Category Archives: 2014 CORSA + Route 66 trip

2014 CORSA + Route 66 trip, Uncategorized

On Our Way to Tacoma

Our trip so far….

This epic voyage began Wednesday, July 16, when Cliff and “Chicken Little” left Lexington with a goal of the national CORSA Convention in Tacoma, Washington with return route including Route 66 through the Southwest.

The first stop was dinner with an old friend, Scott Trunkhill in Iowa City.  After spending the night in Cedar Rapids, IA, the site of the 2010 national convention, it was on to Rochester to meet up with Dave and Ina Keillor.  The drive  through northern Iowa and into Minnesota was nothing but miles and miles of cornfields.  Then there was the occasional cattle car.  Man, I don’t know when I’ve smelled anything that strong in my life.  Staying ahead of them became the challenge of the day.

After arriving in Rochester, I spent the afternoon getting reacquainted with Dave and Ina.  I met the two of them years ago at a performance workshop in Dayton, Ohio.  Dave had been working on a 65 Monza that he and Ina sold to her brother back in 68.  They re-acquired the car in 2004 and have done an incredible job of turning “Mr. Redd” into a beautiful example of what Chevrolet could have done with the car if they had wanted to.

Meanwhile, Beth was in Atlanta for the XSEDE conference.  She will have to tell you what that stands for.  I picked her up in the airport at 5:30 on Thursday.  This is where things began to unravel.  You can see from the photo that the airport isn’t very large.  In fact, I’ve been in mall parking lots that were bigger than this.  I got all turned around as we were leaving and for a split second, it looked like we were going to get hopelessly lost.  Man, if I can’t get out of this parking lot, what business do I have traveling cross country?  But, we finally got out.  Thank goodness for the peanut trail

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On to I-90!

 

 

 

Windmills!

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Gas at a Sinclair station

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Badlands

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Sunset

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Then on to Wall, SD

 

Saturday morning we visited Wall Drug in Wall, SD – billboards advertise “Free Ice Water!”  “5 cent coffee!”  and what got Cliff:  “Homemade donuts!”  famous since the 1930s.

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Then Saturday saw 500+ miles on I-90 west toward Bozeman, Montana

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Went thru a corner of Wyoming.

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Met a Wyoming Highway Patrol Officer

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Welcome to Montana

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2014 CORSA + Route 66 trip, Slider

Chicken Little’s Big Adventure or “Tacoma or Bust”

Chicken Little

Our big Corvair adventure was taking the little car from Lexington, Kentucky, to Rochester MN, Tacoma, Washington, down the coastal states to California, then across a good portion of Route 66 and home, during the summer of 2014. A total of almost 7000 miles with only one mild (carburator) problem.

Here’s the initial post, which we didn’t update (sorry!) but it was a grand trip!

As I post along the way, I will continue to put the new stuff at the top of the page so that you don’t need to scroll to the bottom to find out what we are up to.

Thursday, July 17, 2014:   I left Lexington yesterday about 9:00 AM.  Since I gained an hour in the central time zone, there wasn’t any need to get out too early.  The car performed well except for a slight stumble at around 3000 RPM.  I have a couple of things to check.  I swapped out plug wires this morning.  That was the easiest thing to to do.  Will look at the carburetor balance when I get to Rochester this afternoon.

I had dinner last night with an old buddy of mine that recently moved to Iowa City.  Had a nice rest last night, a good breakfast this morning and am ready to hit the road.  I meant to get a picture at the restaurant last night.  (Sorry Beth)  I will have to pull up an old picture of us from our archives.

Peoria, IL looked like it would be a neat place to visit.  I wish now I had had the time to stop and look around.  Also, just outside of Iowa City, I passed I-80 Truckstop, billed as the world’s largest truck stop.  That would have been fun to see as well.

 

Tuesday, July 15:  We will be leaving tomorrow, July 16th, to join friends in Minnesota and then head west to Tacoma, WA for the national convention.  From Tacoma, we will proceed south along the Pacific coast and eventually make our way down to Route 66.  Our plans are to follow Route 66 more or less all the way to St. Louis, MO then head home.  Here’s hoping and praying the little car holds together.  We’ve been all over the US east of the Mississippi, this will be huge for us.