Homeward bound-
We travelled South from Hood River through a dense pine forested area.
Mount Hood is visible in the distance-
After stopping for lunch in Madras, Oregon, we found a wrecking yard just south of town. There was a '60 DeSoto 4-door hardtop, but someone had severed the fins from the body. The only other older car was a '62 Mercury Comet 4-door sedan. We drove to Bend, where there was a large yard, but the owner said that every heavy car had been crushed when the scrap price peaked last summer. Getting back into the pickup, I began to back the trailer out, when the engine died. Now I had no fuel to the carburetor. As hot as the outside temp was, [the bank thermometer in Madras read 105 degrees] I wondered if the truck had vapor locked. I got some gasoline from the yard's office, and put some in a Pepsi bottle, and poked a pinhole in the cap. I was able to fill the float bowl on the carburetor through the bowl vent this way, and the engine started right up. The heat under the hood caused the vapor lock after parking the truck, but all was good now.
We looked up an old friend that had a landscaping business in Bend, but alas, the poor economy must have been the demise of his business, as he could not be found, and his telephone numbers were disconnected. We stayed the night south of Bend, where our connecting route joined. We got up early the next day, as there would be many miles to drive. Our next stop was near Paisley, Oregon, there was an old Shell station with a couple hundred old cars parked in the desert behind it.
These were the Forward Look cars on the property-
The owner of the property, Albert Bleachler, was a really nice guy. It turns out that he had a friend in Lakeview Oregon with a car lot, that stored quite a few cars on his property. They had an arrangement to split proceeds from parts or cars sold. Turned out I knew the owner of the car lot, he had been in the yard here some time ago. I ended up buying the '57 Plymouth 4-door hardtop, after calling him on the phone and getting the price for it. Albert helped load the car on the trailer with a '48 GMC boom truck. After getting the car cinched down, we headed to Lakeview to pay Bob, the car lot owner, for the Plymouth. It was nice to be trusted in this manner. After having lunch and squaring up with Bob, we headed south and crossed over into California. Here is Mount Shasta looming on the horizon-
A scant 20 miles within the state line, I could hear a tire flapping. I pulled over and checked the trailer, and couldn't see anything wrong. Turned out the left rear tire on the truck was beginning to separate, rather unexpected as the tires were not very old. After changing the tire, we went another five miles or so, and the spare tire I had just installed exploded, wrapping the tailpipe up into the rear fender. Not sure why this tire blew, as it was hardly used. M'lisa called AAA, and was informed they could tow the truck up to 100 miles, but not the trailer.
It was quite late in the afternoon, and the sun was going down, not to mention being in the middle of nowhere. Typical. Why couldn't the tire blowout wait until we were in front of a Les Schwab tire shop? LOL!
We got ahold of a friend in Redding, about 100 miles south, he didn't have enough diesel to make it that far, so we had to make a decision, which was that M'lisa would have the truck towed to John's place in Redding, and meet him halfway with some more fuel money to pick me and the trailer up later that night.
The temperature began to drop, and I got bored waiting, and took these photos of the abandoned motel we were parked in front of.
Several hours went by, and John finally showed up, and we attached the trailer, and he drove to Redding, to his house. The next morning he supplied us with two mounted tires, as well as a vintage Kiekhaufer boat motor for our finned boat. The rest of the trip was just a hundred miles, and went smoothly.
---John
