worth all the trouble.


A huge canyon ( 15x30 miles ) with the stub of a long extinct volcano in the middle. And from the vantage point there was a 1000 foot vertical drop….

I got pictures of Mikes truck about 5 feet from the edge… It was defiantly impressive..

We stayed there , took pictures and repaired Dora until twilight and barely got off the trail before dark…

Dora by this time was running on about 6 v and had no lights, even the brake lights were almost invisible. Bill C driving Mikes RR went first, then Dora, them me and bringing up the rear was JL.. It was about 10 miles down a twisty VERY dark dirt road with Dora all but invisible. All they had to navigate with were the tail lights of the Rangie and a dim flashlight…


Poor flat Dora only made it about a mile off the access road and then died completely..

Ben and I went back to the campground after trying to find a battery store at 9 pm in Utah.. And we found a battery to borrow. Bill Fischel never even missed it till we mentioned that he should get a hold down and tighten the battery terminals next time…

Back to Dora, battery swapped and she started right up, no problem. Back home and off to dinner.

A generally 5 hr trail, about 12 for us, par for the course.

Hundreds of other stories later when I can. + more of my pictures

Bens pictures are at for the trip to date are at www.roverist.com/bsmoab1

He caught the BEST picture of JL’s tip over…

Dora's unhappyness with me

Where do I start? She was giving me the silent treatment. As in not
starting. As we recall from our continuing drama, on the trail on Wed
the started failed. She'd pull start or rollstart fine. We ran the
trail and got back to camp. Out came the starter. The field coil end
that attaches to ground had warped and touched the neighboring coil.
I could see a weld blob. I cleaned that up and bent the ribbon wire
back into place and put it together. Jumper cables on Dora's battery
showed that it now worked! 10pm and off to find dinner.

Checked it in the am...dead! Took it apart a few times. Nothing.
Then tried on Bill Fishel's truck. Spun fine. Ahh the battery died
over night (it was dim last night). Installed. Jumped from Bill and
off to the organizational place for 8am. Let her idle to charge and
then placed uphill in the parking lot in case she wouldn't restart.

Ran the trail anyway after rollstarting. She wouldn't start. She
died randomly a few times. Q showed up and said, "have you checked
the battery water? I added...1 gallon. She started right up. Charge
light was on, then dim later and off. We would start her with a
booster pack. As you can guess the battery was dead as was the 10si
alternator. I had brought washme's.

On the trail the front diff went bang. Probably a crown wheel tooth.
It would lockup and release the drive train from time to time with a
clank. At a stop I checked underneigth. The parking brake adjuster
nuts had fallen off. In the dust i put on new ones. And got that
working. JL noticed how horrid the steering had gotten. Every bolt
was loose. We tightened all of them. One tie rod end (steering box
arm) clicks. We got back to gravel road at sundown. So i had a 15
mile driver w/o lights using a flashlight for people to see us.
Backin town we tried to use the booster pack to supplement. Pt no pot
luck. Within 1/2 mile Dora died hard and i coasted into a parking
lot.

Bavk to camp to steal a battery to get me back. Done. Shower. In
search of food at 10pm.

Fri morning. Combinded the alternators since the new one han't been
ground to fit. The old on was toasted. New battery. She starts and
runs. 14.9 volts. But the front diff is still screwed.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Bill C's photos

Links on the sidebar...

Friday - More Photos from Q

Check the link on the sidebar for Q Photos Moab Set 7..

Some fantastic shots..

Moabhells revenge...

From Q via email - Thursday - 9/18 - 9:28 AM Eastern

---

GREAT offroading yesterday. Did Hells revenge trail.


JL tipped his truck over with no damage, Mike ripped the boge mount off his rear axel got towed / limped out now at the welders ...

Dora's starter has stopped working , I bent the rear door on the 88 ... Fun was had by all...

Got back to the room last night after dinner I coulden't sort out more than 3 pictures before falling asleep....

38.59613N 109.54379W 4612ft

We are on a trail called Hell's Revenge. Q, Eric, Carlane, MMM, Bill C, and JL. Also Simon in his 101 and another chap from Toronto in. SIIA 88.

Mike's Rangie ripped the Boge mount from the axle case. We tried to use a rachet strap to hold it. That worked for a few miles. Now the whole axle is moving around. Simon was towing with the 101. Q and MMM are gerry rigging something.

JL had a shock mount rip off-cold welds.

But we are having a blast!!!!

Map location

Q photos from Tuesday - 9/16

Some things never change... :)

New photo link on the sidebar - set 6

The eagle has landed

Dora and Brutus. Moab at 18:30 Tue.

Ben - Denver to Moab

This in from Russ on Tuesday - 9/16 - 10:30 AM Mountain Time

---

Ben and J.L. just left here headed westward.. They should be in Moab before dark.
J.L.'s cummins powered pickup is a sight to behold. WOW!

Beers, steaks... more beers. much fun..

And then this from Ben at about Noon - Mountain Time

Ike tunnel. 12000 ft. Slowest was in. 2nd @ 28 mph.
Rolling dowhill.

Toto I don't think that we are in Kanas anymore

A long day on the road again. 743 miles and we pulled into Russ & Leslie's at 9:45pm.

Nothing broke. All ran well. MO, Kansas and then CO. The only excitement was fuelling towards the end. Back in KS JL pulled over and poured in his 5 gallon jerry can. We proceed. The first town in CO on US 36 had a ratty gas station, There were others on the map and I knew that JL had a 150 mile range, so we pushed on. I was low on fuel. The next town, Joes, didn't have fuel. Being concernerd I querried the GPS. There was a Sinclair at the next town (Cope). It was closed and had been closed for a while. Maybe years. Dora was bouncing on the E line and JL wasn't too far beind. The GPS showed fuel to the north, east and south, none east. 22 miles to next town. THen 20 ish to the next then 20ish to "Last Chance". Or it was 26 miles down south to I-70. We were prudent and selected I-70. I drove slow and easy on the fuel. 50 mph in OD. On the last hill Dora cut out, but relit. Soe coaching got her the next 1/2 mile. But with the gas station in sight--just on the other side of the freeway, I used the last of my fuel. JL got fuel for me and we loaded. If I had the energy to pop onto the overpass, I could have coast into the fuel station. Oh well. Dora can take 25.3 gal of fuel onobard. Other than that nothing really to report. Beer and steaks at the Wilsons. Those that skipped lost out.

At last report NJLR had cleared Denver and were heading to either Goldon or Eagle for the night. Bill Fishel had met up with them at some point, but was planning on sleeping in Denver.

Weeere here...

From Q via email - Monday - 9/15 - 10:45 PM Mountain Time

---

Arrived Moab circa 10 pm after an uneventful drive out of Denver, Over the mountains down the other side, through Vail. (Could barely afford to get off on the exit there much less BUY something) across the Colorado river valley, past Mesas, and finally down this amazing road between the mountains and the Colorado…

---

See Q Photos - Set 5 on the sidebar for today's photos.

Ben - Still in Kansas.

From Ben via email. Monday - 9/15 - 3:10 PM Central Time

---

Guidence on arrival at russ' between 9 and 11@pm. Now in Philipsburg, KS refuelling.

Passed through geographic center of US like Q and others. Also the town of Smith Center (in the middle of Smith County)

Kansas!

From Ben via email - Monday - 9/15 - 09:50 Central Time

---

Rolling westward.

Some Photos from Sunday

See all of Q's photos - Links on the sidebar.

---

Ben - Sunday Night - Macon, Mo

From Ben via email - 12:36 AM Central Time

---

All in all a good day. 696 miles completed. Sleeping in Macon, MO.

Dora was a bit problematic. The rain for most of the day which didn't help. As mentioned before the wiper blew fuses, then she wouldn't start. That resolved we headed out to find lunch and fuel. Got food around 2. Then fuel and off. The wipers worked for a while, but then the drivers side first got random. Wipe some just on the left side of the pain, then some just on the right. Then it died completely. When driving. And it was pouring. I got to a gas station and under the awning. The set screw in the adaptor had snapped off previously, but something in it had broken. So I could wiggle it off. Then I pulled the passenger wiper. I filed the driver's post so that I could get the D adaptor on. Then I found that part of the problem was that the driver's arm had stripped. So I used the passenger's arm. It would keep the glass clear at least...

Or so I thought. It lasted 5 min before it slipped off the post. Did I mention that it was raining? I found that i could still see the road through the water on the screen. It was just a bit wavey. I ran like that for 45 min. Then came a downpour and I couldn't see, so it was off the road and into a parking lot. In the rain I did some more filing and got the adaptor fully on. It's been ok since.

It must have been quite a storm. Lots of flooding and some detours.

I got a text from Bill Fishel at 4:30. He was in St Louis and pushing for KS.

As of 8:30pm the NJLR team was eating dinner in Kansas City and then aiming for Topeka, KS for the night.

Brutus has been running fine. He just has short legs with one underseat tank and a short pickup tube. 7 to 8 gal is his effective range @ 21 mpg.

We are on US 36 in MO and will follow it through KS too.

Ben

Q - Sunday Night - Denver

From Q via email - Sunday - 9/14 - 11:30 PM Mountain Time

---

Arrived in Denver this evening about 6:30 covered about 350 miles circa 16 mpg (the details are in the truck and I, fortunately, am not).

Stayed last night in the Buckshot motor inn, painted concrete block walls, that was the INSIDE of the rooms .. Liked it tho, family owned and run, clean, and real high-speed internet unlike the hopelessly slow connection here at the Holiday inn express.

Moderately windy this morning, about 20 kts out of the north west, slowed us down some but the winds abated after lunch and we picked up some speed.

There is no cruise control in the truck but there IS a hand throttle .. So you have to set it so your are not terrified on the down hill stretches (max speed recorded by the gps so far is 81.3 mph) and too slow on the hills. As you climb the hills you can watch the speed drop and the engine slide off the torque curve (it will still pull 4 od at about 45 mph but that is about it) because it takes like 5 min to find the hand throttle sweet spot and to down shift you have to move the setting ....

Yesterday I was concerned about the valve adjustment because of the old non-unleaded head and I stopped and checked the adjustment, Well I checked that there was still some play in all the valve adjustment because I didn’t bring a feeler gauge... All was well but I will check and adjust the clearances properly in the morning.

Today’s drive across the rest of Kansas was a lot more interesting that I thought it would be. It is a vastly different experience to drive across the country on a road like rt-36 where you can pull over anywhere and look at, or walk over to the interesting sights at the side of the road.. For us, the velocity impaired, it probably is not all that slower anyway.

I will let the pictures tell the story of what we saw and where we stopped today. Eric tells me we have a 5000 foot climb right after b-fast so .....

Rgds Q

From Ben via email - Sunday - 9/14 - 10:28 AM

Strong headwinds limit speed to 55 mph max in 4th. Not enough hp for OD. Engine running ok, but seems not to have top end power.

Refuelling in Lima, OH

Center of the USA

---

From Q via email - Saturday - 9/13 - 22:59

Dateline ... 20 miles west of Lebanon KS

Good travel today well more than 500 miles.

Decent mileage.

Nothing broken although the overdrive is over full now and the oil is
blowing out of the vent....

I will check the transmission level tomorow...

We stopped at the geographical center of the lower 48 and nobody yelled at me when I climbed on top of it or when I parked on the grass.

MUCH better..

Rgds Q

Frm Ben via email - Saturday 11:56 PM

Near Canton, OH. 475 miles today.

Sleeping for the night.

Photos from along the way...

See the links on the sidebar for all of Q's photos..

---

Ben - Indiana, PA - Saturday 7:40 PM

From Ben via email..

---

So far so good. We've seen very rural PA. Dora doesn't like hills. Like 2nd gear on bad ones. I think it's the linkage.

Report from NJLR team is that Jarek blew a tranny cooler line on his Disco. Replaced with a heater line. They are somewhere in PA and aiming for Dayton, OH.

Smoke? What smoke?

Ben sends this at 10:32 AM..

Washington, NY. J-L has a dash short.

and then 10 minutes later...

Old live wire, unfused wire from a different setup. Fixed we think. Putting dash back on.

Day 3 - Columbia, MO

Q, Carlane, Scott and Eric made it to Columbia, MO on Friday night.

Below photo is presumably not their mode of transport. They look happy enough.

Left to right - Scott, Carlane, Eric, Q

Scouts out!

We are loaded and ready to roll. 88 and 109.

Will Dora behave? Will Brutus hold up to 4400 miles of untamed America? Will Ben loose the Canadian in red neck Kansas? What is the air speed of a swallow. Tune in next time.

And the road becomes my bride...

Visiting St Louis

Or, what do you do for photos when you don't have a garden gnome available...

This in from Q via email..

---

I blame it all on Sir Edmund Hillary…

So we got off to a late start (Friday) and went to meet Eric and Scott in St Louis … Then we drove about looking for a place to park .. we found it too… Down on the river side of the St Louis “gateway” arch there are these great steps leading down to the river …..

It was there, we were there, how was I to know that they would be so perturbed.. Carlane said “What are they going to do, tell us to move?“

So up we went … I backed the 88 up a few steps, set brake, took pictures,

crossed road took more, Came back to the truck, changed lens, took more pictures, got back in the truck, drove off the steps, across the side walk and was proceeding to depart when a red faced and angry park ranger runs down the hill and starts yelling for us to “STOP THE TRUCK“

Things started going down hill from there ….

They pulled me out of the truck handcuffed and searched me, called in
reinforcements…

There were about 10 rangers, they poked and prodded the truck, They searched and looked in the truck… They never opened the hood tho…. They took pictures, made measurements of the track and wheelbase … Took pictures of the tires, all four of them .. What were they thinking?? That I was a serial backer up the steps at national monuments??!!! Honest officer we were just parking here on top of Mt Rushmore for a moment……

Bother.

Well they held me in cuffs for and hour and a half .. No you can’t stand
up… No you cant have a hat ….

They called the drug sniffing dog, a very pretty dog btw, I was starting to worry a trifle by this time.. Mind you I had not been arrested or mirandized…

They took all the gas receipts, the printed out map quest directions and all the other paper work away and Xeroxed it …

A police van showed up ,,, I was waiting for the rollback …

Then someone with sense arrived… She decided we were probably NOT terrorists … Idiots perhaps but not terrorists… So we got to move around and not be treated as dangerous.

She wanted to know what we were thinking … I told her we were driving across the country and it was like taking a garden gnome on vacation… Pictures in unlikely places. Well we didn’t have a gnome but we DID have a Land Rover.. J

Of course by that time the FBI had been called…

So we all had to stand around waiting for them.

The Chief Ranger said the FBI had wanted to impound the truck, confiscate the computer, the phones, the cameras, damn near anything .. She didn’t think that was necessary so they didn’t do it..

The rangers let us look through and tidy up the truck. The only thing I found missing was my pocket knife :-(

The FBI really DO wear those dark suits in the hot sun… Amazing.

The FBI agent refused to shake my hand, officious prick…

So I got charged with

Driving off the marked road….. Seams reasonable enough ..

And perhaps more seriously, misdemeanor disorderly conduct that I MAY have to show up to deal with…. I dont know about the disorderly part, I thought all in I was pretty orderly...

All in all a fun day …

Rgds Q

Ps The pictures are on the bottom of the new index page , I am thinking poster sized ... ..

To go or not to go

J-L pulled in around 10:45pm. We chatted and I got my stuff together. Brutus got here without any issues. He's trying to decide if he's driving Brutus or riding in Dora. He'll decide in the morning.

Out of the Great White North

At 1:42 pm J-L reported:

I should be out of here around 3PM. At your place for 10-11 PM.

Route Map

See about where everyone is.. Check the route map in the sidebar links.

Photos from Q

Q put up his first set of photos...

day 3 start / test

On to St Louis today to meet up with Eric and Scott
Hopiing to see the arch but it will probably be invisible in the rain :-(

Test of mail to blog

This is just a test.  No parts have fallen off yet.

Calm before the storm

I did final maintenance on Dora. The safari roof and winch just aren't going to happen for this trip. J-L emailed and said that everything was a go. He'll start out from Ottawa in Brutus today and aims to make the 666 km to NJ by tonight. Then he'll decide on riding shotgun in Dora or wingman in convoy.

Q has a 3 day lead now. We'll see where we meet up.

Another LR convoy's blog is http://www.njlr.org

chocolate milk - from Carlane via email

Some of you may have noticed our average speed of like 37 miles per hour. That's because Q keeps making us stop for chocolate milk. I don't think he eats or drinks anything else. He just keeps drinking gallons of chocolate milk one after another. It's zany I tell you.

Day 2 - From Q's email

Day 2 on the road...

Had to bolt the door latch back on the drivers door after the bolts fell out yesterday ...

Good b-fast at cracker barrel

Stopped at tractor supply and bought bolts, I put some tools in a box to take and left a very important factor out of my calculations... All the useful junk in the bottom of the tool bag... I had to take fasteners off other parts of the truck to fix the door...

Good driving conditions, 398 miles today, circa 21 mpg....

No maintenance squawks, no leaks ...

We stopped for gas in Monticello Indiana and noticed a cool 0-4-0 tank (steam) engine at the corner. After driving onto the grass and getting a couple of pictures we decided to check out the train museum.

COOL. It was closed theoretically and we got to crawl all over the trains and engines.

Then we spoke to one of the volunteers there and he gave us a guided tour of all their stuff... F7, E8, 0-6-0 switcher, a beautiful 2-8-0 Baldwin they are restoring, I asked if I could look / climb in, sure, so we got to poke around in all the nooks and crannies....

SO cool. I will try and put the pictures up tonight after Carlane uses the computer.

Rgds Q

train museum url - http://www.mrym.org/

Day 1 - Cambridge Ohio - from Q's email

Update. Got out of the house circa 12:30 this afternoon.

We are in Cambridge Ohio tonight, 377 miles today. The truck has been running great 55 ( gps verified ) mph up hills in OD and a suspected mpg of about 17 . No maintenance squawks till we got to the hotel . Then the drivers side door latch came loose from the door .. I will look at it tomorrow.

Stopped for dinner in Wheeling West Va. Strange little college town. Cool dinner, Got a surprise when we went out to the truck. NO puddles underneath it ... A couple pictures , When I post them I will let you all know. Looks like we will be meeting Eric and Scott on Hannibal MO. Friday AM .

Rgds Q

Day 1 - Leaving Maryland

Q and Carlane leave Shadyside, Maryland at 12:30 on 10 Sept, 2008. Ben and JL are scheduled to leave Flemington, New Jersey on Saturday. I'll try to post things if they send emails.