What a Trip - Epilog

Well, it's been a few weeks since we arrived home after spending 6 weeks on the road for our "Excellent Adventure." I must admit I haven't even looked at the Model A in the garage. But, that will change soon as I need to prepare the Model A for a weekend trip to the 54th New England Model A Meet. I will have to do some maintenance, like replacing the broken brake rod, changing the oil, etc. and washing off the dried mud I picked up from road construction in Glacier National Park. I think I'm going to miss that mud as it's kind of like a merit badge! Taking your "A" on a long journey is a great experience and I would highly recommend it. We traveled to so many places that we have never visited before. And driving the Model A seems to be a catalyst for meeting so many nice people, who all added to the total experience of the journey. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting our National Parks and Monuments that we had placed on our "must see list." Memories of the sights, sounds and smells of Glacier and Yellowstone (and the Alaskan cruise) will be forever etched in our minds.

Our pre trip planning scoped out a proposed route and nightly overnight stops. However, since we only needed two rooms we didn't feel the need to make advanced hotel reservations and that would give us flexibility to modify our schedule. Nan was a great navigator, finding interesting places to visit along the way and finding some good roads that kept us out of traffic if we needed to modify our planned route. Armed with her GPS, maps, AAA books and cell phone she kept us going and She was also the key to us having a place to sleep each night as she would call ahead each day when we determined where we thought we would be for the night.

Preparing the Model A for a trip like this varies, for me I rebuilt my Borg-Warner overdrive to make sure it was up to the task. Replacing my front spring lead to a whole new front axle being installed. I replaced all the brake linings. New tires were put on last year for our trip to Dearborn, MI so they were fine. I also installed LED taillights for an extra margin of safety. I had rebuilt my engine two years ago for this trip, but unfortunately that engine was replaced after it suffered a problem 80 miles into the trip. The replacement engine did the job. Other spare parts were probably pretty consistent with what we all carry for most tours. My actual mechanical problems consisted of:

• Engine #1 was replaced by engine #2 which was replaced by engine #3.



• A loose spindle nut causing the front wheel to come close to falling off. This situation caused the brake shoes to wear badly and had to be replaced. Thankfully I did have a spare set of brake shoes with me.



• Ignition coil replaced



• The CB inverter died and was replaced

I have a few statistics that I thought some of you might find interesting.

• We drove almost 7400 miles, 3400 miles from Home to Vancouver and 4000 miles from Vancouver back home.



• Averaged 19.9 MPG for the trip, excluding the first 3 days (lost some records) and the final day of driving (I haven't fill the tank yet.)



• The highest MPG was 23.6 on the return trip from Douglas, WY to Chadron, NE.



• The lowest MPG was 16.9 in from Manitowoc to Tomah, WI.

I can see the high mileage from WY to NE as it was flat and we had a tail wind, but I can't figure out the low mileage in Wisconsin. It was hilly but nothing that I would call taxing for the Model As.

• The longest driving day was 366 miles from Sheridan, WY to Butte, MT



• The shortest driving day was 60 miles from Bellingham, WA to Vancouver, BC



• The average driving per day was 246 miles for the trip.



• We traveled through 14 states and 3 Canadian provinces.



• Traveled in 5 different time zones. (Alaska, Pacific, Mountain, Central, Eastern)



• Crossed the Continental Divide 6 times

I'm not sure how many unique visitors the blog had, but I do know the blog has had visitors from the following countries: USA, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Bolivia, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Cote d' Ivore (The Ivory Coast), Japan, Germany, Mexico, Netherlands, Latvia, Croatia, India, Russia, Mauritius, Belarus, Indonesia, France, Malta, United Arab Emerites, Greece, Finland, Vietnam, Cambodia, Paraguay, Pakistan, Romania, Austria, Italy, Kenya, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Hungary, Slovenia, Serbia, Shri Lanka, Malaysia and The Philippines. I'm amazed that we have had visitors from such far reaching places.