The oft-absent mountains

We left Kemmerer Wednesday morning with a substantially cleaner car, Jane having been powerwashed by yet another torrential downpour. To be honest, I was ready to leave the town - the combination of the weather and the bad fossil hunting experience had kind of ruined the town for me. And I was headed on to bigger and better things - one of the most well-known national parks in the United States!

Our drive was a quick one, just a short hop up to Jackson, WY. We stocked up on food and gas there - which was an adventure in itself (though it shouldn't have been). We needed to get enough food to last us for a few days of camping, plus a week's worth of lunches. Fortunately, our cooler proved to be exactly the right size for eggs, meat, and some fresh fruits; a secondary large sealable container was tetris'd with all of our dry goods, which needed to be protected from bears. Based upon the number of groceries my car can hold (in addition to all of the camping gear and spare parts / fluids for the car itself), I've determined that 7 days of camping is totally doable in a '66 Mustang fastback. Any more may be pushing it as you've got nowhere to put a cooler large enough to hold your perishables.

We encountered a gas pump that had no shutoff (found that out by the explosion of gas out of the back of the tank as it reached full, as well as the telltale pile of kitty litter sitting right in front of the pump). So that was interesting. Reeking slightly more of gas than usual, we headed into Grand Teton National Park.

Unfortunately, there was no sunlight to be seen. In fact, the weather could have been called fairly dismal. Clouds and mists shrouded the famous Tetons and thus we were left with a view of fields and trees. We drove around a bit looking at various scenic overlooks (which were not so scenic in the rain) and eventually lucked into a bit of sun. Based on the number of people who immediately stopped to take pictures of the semi-visible mountains, it seems that the weather had been bad for a few days. I managed to capture a couple of interesting shots before they were covered again.

Misty mountain majesty.

Tons of really bright Indian Paintbrush in the wildflower fields.

Thursday was much better. We woke up early and took Jane to Jenny Lake, where we were informed that we had "awesome choice of touring car, dude". I left her in the lot and we headed out on a long hike across Jenny Lake to Hidden Falls, Inspiration Point, and Cascade Canyon. Again, the weather was not cooperating, so Inspiration Point was... not so inspirational. Instead, I took photos of the local plants and wildlife:

Kinda creepy mist at the start of the hike

A cute chippy chowing on some flowers

My god. Look at this monstrosity!

This is the best chipmunk I've ever seen.

A cute pika

We headed further up the trail to the Cascade Canyon trail in hopes of just walking until the weather was forced to clear up. That proved to be a good strategy as a couple of miles into the hike the sun came out and we even got to see some blue sky!

The day was beautiful so we pressed on and ended up hiking five and a half miles. Somewhere along the way some hikers introduced us to huckleberries, which were growing wild all along the path. Absolutely delicious! On the way back we were treated to some GREAT views of wildlife - a family of moose (a bull, a cow, and a calf) and a not-very-afraid mostly-grown fox cub, who got altogether too close to me.

This guy was huge! He was running through 4' of water like it was no problem.

No zoom! This picture blurry because I was like "Too close! Too close!" when he got a couple of feet away from me and started backing up. He ran right past me and continued down the trail.

Clouds were closing in as we completed our 11-mile hike so we headed to Signal Mountain Lodge for some bison for dinner. We then went back to the cabin where it hailed - for the second time this week - on my lovely vintage car.

Tomorrow we leave Grand Teton NP and head further north - there's only one possible place we could be going. Stay tuned for more excellent pictures, hopefully of more sunny landscapes than we've had so far! Kelly signing out.

The American Dream

Blog post from August 4/5, 2014 (posted at later date due to lack of internet connection):

There are many versions of the American dream. To some, the American dream is to work hard, make money, have a great house, and raise a family. To others, the American dream is all about seizing one's destiny and following life's more winding roads freely. There are a thousand different interpretations of the dream. However, I've found that no matter what version of the American dream you're looking at, they're all based on the same thing: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And those things are things that I have been pursuing in abundance on this trip. Monday was a kind of reflection of the idyllic 70's American dream: nothing but open roads and endless possibilities (well, as long as the possibilities were within the states of Colorado, Utah, or Wyoming).

We left Steamboat Springs early in the morning and hit the open road. The removal of the rear sway bar was completed approximately 3 miles outside of the town as the last piece of forgotten hardware hit the road (oops). From there on out it was nothing but sunshine and butterflies, alternating with a good amount of cloudy gray weather. The landscape was both gorgeous and terrifically boring, depending on how many hours I had been staring at it and whether or not the sun was out.

It looks exactly the same in front of me and behind me!

My favorite state sign!

Our first stop was in Vernal, UT where the entrance to Dinosaur National Monument is located. Dinosaur is most known for its incredible "dinosaur boneyard" wall, which is an outcrop of rock containing hundreds of dinosaur fossils now enclosed in a huge building that protects the bones from the elements. To briefly summarize, the boneyard was created by a series of river flood events that drowned dinosaurs and washed them downstream to pile up in a great jumble of bones. These bones were eventually buried and then fossilized as the rock around them lithified; now, over a hundred million years later, paleontologists have excavated them and revealed one of the largest dinosaur quarries in the U.S. Truly a fascinating place to visit! We didn't spend much time at Dinosaur as I had been before, but it was still a nice little detour in our trip.

This bus is far too huge

Vernal, UT is a strange, silly place

Our next stop was Flaming Gorge National Recreational Area. It's known for having some of the most beautiful landscape in that corner of Utah. Unfortunately, the weather was NOT cooperating and it was just gray for the majority of our visit. Nevertheless, we saw some great sights driving down the Geological Loop and around the overlooks. The sun did manage to come out a bit later on and I got some great shots at Sheep Creek Canyon.

Holy fault and fold structures Batman!

Jane was being excellent, though I did have a problem with the gas tank pressurizing again as we went up a steep slope for a long time. Fortunately the problem was solved by just taking the gas cap off and letting it sit for a bit. (edit: I think I solved the problem for good when I reoriented the gas tank vent valve to the proper orientation a day later)

From Flaming Gorge we continued north to Kemmerer, WY, one of the best fossil fish localities in the U.S. Along the way we got some absolutely gorgeous shots of the end of the day - not quite sunset, but that time of day when the sun's going down and vintage cars look their absolute best.

Today we headed out to hunt for some fossil fish! Kemmerer, WY is known for their excellently preserved Eocene age freshwater fish. It's located right in the middle of an ancient lakebed, so there are many places to go to split shale to find fish. Because it had rained really hard the night before and I was not in the mood for more off-roading adventures with Jane, we opted to go to the one place in town that did not require you to drive your own vehicle to the quarry. We spent a few hours splitting shale (which was unfortunately very wet so it crumbled easily, destroying the fossils in the process) and ended up with some pretty nice fish! Unfortunately our "guide" was terrible and didn't care about his job or our fossils, so all of them were broken when he tossed them unceremoniously into the trunk of the SUV. I'm going to try to salvage them because I can get my hands on some decent glue and preparatory tools (hurray for being a student paleontologist), but still very disappointed. No pictures of the fish now as I wrapped them all up to preserve them from further damage before I thought to take some pictures.

Despite the disappointing fish hunting, we pressed on! Next visit was Fossil Butte National Monument, which is basically a museum dedicated to showcasing some of the area's best fossils. They had an absolutely amazing collection of fossil fish, turtles, crocodiles, birds, bats, plants, and mammals. There had to have been hundreds of fossils in their visitor center. Very cool little place in the middle of nowhere! We finished up the day with a hike to the old quarry that the founding paleontologists pulled the fossils from a hundred years ago.

The paleontologist's cabin... that's rough living!

An approaching storm.

Driving home, we stopped at a rock shop and got caught in a hail storm. Fortunately the hail was not too large so Jane just sat tight.

My poor car.

And that's where we're at now. Tomorrow we leave Kemmerer to head even further north to the very tip of Wyoming! Kelly signing out.

Hit 40,000 miles on the way through Wyoming! Not sure how many thousands of miles the car actually has...

Very badlands-y looking

How to go off-roading in your lowered, loaded-down vintage Mustang

The first step to going off-roading in your lowered, loaded-down vintage Mustang is... don't go off-roading in your lowered, loaded-down vintage Mustang. However, if you MUST (for reasons of necessity or, like myself, clinical insanity), it is best to go very slowly. In particular, it's best to avoid potholes (or wheelbarrowholes, more likely) and wallowing around uneven terrain on vintage suspension. It's also a good idea to ensure that you do not end up anywhere where you get stuck - say, on a one-lane road with a mountain wall on one side and a cliff on the other side. Backing up over terrain is even worse than going forwards over it.

What's prompted this discussion and advice on things you shouldn't do with a vintage Mustang? Why, things I've done with mine, as usual. Today we headed out from my Colorado home base to go northwards before heading west again. The first hour and a half of the drive was absolutely lovely - one of my favorite drives that I know of. Nothing but wide open spaces and gigantic mountains looming in the background miles and miles away.

But, after an hour and a half, we had gotten a little bored! So, we decided to stop off at McCullough Gulch, which TripAdvisor told us was a nice 2-mile hike up to a waterfall in the alpine region of the Rockies. What TripAdvisor failed to notify us of was that the trailhead was 2 miles up a very poorly maintained gravel road. But for whatever reason, I decided that I was going to go up there anyways. And so we wallowed our way gamely up the mountain through potholes, washboard beds, pits of water, washouts, and cobbles. I'm surprised that Jane did it - I would not have blamed her a bit for stalling out and refusing to start again 50 feet up this accursed road. But she didn't, and so we pressed on, feeling more and more concerned every passing minute. Most of the reason for this concern was the narrowing of the road and simultaneous increase in noise from the - you guessed it - fuel pump. By the time I made it up almost all 2 miles of this stupid road, the pump was absolutely screaming. It worked, but man was it letting me know how hard it was working.

This is the part where it looked nice before all of the nonsense occurred.

We eventually had to stop as we encountered a series of pits that was too deep for Jane (in her overloaded state) to cross. Then we had to back up and find somewhere to turn around, and parked (facing the wrong way) on the side of a cliff. At this point I was not happy and neither was Jane. When I got out of the car I noticed that the gas cap was making a sound much like something interested in either escaping or exploding from the tank. I pulled the cap and it released a lot of pressure - and the gas in my tank was boiling! Uh... not good. I decided the best course of action would be to ignore it and fix it later, after a bit of a hike.

McCullough Gulch is undoubtedly beautiful - the trail runs right along this lovely large stream with many small rapids and falls.

Unfortunately, despite my attempts to ignore my car's problems, I was unable to and so we ended our hike early shortly after someone else's dog had drooled on my leg in an attempt to get me to give it my ham sandwich. Still, I was happy that we got to enjoy at least some nice views - and even happier to see that the gas was no longer boiling in my car when I returned to it!

The gas tank on my car has two separate vents - one in the cap, and one coming from the top of the tank down a hose, ending above the rear axle. I crawled underneath the car to inspect (I make this sound easy, but it is incredibly difficult when the car is nearly sitting on the ground) and rattled the check valve pretty hard. I think it may have been stuck, as the rest of the day I had no problems with pressurization of the tank. However, the more major problem that I discovered was the source of my fuel pump's screaming: a mostly-crushed fuel line! When I ran the fuel lines for my new fuel system, I foolishly didn't take into account my future crazy endeavors and ran the lines right over the rear axle. This would normally be fine as everything usually is 6" or more from the trunk floor (where I ran the fuel lines). But because she's been so loaded down, everything was a lot closer under there - and it turns out that every time I went over a big bump (or, you know, through multiple potholes), the rear sway bar rammed the fuel line into the trunk floor, squashing it. Excellent work, Kelly!

Well, at least it's scenic.

I babied her back down the road from hell, fuel pump constantly reminding me of my failures as a mechanic even as the suspension creaked dangerously in every crack and crevice in the path. Eventually we made it back to civilized roads - surprisingly, with absolutely no complaints or silly business - and headed on to the nearest town to get gas and call to consult with Chas. His belief was that we should remove the rear sway bar (the offending fuel line smasher) and squash the fuel line back to round with a pair of pliers. So we looked for a lift in town to put Jane up on, but there were none. There were none in the next town over either, and thus we said "screw it" and trucked on to our destination for the night.

The original plan was to find a shop in the morning with a lift to put Jane up on so we could pull the sway bar and fix the line. There were no jackstands in sight and I had no interest in being crushed by my own car if we relied just on a jack to hold her up while I worked under her. Eventually after some frustration and goading, I was motivated enough to cram myself back under my car to do everything myself. As long as I didn't try to take a deep breath or turn my head I could fit under there, and so the rear sway bar was removed with much swearing and contortion. I also squashed the fuel line back out and hopefully it will be okay for a while now! When I'm done with my trip I will be making a new one that is routed much differently.

So that's where we're at now. The fuel pump is screaming, the fuel line is more or less round again, parts of my car have been removed, and yet Jane gamely soldiers on. I'm sure by now that mostly she just runs so that she has more opportunities to harass me down the road (though this incident was 100% my fault, to be fair), and I'm pretty okay with that.

More adventures to report later I'm sure! Kelly signing out.

All ready to go this morning!

Someone else out having a nice cruise.

Ooh! I don't know what these are or why they're like that, but I like them.

Welcome to Colorful Colorado

Somehow, against all odds, I have built a tremendous, fantastic, wonderful... corner-carver?

I won't take all the credit. Most of that is due to Chas's bodywork skills (subframe connectors on a unibody car are a wonderful thing, I'll tell you that, especially when they're tied into the floor), but I'd like to think that some of it is the parts I picked when I cobbled this car together. I didn't have a dang clue in the world what I was doing, but I must have done something right.

I'm in Colorado right now, way up in the mountains at 8400 feet. I've lived here the past couple of summers and have driven all kinds of cars on the twisties up here - econoboxes like Nissan Sentras and Chrysler 200's (terrible cars), middle of the road cars like the new 300hp Chevy Impala, and I've even ridden along in a 2003 Cobra prototype and one of the snazzy new 1000hp Shelbys. None of these cars even come close to the way Jane corners. I have yet to find the limit of this car - every corner I've found can be taken with complete confidence. Zero body roll, no oversteer or understeer, just goes right around like there's a magnetic rail going round the bend. Just fantastic. I'm sure there are better, but I never expected anything this good out of my half-century-old car!

Anyways, most of yesterday was spent NOT corner-carving, but instead driving straight through nearly the most boring terrain I have ever been through. The only thing that beats it is I-40 in North Carolina, which is just a straight road rimmed by trees. Instead I was on I-70, which is a straight road rimmed by corn.

We hauled along the road at a good 80mph clip the whole way across Kansas until we reached Colorado.

Colorado was not so colorful at this point - mostly just gray. But hey, at least we would be in the mountains soon! Except we weren't. As far as I can tell, eastern Colorado is just an extension of Kansas.

But at least sometimes I got to go right or left... wahoo?

My god, this is the most interesting thing to happen to me in the past hour! A right turn!

We pulled into town yesterday afternoon sometime amidst a steady rain. I was bummed because I wanted a nice view of Pike's Peak as we trucked up Highway 24 from Colorado Springs, but the weather was conspiring against us and so we had to stare at gray sky the whole way up. On the plus side, Jane doesn't pull sketchy business when it's raining, so behavior was excellent the whole day. In fact, behavior has been suspiciously good the past three days! The fuel gauge even (mostly) works now! Amazing!

A pretty terribly gray picture of Jane with Pike's Peak in the background

At my house (well, it's my landlord's house, but I rent from him so I guess it's kind of partially mine) we changed Jane's oil. We were running a bit long on the change but I had added a pretty good amount to it right before we left on the trip to make sure it was topped off. Interestingly, only 2.5 quarts came out (including what was in the oil filter). Given that the original volume of oil in the car is supposed to be 5 quarts, 2.5 quarts was a bit... low. I've no idea where the extra oil is going as she's always leaked a bit (but not that much) but best guess is that she might be burning a bit of oil. Alternatively, as suggested to me by Chas, it's getting blown off due to excess crankcase pressure. Either way, it was no longer in the pan which was a bit alarming. But hey, with Jane it's always something. If she wants to burn some oil instead of rebelling in other ways, I would much rather have to carry extra oil than have to fix other things on the side of the road. So oil loss is A-OK with me!

Today I slept in, puttered around the house, and went into work to help out with some stuff. While I was there we had a nice monsoon so all of the dust was washed off of Jane. Unfortunately, the volume of water that came out of the sky was a little overwhelming to the half century old window sealing technology on my car... so she leaked a few drops (a few drops is nothing, and quite frankly impressive). I'd call that passing with flying colors.

To recap, I've now been on the road for nearly a week (if you count the part where I drove 9 hours in one day to get exactly nowhere last Saturday). My car is getting better by the day and I have not yet found myself hating and/or dreading driving - not even with the noise, or the huge turning radius, or the manual transmission on the mountain, or the little quirks. I've lost count of the number of compliments and thumbs-ups Jane has gotten. So far, this trip may be one of the best ideas I've ever had!

Some lovely flowers after the monsoon

The road headed west out of Divide, CO. Absolutely fantastic drive

Look! She even does dirt roads! What a trooper.