OOCC CORVETTE TRIP Part 1 Lift off into  Summer Breeze

Writing and photography copyright D. S. Brown, except quote from "Summer Breeze" copyright Seals and Crofts.

LIFTOFF

The plan: drive from Vancouver, BC to the St. Charles, Illinois for the Bloomington Gold Corvette show and Survivor Collector Car show. Central base: a friend's house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mopar and Ford shows would occupy the downtime before heading to the GTO Nationals in Dayton, Ohio.

Survivor Collector Car was created by David Burroughs as an extension of his famous Bloomington Gold shows which base Corvette judging on historical accuracy and originality, rewarding preservation instead of perfection. In the same spirit, the Survivor Show provides a venue for the recognition of unrestored original collector cars of all makes.

Excitement was building everywhere about the GTO Nationals 'Co-Vention' in Dayton, Ohio. The merger of two giant players was going to be stupendous: POCI which began in 1973 and GTOAA which has been an annual event since 1980 have huge drawing power individually. Together they would be almost overwhelming.

I left early following a schedule of military perfection. Too bad that even military plans experience turbulence. They even have a term for it: SNAFU (Situation Normal All F*** Up). The plan dissolved into a black hole that devoured my buffer zone with false starts, dead ends and bad luck. Seldom used collector cars and brand new rental cars all failed to make it out of Washington State. I burned through a week long quagmire of frustration with only two days of actual driving time. I finally achieved escape velocity from Washington State on my third attempt made in the third car.

The desire to get moving overcame the facts that the third car being used was totally inappropriate for a long road trip in summer heat carrying massive amounts of cargo. C3 Shark Corvettes are infamous for cramped boiling foot wells and sharply raked seat back angles. Additionally, my Vette has heat attracting dark Claret Red full leather seats lacking cooling cloth inserts, incredibly harsh optional gymkhana suspension, a racer's axle ratio and loud headers. 

Aside from the fact this would be an endurance test in that cramped sauna full of booming loud noise and kidney pounding thrashing the car lacked space. Despite a full car, I left lights, stands and tripods for my cameras behind. The original perfect plan involved packing a month's supplies under the presumption that I would be driving one of my vintage muscle cars or a new rental muscle car. The Vette has no trunk.

I shoveled the bare essentials into the car. Replacement fluids, canned food, foam, sleeping bag, pillows, a food cooler, some camera equipment, a suit bag and one suitcase. Rather than emulate the ROUTE 66 TV show characters who tied suitcases to the back of their Corvette I opened the remaining large suitcase that wouldn't fit inside and dumped the neatly folded contents through the open roof. The bulky camera equipment was left behind. My tool box wouldn't fit. I dropped a wrench, pliers and screwdriver into the passenger map pocket.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, the Vette has only been used minimally about town the last few years and required a new radiator and power steering system. Shipping time to Canada for the gymkhana specific radiator corresponded with the end of the Survivor show. Time to just GO.

That's how the great OOCC trip devolved from a highly organized excursion to just another slack meandering road trip. Instead of following an itinerary and fighting fate, I surrendered to the rhythm of the road which in this case was going to very slow. Once I let go, the trip eventually soared, leading to many interesting detours and unique moments.

  _______________ DAY 3 ________________________________________________

Five hundred miles of driving and days spent beside the road or riding in tow trucks or in rental car offices are just time tossed into the void. The trip counter actually begins now, on the third day of driving. I left right back where all the false starts originated: Vancouver, BC.

At 7 PM I left on the OOCC road trip for the umpteenth time. This departure rode the hallowed ground of the true road trip. Leaving a week late. Check. Driving a completely unprepared car. Check. No tools or supplies in the event of a breakdown. Check. Heading into several thousand miles of searing heat with a bum radiator. Check. Chronic steering hose leak. Check. No sleep. Check. Chaotic clutter swirling around the interior. Check. All plans abandoned. Check.

I made it through the border and stopped for gas at the Chevron on Sunset Drive in Bellingham, Washington at 8:30 PM. The Standard Gas Station Conversation is expected every time you pull up in a classic car. It’s your duty to pass on car lore in the hopes that one of these people will carry on the torch of collecting these cars. It's a feel good moment for everyone. This time the gas station conversation had a comedic deja vu aspect to it. The friendly girl at the station recognized me from the failed futile departures of the prior week.

"Hey it's you again! What kind of car are you driving this time?"

I gave her the short version of what had happened to the other cars and all the stupid plans that had not panned out.

"Wow, don't you think this trip is maybe jinxed? Do you think this car will make it?"

"Well, its leaking fluids but it's a tough car that always starts up right away. I think it'll be ok."

We chatted about Bellingham. Her friends at the station joined the conversation. Everyone agreed that Aladdin's Antiques was a must see. It occupies the basement of a large antique mall called Old Town Antiques. This is a regular destination when I embark on pilgrimages for old car magazines.

 My routine in Bellingham is to park near the courthouse within walking distance of two large, excellent bookstores: Michaels and Henderson's. After the bookstores there is a nice walk down along the winding small river that feeds into the sea. This leaves you on Holly. Cut left on Holly and end at the antique mall. 

Holly is also a good spot to begin a meandering scenic drive along the ocean on old Highway 1 which runs all the way to San Diego, California. The kids regretted that so many tourists simply joined the crowds in the big Bellis Fair mall and went straight home on the interstate ignoring the ocean views and the nice downtown area of Bellingham. Well preserved heritage buildings tenanted with interesting small businesses encourage walking about.

I looked under the car to determine the source of a transmission leak which had suddenly appeared. The main focus was still on the rad coolant pouring out, pushing the temp gauge up to 210 degrees which held speeds down. The temps usually stay at a flat 200 despite running at high speeds. Enough about the car. I needed to have a good meal. After dininer it was late. The molasses pace of the trip was nagging my mind. Time was burning away.

It was ironic that I was probably going to miss the Bloomington Gold Corvette show now that I was actually driving a Corvette. I was also now heading to the heart of the biggest GTO convention in history in a Corvette.

It's funny how the car you drive influences people's reactions to you. I was involuntarily drawn into a bit of a conflict. The 'C3 Shark’ Corvette was the prime GM rival of the Trans Am. The rivalry wasn’t as intense as the one between the Porsche and Corvette people but it was well known enough for both CAR AND DRIVER and ROAD TEST to make comment. In their tests they complained that the Corvette was often piloted by gold chain wearing midlife crisis guys. They also derided it as the car of choice for blonde secretaries. The Trans Am was hailed as the last 'real man’s car'.

Of course, Corvette people smirked about Burt Reynolds and the Smokey and the Bandit movies. The Trans Am giant hood decal and the scoops and spats and spoilers became passe around the same time disco died. The Corvette was faster and had better handling numbers, but the T/A was the only US performance car packing more than 350 cubes. The T/A handled almost as well as the Corvette, but importantly, it was much more predictable while doing it. The Vette produced higher handling numbers at the price of constant vigilance and adjustments as the finicky IRS altered turning trajectories.

My appreciation for cars crosses the invisible walls erected between various clans devoted to particular manufacturers. However, let's not kid ourselves. I'm atypical. There are guys out there with a black and white vision about cars. Rabid guys frothing at the mouth with Brand Loyalty denouncing all cars other than their chosen ones as junk were waiting to hate the Vette. 

Would the Trans Am/ Corvette rivalry rub off on the GTO guys? Hopefully not. I was counting on the Chev/ Pontiac divide being less pronounced than the Ford/ Chevy rift. The Ford/ Chevy feud, particularly fine tuned with Mustang/ Camaro guys is vicious. These guys have far more in common than say, a Mustang and a Honda Civic owner would, but the Mustang/ Camaro guys reserve their animosity for one another. 

In the big scheme of things, all this hatred actually fuels something useful. Competition creates improvement. The horsepower wars gave us some incredible cars. Chryslers desire to own NASCAR led to the street Hemi. Henry Ford's rage against Ferrari gave us the GT-40. A giant aftermarket exists solely to bolster and protect the reputation of The Big Three brands. Advancement in technology is a direct result of owner pride. Owners spend the money which fuels the aftermarket industry.

The passing of the years has mellowed some brand wars to the point where many car shows have The Big Three cars side by side and everyone is happy to be there. Hopefully things would be relaxed when I pulled into a sea of Pontiacs in a loud Corvette.

However, GM interdivision rivalry wasn’t the most relevant problem right now. I had to make it to the Midwest in hot weather with a leaking radiator, leaking power steering and now leaking transmission, too. I was also starting out a week late.   

After dinner I found a gas station and bought transmission fluid. I added it to the passenger foot well supply of coolant, distilled water and gallon jugs of power steering fluid. In addition to every gas up, I stopped at every rest stop to fill the sieves laughably named reservoirs. This consumed miles of driving time, but I didn't dwell on it. I just enjoyed the moment; driving a good handling car fast through the mountain pass.

Although it was still warm at night, as elevation increased in the mountains it became cooler. I was able to stay over 100 mph without the temp going too high. When I passed the zone of prior breakdowns I breathed a sigh of relief. This trip had begun like a rocket takeoff. When the flames are hitting the concrete launching pad the rocket seems frozen in place, moving incrementally, but soon that rocket is racing away. This trip seemed to have achieved lift off at last.  

__________ DAY FOUR ___________________________________________________________

The highway snaked down past a black pool of water reflecting industrial lights upwards in sifting waves. The wind was cold. I needed to put the T- Tops on. I stopped for gas at Ernie's Fuel Stop in Moses Lake, Washington just after 1 AM. I got out of the car buzzing from hours of high speed driving in dark mountain sky and was bombarded by the bright gas station lights. The lights in the station had an unnaturally bright glow and seemed to vibrate through their Hertz cycles like a breathing hyper machine. I was edgy from days of minimal sleep, stretched too thin. After gassing up, replenishing fluids and reorganizing the car to facilitate reinstalling the T- Tops I had been at the station for over an hour.

I drove to the next rest stop and shuffled everything in the car to one side. The Vette has a lot of space when you fold the passenger seat flat. I unrolled six foot long foam pieces layering it over the seams and protrusions. I finally passed out an hour before dawn.

I woke shortly after sunrise. The rest stop looked out across yellow fields. Wind whipped at me, but it was warm. It was eight days since the morning I had originally set out to make this trip in a brand new black Mustang GT convertible rental car. Two different cars later, I finally made it! I stretched out and grinned at the open field. It was a great accomplishment to finally escape the gravity field of bad luck.

It was already hot. No need for T- Tops. I reorganized the contents of the car to make way for the T- Tops and did the fluid replenishment ritual. An hour and a half later I was actually on the road.

This was going to be a lot slower than things would have been in the Mustang GT rental. In the GT you push a button and the roof retracts automatically in 30 seconds. Glass T-Tops are quite heavy and awkward to manipulate on and off the roof and in and out of their storage bags. The GT trunk and backseat provide enough storage room that there would be no need to constantly re shuffle everything the way I was doing in the Vette. An added bonus of the GT would have been an absence of fluid leaks.

The first town after the rest area was Ritzville, Washington. It was 9 AM and I was starved. I bought milk at the Ritz Food Mart which provided a picnic table in the parking lot of the Conoco station. I ate cereal in a plastic bowl with a view of a mini ice cream stand and the Interstate. The farm air was fresh. I savored my food. A cute Asian girl in a mud covered battered Taurus pulled up. She got out to walk a little dog, circling around the building eyeing me and then the Vette.

“This is your car?”

I nod. She has hot pants and high heels which seem completely out of this world in a small farm community. I was admiring her legs when her next statement caught me off guard,

“Beautiful car. Beautiful eyes.”

I grinned widely and began rambling some insane gibberish. Sleep deprivation combined with the morning pulse of testosterone was discombobulating me. I could hear myself speak the ravings of a madman. She was from the Midwest and travelling alone with her little dog. When I asked the why and where she merely said,

“Escape.” 

She tied the little dog to the leg of the picnic table I was sitting at and plunked down beside me. She rested her head on my shoulder. I stopped eating. Was this some crazy dream? What is this girl dressed like this doing in the middle of nowhere farm land alone? She wasn't willing to answer questions. I looked down as she brushed her hair away from her profile; she looked up for second locking eyes with me. It seemed like we were going to kiss. She abruptly got up and said,

 “Another time, another place.”

I was sitting there thinking, WHAT? Then she untied her dog and was gone. I resumed eating, thinking that yes, the wild and unpredictable has started. I am now officially on a true road trip. This sort of stuff doesn't happen to people who have an itinerary and everything neatly packed in a suitcase. Once you stop trying to control things and surrender to the rhythm of a trip you are opened up to currents and streams that flow to travelers. 

A big trucker came over and said words I have seen printed in the pages of those old 1970s Cream magazines. I've never heard anyone say this phrase before,

“Boy Howdy!”

He saw the whole drama unfolding and pressed me as to what happened and why I let her get away. I honestly answered,

“It was so fast and weird, I don’t know what happened!” 

We theorized about the girl a bit. He figured she was a runaway mail order bride heading East to blend in with the large Asian population in San Francisco. I told him about the car shows. He shook his head,

"No way. If you drive straight through you'll make it. But if you're stopping all the time for picnics like this you won't have time, even in that car. Not counting the eating, even before you unpack your stuff you've lost mileage just by slowing down and pulling your vehicle over to the side of the road. The only way to make mileage is to never stop except for fuel. You need to eat on the road."

He told me about truckers who had gallon piss jugs so they didn't even have to stop driving to piss.

"How big is the tank in this car?"

"About twenty four gallons."

Right off the top of his head, the trucker rattled off the Interstate route I would be taking (he was right) and how many times I would have to stop to fill up. He would have been right about that, too if I hadn't dilly dallied so much on the way. He informed me,

"You can make it to Milwaukee in two days if you only stop for gas. That's including checking into a hotel and sleeping 8 hours and taking a 15 minute shower. You could pull into your friend's driveway just before bedtime."

I wasn't willing to miss meals or eat in the car. For certain I was adding an extra day to my ETA and dooming the Bloomington Gold show as a lost cause. The other thing not factored into his analysis was the slow pace I was running to keep temps down and fluids up. Oh, well. I was just going to cruise and not worry.

I walked into the cluttered store with stuff on every wall leading to the can. The whole morning seemed like a strange dream. 

"Boy Howdy!"

Where am I, who am I, what date is it, where did I come from, where am I going next… I answered those questions in my mind to connect the impressions and events of the morning.

No point pushing time. I went cruising through Ritzville. 'The Whisperin Palms' sign loomed overhead which seemed apt as the wind ruffled my hair and the car stereo played "Summer Breeze" by Seals and Crofts. "...summer breeze makes me feel fine..." 

I stopped the car at a restored Northern Pacific Railway station house now housing a museum. Old farm equipment was organized artfully along the street. Wheat elevators and crisscrossing rail tracks remain as a legacy of early days when the town was the biggest wheat depot on earth. Ritzville's population crested over 2,000 in the 1960s before subsiding again by the end of the sixties. Things stagnated when Interstate 90 bypassed the downtown area and saved the buildings from teardowns.

Ritzville preserves its early small town flavor. I checked an old antique store and idled up the virtually deserted streets. The Ritz evokes the name of the famous theatre in New York. The Art Deco style dates back to its establishment Sep 7, 1937. Bjarne Moe was the architect.

The streets are clean, orderly and quiet. Clocks tell the right time on street corners.

A soft wind whistled in my ears as I strolled over to an abandoned auto garage with an equally weathered Ranchero parked out front. In a 'Twilight Zone' type scene it appeared that the car had been awaiting service when time froze for 40 years. See the story of this 1969 Ranchero in the ALLEY FINDS section of this website.

I left town and cruised down the Interstate at a liesurely pace. At the next stop to replenish the car’s insatiable appetite for fluids, it seemed like I had made no progress. True I had eaten and washed up and dealt with the fluids in the car. I also had an existential European travel movie moment with some mysterious girl, but it was afternoon. The trucker was right about stopping. I was losing 30 miles of driving anytime I put power steering fluid and rad fluid in the car. 

I had the radiator overflow reservoir's rate figured and could predict when I needed to to take it from add to full, thus minimizing my stops. Although that process was streamlined as much as possible my system didn't resemble a pit stop at Indy 500. There is no fast way to put power steering fluid in a Corvette. The unit sits awkwardly directly beneath the alternator. You need a long narrow funnel angled in to reach it. You put a few drops in, pull out the funnel, replace the cap which has the integral dipstick and then repeat until you get to the right level.

Keeping the temp at 200 degrees in the summer heat was only possible if the speed was a flat 60 or less. Nudging up to 65 drove the temp gauge back to 210 which was understandable given the 3.90 axle in this car. I settled into a slow easy cruise.

Then the minor transmission leak began pouring fluid fiercely. The lines leading into the radiator reservoir were leaking from the seam where the line and the threaded ends at the rad met. Tightening the bolts accomplished nothing, although it was hard to know if my adjustable cheapo wrench was turning the nut or just sliding overtop of the slippery layer of fluid. I couldn't see what my arm and shoulders were doing squeezed under the 3 or 4 inches of clearance between road and front spoiler. 

I was spending more time replenishing fluid levels than I spent pumping gas into the car. Combined with the slow driving this was cutting any semblance of a schedule to shreds. At the rest area an admirer of the car said,

"What a perfect car!"

"Thanks... But looks are deceiving. Remember those depression era Okie jalopies held together with bailing wire riding down old Route 66 blowing steam all the way? This is the modern equivalent." 

"Beg pardon?"

"Think about this. I'm driving a decades old car overflowing with junk which is basically what the Okies were doing. I have to baby it down the road because it's leaking everywhere..."

The guy glanced inside the car at the hurricane of junk and flinched.

"Well, you do have an awful lot of stuff crammed in there. But I think the true equivalent would be some kind of old Ford pickup or an old Plymouth four door, not a small personal car like this. You have a lotta junk, but those guys had wash tubs and beds and all sortsa stuff tied to those cars."

He was right on that score, but I might have beaten the Okies for fluids. The only thing that wasn’t leaking was the engine oil. The engine was professionally built by a performance shop a few years prior. It was super clean and ran very strong which made it all the sillier to have traffic passing me all day long.

I started pushing along with the traffic at 80. The temp held steady at 210. As the roads emptied out of cars I found myself cruising at 90 and still holding at 210 degrees. At any speed over 80 the spoilers mash the car into the ground, and then it just starts to hunker down. The steering becomes precise and light as the car begins to fly.

The T tops had been off all day. I was driving without shirt or hat and was getting a very dark tan. The claret leather seats sealed burning heat on my back, compelling me to drape a towel over the seatback to avoid sticking to the seats.

The car is a different animal when the tops are on and off. Driving less than 40 MPH with the T tops on engine noise is a partially muted savage roar- barely contained. The T tops get noisy as you reach highway speeds because the leading edge of the tops aren't flush with the windshield frame (by design) creating wind noise.

Keeping the T tops off makes you keenly aware of the throbbing engine around town, like some beast on a leash anxious to pounce. At all times you are immersed in the thunder of omnipresent power, even at low speeds. Everything changes at highway speed. With the tops off and side windows rolled up the wind just washes over top of the open roof area, making wind noise quieter than expected at 60 or 70. Once you exceed 80 MPH the wind noise is loud enough to cancel out the stereo. I missed the music but was enjoying the speed.

Somewhere in the hills a woman in an obviously low miles new looking 2006 white Chev Impala SS was torching the fast lane. I impulsively started to pace her from a mile back for radar trap avoidance purposes. It was early afternoon as we both hung on the top of a huge hill which provided a view of the strings of the white perfect smooth pavement stretching out forever into a distant valley… and no other traffic.

The cam comes on strong around 3,000 rpm and as it winds out the engine strains to explode right out of the body of the car. The revs climb very fast. I held it on redline as we hurtled down the hill. The Impala SS with overdrive was screaming down the steep long hill at 130 mph but I stayed with her despite my 1:1 final drive.

Zora Arkus-Duntov the 'godfather' of the Corvette designed his Vettes to handle optimally at 120. The car tracks and steers perfectly without scary wind lift. As if deferring to Zora's engineering, the Impala lady settled into a 120 MPH groove once we hit flat ground again. I kept her in sight pacing her from a way back. She was a little white blip in the heat haze waves floating above the hood bulge between the double humps of the front fenders. The temp gauge crept up, hitting a plateau somewhere slightly below 215. The headers created engine roar almost as deafening as a fighter jet wide open.

She took me through almost half the state until I decided to get off the highway to check fluid levels. The car hadn’t used anymore fluid at this torrid pace than at any other previous stop, so I figured I was going to make it after all. The engine was rumbling contentedly, finally having gotten a good cleanout after years of Sunday jaunts.

Time could be recaptured blazing along at full speed without fear of the engine overheating. Thus began rationalizations about lengthy sightseeing in a small former mining town,

“I can make up the time.”

Kellogg, IA is off the highway down a narrow road leading through a bleak landscape. Signs on the winding road admonished me not to stop or else I would be facing prosecution. They had open holes in the area leftover from mining. The town was depleted after the mine shut down in 1981. Now tourism helped prop up Kellogg's economy.

Once the road climbed up a hill things brightened up. A wooden arch over the road welcomed me to Kellogg. It was a nice small town on a hill. I parked up top and walked down in hot sun to Rancho Viejo Mexican restaurant.

Funny murals painted on walls depicted old west life. I watched people walking up and down the hill from my window seat. One of waitresses nursed a baby in front of the TV and made jokes with the waiter. Waiting for my burrito I got my first exposure to the TV show 'SpongeBob'. This TV show was going to become an inescapable part of the OOCC trip later on although I had no idea of that right now. I ate a good, filling meal and felt well satisfied.

Instead of getting back in the car, I strolled through town telling myself that I would make up the lost time with some redline driving. At the base of the hill bronze shutters on a building shot sunlight back at me like a lighthouse beacon. I went into a huge thrift shop called Pa Pa's Barn. Upstairs the typical glass cases and small stalls for each vendor gave way to chaos downstairs where stuff flowed in every direction. A fountain and stuffed coyote on the rocks around it dominated the room.

Model cars and old license plates and puzzles and old board games piled up everywhere. Ragged holes were cut in walls leading into adjoining stores a bit like secret tunnels. Three formerly separate store fronts were thus connected, ending in a gallery with local artist paintings.

I used a computer in the Kellogg library to email David Burroughs, CEO of Bloomington Gold for the name of a reputable place to solve my radiator issue once I made it to Milwaukee. I didn't want to take an out of town car into some random garage and get soaked.

In my email inbox a friend wrote about Colin Comer's book "Million Dollar Muscle Cars", which I’d been anticipating. Colin runs an elite muscle car business and writes about the collector car hobby. His book about the ultimate muscle cars wasn't being carried in any Canadian stores yet. I was hoping to pick it up in the States.

Then I got an answer back from David Burroughs, who graciously took time out from his busy schedule to send me the email of the best person in Milwaukee to contact for advice regarding local garages. That person was coincidentally: Colin Comer. 

As I typed my email query to Colin, the synchronicities piled up: out the corner of my eye I noticed Colin’s book "Million Dollar Muscle Cars" displayed on a stand in "new arrivals". I laughed out loud and attracted a few looks. After flipping through Colin's book in the air-conditioned library I sauntered around town, hours of time lost that the Vette would make up with jet speed later.

Now bright red from sun I replaced the T tops to give my sunburn a break. The car shot along Interstate 90 making great time. Plenty of time to check out the former railway town Alberton, Montana (population 370). The second Milwaukee synchronicity of the day appeared in the shape of a restored old train on display alongside a 1908 building named The Milwaukee Railway Depot, now a community center. The train carried the name of the now defunct railway system "The Milwaukee Road" on its side. 

The Montana Valley Bookstore sits beside the Trax Bar on Railway Avenue. Hand written cardboard signs directed me to light switches. The store stayed dark as I used lights only for the section currently being browsed. I was the only person inside viewing what was available in the long, dark, high shelves. The stock exceeded the 100,000 books claimed on road signage advertisements. It took hours to comb through everything. In order to buy a book, you had to hunt down the owner. Not a hard thing to do in such a small town.     

The two lane highway ran past the few buildings in town and looped back to the Interstate. The gas gauge stays on full plus for 100 miles… it slowly descends to one quarter. The 24 gallon tank creates the impression of infinite resources until the needle touches a quarter tank. Then watch out. Just look away and it’s in the red zone. Then its suddenly on 'E'. Unlike a lot of GM cars, when the Vette says 'E', the car stops running, period. No grace. I learned that the hard way. Once.

Looking at that 'E' out in the middle of nowhere suddenly coated my already heat soaked bare torso with a layer of anxiety sweat. It was 6:40 PM and a lot of small town places would already be shut down. It would cost hours to walk to the last big town to get gas and return to the car. 65 MPH is as fast as I dare run in the limitless vista stretching out ahead. I can almost feel the gas tank drying out. Soon I'm crawling at 50 with my eye glued to the gas gauge as if looking at it every ten seconds is going to have any effect on what happens next. There is less than one mile before it stops running. I see a gas sign.

I pull off the highway, round a bend and follow a gravel road to a small building with an old style gas pump out front. This is Huson, Montana. Nothing happens when I try to use the old fashioned pump.

The proprietor comes out,  

"I'm just closing up but I can turn the pump back on for a minute." 

After thanking her, I looked at the faded Sinclair gas pump logo. I ask,

"Is it really Sinclair gas? Do you know how fresh it is?"

"Well, it COULD be Sinclair I guess. Those are old pumps. I'm not certain what type of gas it is. I use it in my truck and it seems ok. We haven't had the tanker coming by so often these days, though so it may be a bit stale now."

I gamble that ten bucks worth will get me far enough to find a Chevron station which is my preferred brand.

Inside Huson Mercantile, I see a ‘garage sale’ of random stuff on the virtually empty store shelves. The place is in the dying stages of an out of business clearance. This has sadly been a common sight as I venture through the USA. One good thing about Canada, despite my complaints about restricted availability of things, inflated prices and miserable weather is our conservative banking policies. This saved us from the extreme housing bubble explosion and stock disaster that decimated USA. I keep passing abandoned buildings that were formerly in business not that long ago. Some of these places were successful for decades prior to this devastating crash. Banks and big companies got bailed out. Not these people. Through no fault of their own they are thrown to the winds.

I hit the highway again running a conservative 65 MPH. After an hour I’m back in the red zone and back down to 50 to stretch the gas through the sunset.

I get off the highway again. There have been no Chevron stations. I need gas desperately and brand be damned. The needle is a hair off 'E' again already. I’m heading to Clinton, Montana. Off the highway again, down the ramp and over the ubiquitous cattle guard as seen below.

I cross over a river resplendent with waves and light caught in sunset refractions. I drive parallel to the main highway on West Drummond Frontage Road with a river between us. On a hill a very nice looking light colored wood beam lodge awaits. The old style gas pump is gleaming clean chrome silver devoid of gas brand logos and switched off.

Inside the lodge, behind the bar I find the owner of this place called Jaynare Enterprises. I never learn. I decide to gamble again and only put ten bucks gas in. The owner says he was told by the truck driver that its Cenex gas… he sells a lot of it so it’s fresh. Once more I’m back on the road with a few drops of gas on the hunt for Chevron.

Gasoline engineers concur that quality between major brands is about equal. They do suggest switching brands regularly in order to control deposits. You simply drive 3,000 miles using any random national brand of gas and then switch. Each brand's unique formula eradicates the deposits built up from the prior brand's anti deposit formulas.

Everyone claims that all gas is the same, but ROAD TEST did an extensive analysis of gasoline and concluded that some gas really did give better MPG than others. That was decades ago, so who knows how much the system has changed since then. I'm more concerned about quality and longevity of the engine. No one seems to have evidence that one brand is better than another in this regard.

Despite this knowledge, I stick with Chevron. Chevron's promotion of 'Top Tier' quality gas could be true. It does provide good starting and running. In Canada 94 octane Chevron has zero ethanol content. Ethanol wreaks havoc with the rubber and plastic pieces used in the fuel systems of older cars. In the USA unfortunately the top octane Chevron available frequently has 10 percent ethanol. Without the freedom from ethanol it shouldn't have mattered to me what brand I used in USA, but we are all creatures of habit...

The Happy Endings Casino in Deer Lodge, Montana is well named. I had fumes left in the tank. The casino conveniently had a Chevron gas station in the parking lot. Multicolor fake palm trees line the grass out front. Appropriately “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is playing on the car stereo. Inside the casino it’s smoky and noisy in purplish darkness. Outside again in bright light of sundown. I can’t imagine spending time indoors in this nice weather. It's so nice outside it's hard to get back in the car after standing outside to pump the gas.

It's after 9 PM and I need dinner. Down the street which is of course, Main Street there is a Safeway. One of the checkout girls informs me that the local economy relies to a large degree on the Montana State Prison a few miles outside of town. Time to keep moving! 

Time for dinner on the economy plan: fruit and nuts in the virtually Safeway empty parking lot. I am quickly forced inside the car by incessant mosquito harassment. I idle the car through town and have a look around before I hit the highway again.