Friday, July 15, 2011

Day 1 - Success!

We started our day at 7 AM just as planned, the three Little British Cars and one pickup (support vehicle) met at the North Bend McDonalds where many egg McMuffins were consumed.
We got on the road and proceeded to drive over mountains and through valleys.

After several hundred miles the little red Sprite just quit.
Fortunately the support vehicle had the ability to tow and so we were all on the road again, ending up in Missoula Montana just about on schedule.

Beyond my wildest hopes the Frogeye Midget started out the trip registering 40 miles per gallon exactly.
This car normally gets between 25 to 29 mpg tops, to see it getting 40 mpg was simply phenomenal.
The first tank of fuel was 'pure gas' 92 octane from the Grange Supply in Issaquah.
Subsequent fillups were with the available 92 octane ethanol blended gas and saw a reduction down to 35 mpg. Still very good, but not as great as the 40 that started our day.

The scenery was beautiful, the drive mostly uneventful.
We arrived in Missoula at about 6:30 PM, got settled in our hotel and then went off to find Steve Eastlick's home as he had invited us to a BBQ.
We arrived and immediately started borrowing bits and pieces from Steve to fix Mike's Bugeye.
The Bugeye was sorted pretty quickly, fuel pump replaced and some wiring fixed.
Then we went ahead and enjoyed the BBQ. Several local British car enthusiasts were there with their cars, a beautiful E-Type Jag, some big Healey's, a couple Triumphs and a beautiful Shelby GT.
Ok - I know that last one isn't British, but Shelby got some good stuff from the British and the car was there and was wonderful to see - so I mentioned it.

After getting a little turned around on the way back to the hotel we arrived and settled in, ready to rest up for our trip to Wyoming tomorrow!

I am uploading pictures to a Picasa web album here:


I have to hit the hay now, it's been a long day!

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