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Spotted.....38 Se7ens at the top of turn 3 at Infineon....cool!!
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We weren't too sure what this was, but we think it may be based on a Lotus 33, any ideas????
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What do you do after a 3600 mile tour? take your car on a track day, obviously. This is Infineon Raceway 30 mile north of San Francisco, coming out of turn 11.
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I figured you'd all be dieing to know what happened to my bug collection.....well, as you can see it's grown, although not as pretty as those first few days.
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So, this is what you all wanted to know.......total miles 3637, average speed 54.02, total time on the road a touch over 67 hours......top speed errrr....well, you've heard of GPS wobble, right?
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We could smell the finish now....Bay Bridge, must be SFO!!
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Seventeen mile drive, some of the most glorious miles in the world, albeit with a 25 MPH speed limit.
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Ahhhhh.....Highway One, along the Pacific coast......;-)
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The west coast, at last.....just one more drive up to SFO tomorrow, and we're done.......average speed to this point 55MPH, and the total miles? well, I'll let you know tomorrow :-)
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and the San Andreas fault,,,,,it was wierd being here, I can't imagine anything that could make me live in this place......
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James Dean Memorial junction......
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A quick blat round Willow Springs International Raceway....I'm not sure they knew what had hit them.
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This chap was very proud of his upward opening doors......then I showed him how ours worked.
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Leaving Las Vegas...someone seems a little tired by the whole thing!
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nice backdrop!
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although trying to get more than a couple together was like herding kittens ;-)
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There seems to have been an outbreak of Se7ens on The Strip!
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I've always wanted to do this!! Driving along The Strip in Vegas in my Se7en ;-)
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After a hearty breakfast, a bit of sightseeing along the Canyon rim.....we all shouted "jump", sadly Barry wouldn't oblige, even for a photo!!
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possibly the world's greatest breakfast location......the view behind is straight down into the Canyon!
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Chasing up the National Park road to the north rim of the Grand Canyon....
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2503 miles covered to this point in Page.....We tried to get all the cars into this photograph.....the light was fading, and folks were showering after the long day's drive......we got most of them together in the end though, and well worth it too, I thought. Copies of the high resolution version of this picture will be available to order and the proceeds will go to the event charity.
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Pressing on ;-)
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Low Flying front cover??
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The approach to Monument Valley provides some classic views
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Watching the electric storms build up is an impressive sight
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Then into Utah, this scenery reminds me of all my boyhood cowboy dreams! It's pretty special, and is, apparently, just a warm up for Monument Valley tomorrow!
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Arriving in Grand Junction, the weather picked up, in fact it was positively toasty......grabbed a burger for lunch at the "Sonic", where the locals had arranged for us to be the entertainment for the day!
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Heading west across Colorado, we start to come across some fairly large thunder storms, luckily, we missed all of them, apart from this one. We stopped and put on the half hood, just as well, as two minutes later, we were caught in a major downpour!!
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Day thirteen starts with packing the car up outside the Lodge at Vail...bloomin' nice hotel, bloomin freezing weather at 7am!
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So, I'm sure you were all dieing to know what happend to Mav's car...the rock smashed the oil filter housing....handily, he borrowed the bits from a broken engine on the support truck!
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We'd agreed to ride shot gun for them........and they were fine until 30 miles from Vail they decided to take a slightly different route......picked up a rather large rock, and put a hole in the oil filter housing....
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Mav's foot was playing him up, so Viv and Mary drove his car, while he swanned about in the back of one of the support trucks...meet Thelma and Louise ;-)
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Today, day eleven, and we drive up to Vail, 290 miles or 380 if you took the scenic route......
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Seven hours (seems appropriate....), of spectacular scenery!
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The main street of Silverton was named after it's founder, apparently it was a little seedy until the last bordello was shut down in the 1950's
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Apparently one of the ten most exciting train rides in the world....
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Day ten sees another day off from driving, we took the chance to ride the Durango to Silverton narrow guage steam train.
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Day nine sees us headed to Durango, and an opportunity to drive some more superb Se7en friendly roads.
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the scenery has changed to provide a more autumnal feel....
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and we stumbled across a balloon fest in Mancos
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A day off from driving gave us an opportunity for a little relaxing....
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time for a spot of fettling!
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and time for us to make it to Route 66 :-)
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Ruidoso to Santa Fe, 200 odd miles through the high desert
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Not many bends on this stretch....
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Then for a second, I thought we were in Deadwood.......turns out we were in Madrid, an artist village, not sure I fancy living in this house, nice place though.
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The folks in Ruidoso really made us feel at home, we even had our own sign outside the Chamber of Commerce!
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As it was a day off, we headed out to be tourists....no, it's not snow, although we may hit some on the tour, nope, this is white gypsum sand in the Whitesands national park.
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This is my first submission for the WSCC magazine front page, what do you reckon, hit or miss?
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The bug collection seems to be coming along well, here in New Mexico they seem to be bigger, and not so colourful, oh, and this is Bear country folks, I'll let you know if I pick one of them up in my radiator grill!
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Star of today's page is Brent, his car looks a bit too clean considering we've now covered 886 miles, I suspect he stopped off for a quick car wash ;-)
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An oil well in Artesia New Mexico....no kidding!! Embarassingly, having stopped for this photo opportunity, it was five minutes before the car would start......"Click" everybody!
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Well, we've done a few more miles today, about 350 in fact, in 90f temperatures with no breakdowns.....I've been interacting with the local wildlife, as you can see I've collected a bug or two ;-)
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Despite the temperatures the Steve and Mary are still looking fresh.......
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A Thelma and Louise moment for you'all.....
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As I mentioned, today was a day off rom driving, which is just as well, considering the 350 miles or so to Midland tomorrow. Naturally, not wanting to waste the day, a few of us took the opportunity to experience the world famous Austin Duck tour ;-)
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So, today was the official start, here's car number one leaving the Houston start line.
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The I-10....in case you're wondering, it's about 37c and 98% humidity, the passenger footwell is littered with empty water bottles! Towards the afternoon, it got so hot, the XDA quit, hence the tracking stopped. It's back running again now, but as today is a day off from driving we're going sightseeing so no updates today. Total mileage today, 202 miles.
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Meet Barry....he seems happy to be here, day one on the way to the hotel. The official start of the tour is tomorrow morning, check out the tracker for our current location!
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Arriving at the loading yard
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and queued up out of the rain
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it seems some folk's definitions of "fettling" are different from others ;-)
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and here is the first car in a container, apparently, it all got rather tight after this, but sadly I had to dash to catch a plane, so missed all the fun!
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Meet Barry....he seems happy to be here, day one on the way to the hotel. The official start of the tour is tomorrow morning, check out the tracker for our current location!
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