Thursday, May 19:
Dale, Athal, and myself leave Calgary at around 6:30 AM, and meet Craig in Blairmore about 2 hours later. After a fillup, we carry on down the road until we get a call on the radio: "I've got no brakes!" We pull over on the side of the road...
And find this:
At least we're not the only dead thing in the area:
Dale and Craig head into the nearest town and pick up some parts to make things work. It's a lucky damn thing that the hose guys screwed up the hose, which forced Dale to change the fittings on the rear brake lines, otherwise we would have been stuck right where we were. Anyway, problem solved (sort of) and we're back on the road, with Craig's car wanting to do rapid lane changes every time he hits the brakes. Apparently we didn't get all the air out...
Ah well, a few hours' delay and it's all good. We make it into Portland and have enough time for a couple beers before bed.
Friday, May 20:
After dropping off Dale's car at The V Shop (transmission mount) and bleeding Craig's brakes on the lift that Peter kindly loaned us, we headed up to the Sineann vinyard and winery where we were scheduled to meet the owner and pick up a few bottles.
Unfortunately the owner couldn't make it but he had his lovely daughter give us a tasting, which we repaid by buying a dozen bottles of various flavours. The tasting was quite the experience, and what was lost in expertise and information was repaid in variety. We sampled each of the dozen bottles on the left, plus one port and one dessert wine. Urp Hic.
Back at The V Shop, only an hour behind schedule, we find Kyle still cleaning his car.
Peter's ex- S90 turbo. It's on it's way to it's new home in New Jersey.
Craig hosing off his car behind The V Shop, cleaning mode stage 1. He'd just painted the passenger door and didn't want to hit it with high pressure water.
Which he ended up doing anyway (not shown) a few times before he remembered he wasn't supposed to do it. This is stage 2, at a car wash across the river.
Random stuff that was parked nearby or drove past while Craig was washing up (I missed a few nice ones too...):
And across from The V Shop. There were so many nice cars running around town, plus the ones we saw on the trip to and from Portland, it was impossible to capture them all unless I had the camera in my hand at all times. (The best one was the line of almost a dozen Deloreans in Washington on our way home... I was so stunned I forgot I was actually HOLDING my camera until after they'd flown past in the other direction):
Don't forget these two beauties:
At RSI's open house, later that evening:
The first two are Peter Linssen's (The V Shop owner's) race cars, and the last two are pictures of what Dave Barton drove up. We had a great time, met lots of great people and saw some we hadn't seen in a while. It was a ton of fun. There were some astounding cars there, and I was blown away with the power that people have been able to get out of their bricks in the past couple years that I haven't been on Tbrix. 300 was tough enough to get, but there were a few 500+ cars here! Fantastic! And we got to see some of them in action out front, which was fun (but a little scary, since people had been enjoying bevvies on the premesis) too.
We got home late and went pretty much straight to bed.
Saturday, May 21:
Today is the IPD show, and we wanted to get there early so early to rise...
At the show:
Three of a beautiful 1800ES:
And more in the show:
Parked outside, along the street and in every open parking lot were other interesting Volvos. I couldn't get them all.
The show was awesome, but I made several rookie mistakes: I didn't realize the garage sale would move so quickly or would it be so cheap - I passed on a 760/960 front sway bar, not knowing they only wanted $15 for it, and a set of Mahle B20 first oversize pistons. Craig got a couple good deals, though. The second mistake I made was NOT buying any raffle tickets - Dale made out like a bandit with his $10 worth. Ah well, maybe next year.
On the ride home, passing between the airport and the river (It was maybe 9 or 10 degrees out, overcast and just getting ready to rain):
We got back to the house and relaxed for a while, went for dinner, and came back to enjoy some wine and some vintage street racing videos on Youtube (Getaway in Stockholm and Ghost Rider stuff)
Sunday, May 22:
Travel day. We're leaving early because we've got 13-14 hours, plus the hour lost in time zones, ahead of us.
Along the river, through the valley. Beautiful country, I wish I didn't have to take these pictures from a moving vehicle.
Here I was trying to capture this AMAZING sky... Clouds low and defined and as far as the eye could see. I was forced to shoot in Sport mode, so wide aperature and quick shutter speed. These pictures really deserved long focal length and exposure, because the effect is mostly lost.
We had no trouble at the border or with the cars, which ran flawlessly the entire trip aside from the brake problem and Dale's dissolving tranny mount (which he knew about but didn't have time to fix before hand). We got ridiculously good fuel economy at times, 28-29 USMPG at 75+ MPH, and generally had a great time. Hopefully I can bring the 780 with us next year...
