Epiblog, Tuesday October 30

Ken, Buick and I in the dark at home with our Glidden Tour hats

It felt good to be secure and at home today -- especially after watching video of hurricane Sandy's beating of the east coast.  I wish a quick recovery to all those affected, especially our relatives and friends in that area.

This is the third major cross country trip taken in our Buick.  She took Nance and me to Flint, MI in 2003 (3900 miles), Wendy Walker and me to Plano, TX in 2004 (1800 miles), and Ken Murphy and me to Brenham, TX in 2012 (2200 miles).  Each trip provided unique adventures for Buick and her passengers. 

This latest trip may have been the most interesting.  We had more problems for sure, the other trips were less eventful.  Two miracles helped make this trip special and successful:  My last minute tossing of a spare carburetor under the seat before we left kept us rolling when Buick ejected her main needle valve somewhere on the highway near Roswell;  A Good Samaritan we met with a huge trailer near Vaughn, NM who offered to carry limping Buick about 50 miles out of his way to our home in Albuquerque.  "You would have done the same", he said.  Perhaps, but I sure don't frequent lonely New Mexico roads carrying a trailer with room for a 5000 pound old car. Thank you Joe, I hope to meet you again someday.

What else went wrong?  The water manifold leak turned out to be mostly cosmetic.  I found if we left the water level a few inches lower than normal, the leak stopped.  Because the weather was cool, this worked fine for most of the trip.  The loss of the generator proved to be a real problem. We managed driving Buick for 300 miles plus without the generator, but we didn't have enough power to use our electric fuel pump.  The loss of the electric pump lead to trouble on our drive from Roswell to Vaughn -- a 100 mile uphill slog with headwinds to boot.  Our four year old battery also croaked on the last driving day.  Fortunately, we could still find a 6V battery and that kept us going.  I wonder now if the bad battery caused the generator to overwork and overheat.  Could be.  Then again, the 85 year old generator may have just plain worn out.

Just a few of the 190 tour cars gather somewhere near Brenham

The 2012 AAA Glidden Tour was a triple A destination more than worthy of all the effort and expense to get there.  It is hard to describe the fun of spending five days on the road with hundreds of interesting old cars, old and new friends, and visiting one fascinating destination after another.  Every stop is a car show and convention.  There are cars to be gawked, people to hug, mechanical problems to solve, food to eat, scenery to enjoy, and history to learn. This tour was replete with local flavor, featuring wonderful coffee breaks and lovely wranglerettes on horseback leading the way.  Check out these pictures, it will give you a flavor of what it was like.  Look carefully and you'll see a few pix of Buick.

I removed Buick's fried generator today and it's heading to the generator shop.  We'll clean Buick up, fix a few other little things, and should be ready for the next road trip to who knows where.  See you down the road....