2007 Texas to Colorado Model T Tour
June 20th thru July 4th, 2007
joining the "Search
for the Mohigans Tour”
and the Model T
Club of Northern Colorado.
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Ross and Luke left our
motel in Springfield early this morning, around 6:30AM, in an
attempt to get home on the 4th of July. As a group, we
travel more slowly than the two of them can and both men needed
to get back.
The rest of us had a big
breakfast in Springfield and set out. We crossed into the
panhandle of Oklahoma (“The Northwest Passage”) and
stopped for photos at the Texas state line. We’re
still a long way from home but it was good to be back in Texas.
(By the way, we drove through Boise City, OK, our original
destination for last night. We made the right decision to
stay at the Starlite in Springfield, CO.)
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As I’ve mentioned
before, we travel smaller roads and try to avoid interstates.
However, in West Texas, U.S. Hwy 287 is virtually an
interstate. This road goes vertically from south
Texas to the Canadian border and is a major route north
for truckers and travellers alike. It has a 70 mph speed
limit so it is a little nerve-racking when you are very
little and driving 35mph. Most of the truckers were
courteous and so were the drivers so we made it safely to
Dumas, TX, where we had lunch and turned off onto a more
lightly-traveled road.
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This part of Colorado,
Oklahoma, and Texas is very different from where we have been..
These are the “Plains” regions and the land
stretches out to the horizon with only whatever crops are
growing to give it any depth. I have no pictures because
they only show flat land and blue sky. This is the part
of the country that feeds us. They grow wheat and other
grains here, they graze cattle, and they have oilfields.
The highway is bordered by the railroad tracks and trains
with a hundred cars of coal pass us tregularly. I spent
most of the morning trying to keep from falling asleep.
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About 3:00PM, five miles from
the town of Panhandle, we got a call from Patty saying that
Austen had a problem and they were stopped. By the time
we could get back, they had the hood off and were trying to
figure out what had caused his car to stop.
It didn’t take too long
to determine that the 1915 Touring car had a broken crankshaft.
(As Ben described it later, “Austen has one of
those new two-part crankshafts.”) We have had this
happen to us, actually more than once, and both of those were
with new crankshafts. The original cranks are getting old
and brittle and several people have tried
making new ones (with limited success) but Austen was driving
with an old one. Once this happens. there are no roadside
repairs possible. Just like with a modern car, you have
to get it off the road and into a shop. We can fix it but not
on the shoulder of a highway.
Martin and Patty took Nicky
on into the town of Panhandle to start looking for a car and
trailer we could rent to get the broken car back to Bryan.
Panhandle is east of Amarillo and we figured that we
would have to get AAA to take him to Amarillo and, from there,
try to find a way to get it back to our shop at home.
Normally, you can’t tow
a Model T because you can’t disengage the engine.
With a broken crank, however, the engine isn’t
turning over anyway so Ben hooked up a tow rope to the back of
the ‘26 pickup. We set out slowly for Panhandle.
About two miles from town, Patty called and said that
they had found a man who could bring his trailer out to pick it
up but we continued on into town since we were so close.
What we found when we got
there amazed us! On our way to Colorado, we had stopped
at the NAPA store in this town (Ben actually bought the tow
rope there) and we had spent a little time visiting with the
owner and some older gentlemen who liked to
sit around there and talk. So Martin stopped there and
asked for help. One of the men, Mr. Ashby Lewis, just
happend to own Model A’s and had a shop only one block
away where he kept them.
We towed the
broken T straight to his shop, pushed it inside, and he
is nice enough to keep it for us until we can get back with a
truck and trailer to haul it home. Can you believe it?
What are the chances that we would breakdown outside a
small Texas town that just happened to have a man who owned
Model A’s and had a shop less than one block
off our route? And what are the
chances that we would find him?
By the way, Mr. Lewis has one
of his Model A’s for sale. He’s asking
$20,000 for the nice 1929 Roadster above. (If you are
interested, email Ben or me for his number.)
We’re all paying our
respects to Austen’s dead car. Mr. Ashby Lewis is
the gentleman second from left.
Ben and I have done a lot of
travelling in our Model T’s. We’ve gone to
Alaska and back, to New York and Massachusetts and back twice,
and to Colorado several times. Everytime it appears that
we
are really in a fix and what on earth will
we do, someone comes along and provides the help we need.
In large part, it is the good nature of the people
involved, but I also believe it is the attraction of these very
special cars that makes people more willing to step forward.
We left the car and a lot of
belongings that we won’t need on the way home with Mr.
Lewis and set out again. Austen and Nicky rode with
Martin and Patty as we headed on toward our destination of
Turkey, Texas. We passed again through the eastern edge
of the Palo Duro Canyon, this time from north
to south. We’ve never come
through from that direction and it changes the view and the
drive. Patty, Austen, and Nicky had not been with us when
we came through here on the way up to Colorado so they were
thrilled with the sight. After all the flat land we had
driven through, this canyon is always a surprise. In the
picture above, Bruce and Barbara pass in front of a red bluff,
turned to fire by the setting sun behind us.
We arrived at the historic
Hotel Turkey around 8:30PM. Lisa, the owner of the hotel,
encouraged us to go ahead and get to the restaurant before we
even checked in because they closed it at 9:00. I’m
not sure the owners of Galvan’s Mexican Restaurant were
thrilled to see us walk in that late but they graciously fed us
a good meal and waited until we were finished to turn out the
lights.
The Hotel Turkey was
opened in 1927 and is a fascinating place to stay. It is
an old building but completely filled with antiques. Each
room is decorated in a different fashion (ours has a western
look; some are more feminine). Some share a bath with the
room next door. Lisa serves breakfast but the hotel
doesn’t serve lunch or dinner anymore. It
isn’t elegant but it is very comfortable; we really like
it. If you come to see Caprock Canyon or to celebrate Bob
Wills’ birthday, stay here.
We’re not sure
how far we’ll get tomorrow. We’re a little
too far from home to make it in one day. We’re all
tired and, I imagine, the cars are tired. We’ve
been on the road for two weeks exactly and have driven over
2000 miles. We’re down to the original three cars
that came through here on the way up. Hopefully, we will
get them all home under their own power.