Sept 15th

We left Dan and Teri’s at about 9:00 or so and headed south on some country roads, heading for I-55 to Memphis and Graceland.   We have been wishing that we had the Paul Simon CD with “Graceland” on it to play on the trip but we didn’t bring it.  We tried singing it ourselves but it lacks something.

The coach was still suffering a little from the fuel issue which started yesterday.  It didn’t do anything bad until maybe and hour on the road and then it started acting – a couple of seconds at a time once in a while – like it was starving for fuel.  I tried switching to the second fuel tank to see if the problem was unique to the primary tank and maybe the notorious “sock” filter inside the fuel tanks but the second tank did the same thing.

Graceland campground

We got to Memphis and the camp ground at Graceland in about 3 hours and called Jim K at Applied GMC to see what he might suggest.  He thinks I should change the fuel filter in the carburetor because some of the junk that clogged the big filter may have gotten through and clogged the little one.  I will get one tomorrow at the Advanced Auto Parts store that is almost right next to the Graceland entrance.  I may go ahead and buy that medium duty fan clutch that Ray E. suggested on the GMCnet while I am there.  The fan clutch was much more reasonable today – the temperatures were 90 to 95 degrees and the noise seems to be more acceptable when you need it.

We toured Graceland today – took about 2 1/2 hours – and will do Sun Records, Beale Street and the Civil Rights Museum tomorrow.  The Graceland hotel (“Heartbreak Hotel”) and the campground, both at the end of “Lonely Street”, provide shuttles.

I have to admit that I have been a fan of Elvis since about 1958 when my then girl friend played his records for me.  After getting over the shock of the “Hound Dog” lyrics I learned to really enjoy his music and even saw him perform live once.

Here is a slide show of the other photos from Graceland.

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Sept 14th

The GMC started acting up a little.  It would suddenly lose power and act like it was running out of gas. Since we had an earlier case of a loose electrical connection  on the fuel pump I checked that first.  One of the leads was loose so I tightened it a little – it is a slip-on connector so a little tweaking was all I had to do.  That didn’t fix it so I stopped at an AutoZone and bought and installed a new fuel filter – the large one that goes ahead of the Carter Electric pump from Applied GMC.  That seemed to make a huge difference but did not get it all.  More on that tomorrow.

Dan & Teri

We arrived at Dan and Teri’s house at about 3:30 and were greeted very warmly.  Dan drove me back and forth to the local AutoZone to get a manual heater hose shutoff valve to replace the one that had been leaking since I installed it on the second or third day of this trip.  We had a delicious homemade dinner, met one of their daughters and her family – beautiful kids, the oldest of whom looks just like Dan.  We had an enjoyable evening with lots of GMC and other stories.  We went to bed a little early but we had just crossed a time zone and were a little GMC-lagged.

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The Tracker was ready as promised at about 12pm but the price tag had increased by $150.  The reason was that the junkyard-provided differential assembly had a bad seal.  They replaced the seal and the bearing on that side and charged me for them.  Oh well, it got done at the price I had originally expected to pay and it got done in one work day – split across Friday and Monday ;-),  They combined the good parts from my original differential and the junkyard one – my brakes and wheel cyninders were used on the junk axle.

We are on our way to Dan and Teri’s house.  They are fellow GMCers and have been very active in the GMC community.  We met them at our first GMCMI rally in Montgomery, Texas.  Teri  seemed to be everywhere and did everything and Dan did a lot too but ice cream is his specialty.  I think he was in charge of serving the ice cream or Teri let him think he was. The second time we met them it was the same situation but it was at the GMCMI rally at Pueblo, Colorado.  Dan and I stay in touch via email and the GMCnet.

We left Fort Wayne and traveled south on I-69 toward Indianapolis.  We had found a dish drainer at Crate & Barrel on the web that fit our new kitchen sink perfectly and there is a Crate & Barrel at a shopping center just after where I-69 hits the beltway around the city. We got off the highway, found the store, bought the drainer and were back on the highway in less than 30 minutes.  The idea is to make washing dishes easier and more water-efficient.  The new kitchen setup makes it much easier than the old kitchen and this will help make it even better.

The outside temperature was in the low 90’s and we had planned to spend the night in a WalMart parking lot in the Terre Haute area but the prospect of spending the night in a steaming parking lot did not appeal to us very much. Carol took a look at Streets & Trips for a state, county or city park in the Terre Haute area that had camping.  Carol found Hawthorn Park in Brazil, Indiana, part of the Vigo County Park system.  It had everything that we really needed – electricity.  The water and sewer facilities were available but just not at the campsite and that is fine for us.  The only thing we are missing is the internet and we’ll just have to tough it out for tonight.  At least the cell phone works. The best thing us that it is only $18 per night.

The GMC worked fine today.  Had a couple of “click once then start” episodes but after that scary “click” it cranked like crazy.  I plan to install the new solenoid when we get home.  The fan, on the other hand, is driving me crazy.  The low 90’s temperatures have brought back the issue of fan noise and even though this clutch (Hayden 2797) does disengage eventually, it drives me crazy until it does.  The clutch-engaged vs. disengaged state seems to have no direct realationship to the engine operating temperature.  I am still on the air-flow idea and think that the shroud might serve to concentrate what heat there is on the fan clutch, acting like a funnel.

No photos today.

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Sept 12th

"Barbie" parked on the street

I am starting to write this while sitting in the GMC on a city street and within sight of the Auburn, Indiana town square.  The WiFi signal I am using is being provided for free by the town of Auburn.  I don’t know the details but the guy at the camp ground about 5 miles away on the other side of the highway said it is available there too.  We are really starting to like Indiana.

"Turn of the Century"

So far today we have toured the town – it is pretty small – and taken photos of many of the sculptures in the “Sculptures on the Square” exhibit.  This is the last weekend that they will be exhibited and there is a walk/run event going on in town so there are quite a few other people doing the same thing as we are.  As you will see in the photos, there was a woman and her daughter that were taking posed photos at each of the statues – she, the mother, is in several of my photos – I couldn’t resist taking her picture too.  It is the mom’s idea, she wants to outdo the daughter who did the same thing at the last exhibit three years ago.

1927 International Harvester

After the sculpture visit we headed for NATMUS – the National Auto and Truck Museum which is right behind the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg museum and on the same property.  It is an interesting and pretty typical auto museum except that it displays heavy trucks like semi-tractors, and older heavy duty work trucks.  They are trying to specialize in the old International Harvester brand of trucks since that was made in this area but almost gone now.

GM Futurliner

For the GMCers that read this, there was a little exhibit about the GM Futurliner – that was the huge motorhome-like vehicle that GM used to provide a traveling marketing show.  Futurliner #10 was donated to the museum in about 1996 and was pretty much a basket case.  The museum did not have room for such a large vehicle and, in 1999, a man named Don Mayton wanted to take on the restoration job as a volunteer project. They made an arrangement they call their “Partner Program”.  The museum owns the Futurliner but it is in Michigan and has been restored with the help of lots of folks.  Visit their web site at www.futurliner.org.

Here is a slide show of the rest of the photos from Auburn today.  Don’t forget to click the little box at the bottom right so you can get a better look at the photo.

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Sept 11th

A rainy day in Fort Wayne.  We used the GMC to run a few errands but otherwise just hung around.  I used the time to catch up on maintaining the blog – the writing is easy, the photos are a pain.  I am still trying to learn this blogging software – WordPress – and the photo tools are not real good so they are tough to use.

Tomorrow, Sunday, we have to vacate the camp ground so that the Johnny Appleseed Festival can start setup.  We plan to head back north – about 15 miles – to the town of Auburn, Indiana where the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg museum is.  We were there on Thursday and really liked it but had to leave because we were tired and it was getting late.  There is another auto and truck museum right in back of it and I wanted to see it.  Also, there was a “Sculptures on the Square” art exhibit in Auburn where life-sized bronze statues are distributed in a few blocks around the town square.  We wanted to see that too.  There should be photos to show you tomorrow.

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Sept 10th

I got up and headed out with the Tracker to the NAPA store I had seen last night.  I bought a couple of bolts that should work to remove the rear brake drum so I could see what is happening.  At the NAPA store I asked it they could recommend someone who might help and they recommended JTS Automotive which was only about 2 miles away.  Tim, the owner of JTS said they could get it on the lift right away and see what was up.

The rear axle of the Tracker was going to have to be replaced anyway when I got home because it was bent and had gone through a set of tires in about 7000 miles. The rear tires were wearing on the outside edge of each of the tires.  Carol’s son, Rick, is a car dealer and his service department said that the axle was bent from an apparent accident of some kind and the rear tires were actually toed in in the neighborhood of 20 degrees each.

This problem was possibly caused from that same accident because when JTS got the drum off they said that the bearing was completely gone and they could wiggle the axle and tire around a lot.  Actually, on the way over there I could hear occasional crunching sounds coming from that area so I know they were not kidding.

We finally figured that the best plan of attack was to get a junk yard rear end and replace the whole thing – just what I had planned to do when we returned.  Unfortunately, they will not be able to get it done until Monday morning but the price was right – better than the $1000 I guessed it would cost at home.

Meanwhile, we will stay at this camp ground – one of the best we have ever stayed at – until Sunday.  The camp ground is in the Johnny Appleseed Memorial Park (he is buried here) and the Johnny Appleseed Festival will be held next week so we have to vacate so they can set it up.  On Sunday evening we will have to find another place to camp and then pick up the Tracker on Monday.

We plan to return to the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Museum tomorrow and see more of it along with the car and truck museum they have on the grounds.  I’ll take more photos then.

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Sept 9th

We don’t have a real plan for where to go next right now so we figured we’d head for Nashville and then Memphis and Graceland.  That decision and the desire to travel as many secondary roads as practical led us through Fort Wayne, Indiana and some real luck – good and bad.

First, the good luck.  We driving on I-69 just north of Fort Wayne and saw a billboard for the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Automobile Museum.  I had read about it earlier on the trip but had no idea where it was.  When I saw the sign I got excited because the Cord automobile was one of the nicest ever made.  Carol said it was OK with her and, because we had not plan except which WalMart to stop at for the night, we went.  What an amazing place – Carol loved it too.  The building is the original headquarters of the Auburn-Cord manufacturing company and the ceilings are all restored to the original art-deco and the lights and floors are the originals.  This is a don’t miss it kind of place if you are anywhere near the area.

Now, the bad luck.  After leaving the museum we were back on I-69 heading for the WalMart when a motorcyclist beeped his horn and pointed to the tow car with some energy.  I pulled over and found that the left rear wheel was smoking and had oil or grease all over it.  It was rush hour and we had to get off the highway so we took the next exit and found ourselves in a real rush-hour mess.  We used Streets & Trips and the WalMart file to find the nearest one.  They said we could stay so that took the pressure off and while I was trying to get the drum off so I could tell (for sure) what happened Carol found a city park with camping and free good quality WiFi provided by the city of Fort Wayne and, amazingly enough, the daily fee is only $17.

By the time we got hooked up and ready for dinner it was 9pm and we were really beat.  It is amazing how tiring things like that can be.

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Sept 8th

1951 Buick XP-300

Canada is a great place but there is no place like home.  We drove west to Flint, Michigan.  We considered driving to Buffalo but we wanted to avoid all of the congestion in that part of the country and we had no plans for either direction so we decided to take a look at Michigan.  We looked for things to see or do in the Flint area and came up with the Sloan Museum and its Buick Gallery.  Sloan was an early member of the GM management team.  Here is a slide show of some Buick Gallery photos.

We parked for the night in a WalMart parking lot  about 5 miles away, unhooked the Tracker and went to the museum.  We spent about a hour or so looking at the Buick Gallery part of the museum and then went to see the rest of the Sloan Museum.  It is a very interesting set of exhibits about the history of auto manufacturing in the US. They had quite a bit of what I took to be unbiased coverage of the labor issues that started the UAW.

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Sept 7th

Ready for the mist

At about 9:30am or so we headed to the falls – Niagara Falls that is.  I just discovered today that I was misspelling it so I went back and fixed at least a couple of places.  The first thing we did was take a ride on the “Maid of the Mist” boat to the foot of Horseshoe Falls.  There are several “Maids” with a pair operating out of each side of the river below the falls, i.e. the American and Canadian sides.  The boats leave the dock every 15 minutes throughout the day in season.  They give each passenger a “souvenir” poncho to wear for protection.  They don’t tell you that you are going to need it and that you probably need some waterproof boots too.  Here is a slide show of our visit to Niagara Falls.

After the boat ride we had a Starbucks coffee and waited for the IMAX show about Niagara to begin – Carol loves IMAX movies and I do too.

Niagara on the Lake

After the IMAX show we got back into the Tracker and headed east to the little town of Niagara on the Lake.  This place is a must-see for anyone in the area.  Picturesque

One more ride past the falls and then back to the coach to plan for tomorrow – we still have no firm plans – and back to the States.

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Sept 6th

Fall flowers

We left the Montreal area around 8am and drove all day arriving at Niagara Falls, Canada at about 4pm.  Rain threatened all day but all we got were a few sprinkles here and there.  Fall is on the way – we saw lots of trees beginning to turn color and the fields between and beneath the trees were glowing with golden flowers – probably not good for those with allergies but beautiful to look at.

When we started the traffic was pretty light but as the day wore on it grew heavier and heavier.  Part of the traffic increase was because we had to go through the Toronto area but it was probably mostly due to people returning from the last weekend of summer.  The drive through or rather around Toronto was pretty hairy.  At one point Carol counted 15 lanes of traffic coming at us and the highway we were on was at least 6 lanes wide in each direction.

We are staying at Scott’s Tent & Trailer Park just down the street from the KOA on Lundy’s Lane.  The internet access here is good compared to the last two stops at KOA’s.  The KOA’s had very slow connections and the last one even limited the amount of data you could transfer.  I don’t know if all KOA’s are like that or not but this access is much better.

Horseshoe Falls lit up

We heard the the falls at night were a must see and we hadn’t had enough driving yet so we went into town to see them.  It was crowded and very tacky with lots of souvenir shops and lots of high-rise hotels and even a casino overlooking the falls.  There was no information or maps available so we just wandered around in the dark and eventually had to stop and ask for directions.  We will try again tomorrow with a fresh start and maybe a map?

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