Day 13 - Eye-Dah-Hoe

At breakfast today we had a nice visit with Harlan & Gini from Vancouver, WA who own a 1930 Tudor sedan. It's amazing how many Model A enthusiasts you meet on the road. We enjoyed our breakfast visit and wished each other pleasant travels.

The sun was shining brightly, but the temperature was only 48 degrees. However, it wasn't long before the sun did it's thing and it warmed up. We fired up the Model A's and headed off to the small town of Deer Lodge, MT. Why Deer Lodge? Well, it has the Montana Auto and Prison Museum there. Although we were again on I-90, we were almost the only cars on the roadway. Sure is nothing like riding the Mass Pike, 128 or 495 back home. Arriving at Deer Lodge it was pretty easy to spot the prison, although the sign was in plain view. Our admission included the car museum and the prison tour. Let me tell you right now, if you are in the area you should definitely stop here as it is a real gem. The car museum has about 130 cars, from 1899 to the 70's. Lot's of Model A's too. We all gave this place the "thumbs-up". They had some great cars, but the one that caught Dick's eye was the 1929 Woody that the owner ( Ed Towe) bought from the original owner when it had 13K miles on it. Ed Towe noted that when the Woody was on the trailer, a friend ask if Ed new where the side curtains were stored. Of course Ed had no idea, so the friend opened up the storage compartment and there, still in the original wrapper was the entire set of curtains... they had never been used.

We then toured the prison, which looked like it was something from and old gangster movie. But, this place was used until 1979. How they could have used that place that long still baffles me. We all agreed that this was no place to have to spend time in, but I guess if your a convicted criminal, you get what you deserve.

Back on the road we headed the radiator caps to Missoula, MT. We were almost there when Dick radioed that the Woody was skipping, so we got into a parking lot where Dick tried another carb. Seemed like a good bet, as when I took the carb apart it had a lot of sediment in the bowl.

Unfortunately a little driving and the problem came back. A new coil was tried and another road test seemed good, but that was short lived. Dick finally just changed the distributor (unfortunately on the side of the highway) and that solved the problem.

On the road again.

This time we were not settling for anything less than Coeur d'Alene, ID. We were cruising along now and just soaking in all the scenery, which was beautiful. I really do like Montana, but it takes so long to get through it. One thing I should mention is how much damage to the Pine Trees we are seeing. From SD to MT and ID we have seen dying trees from the Pine Beetle which is killing the trees in large numbers.

Getting into Idaho was like crossing the divide again, what a hill, I just made it before the temp gauge went Red! Fortunately once over the crest the water temp fell like a rock going downhill. The ride to Coeur d'Alene was very scenic as we had a great view of Lake Coeur d'Alene for miles. We checked into the La Quinta hotel and settled in for the night.

Mileage for the day was 320 which was pretty good when we include our museum visit and our roadside seminars. Tomorrow we will be in Washington state.