BMWMOA - 2013: Atomic energy, another car museum, an air and space museum, the rally, and home

We left Jackson on July 11th and rode west over 8400 foot Teton Pass on WY 22 into Idaho, where the road becomes ID 33. This is a very scenic road through the Teton Range and at Victor we turned on ID 31 over 6700 foot Pine Creek Pass and descended into a beautiful valley.

In Swan Valley we continued west on US 26 to Idaho Falls where we went west on US 20 across the Snake River Plain with strange lava rock formations on either side of the road.

We made a stop at the first nuclear power plant in Arco and went on a tour of the facility.

 
After our tour we continues on US 20 past Craters of the Moon National Monument (all three of us had been there before) and went north on ID 75 through Ketchum and into the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. We stopped at a campground on a lake south of Stanley and set up camp, managing to fit all three tents on one campsite.

This is a popular vacation area and in the morning I went for a walk through the campground and down to the lake. The morning fog was just lifting over the lake, which gave me the opportunity for several scenic photographs.

We stopped in Stanley for breakfast and rode on ID 21 through the mountains. At Lowman we went west on ID 24 where we were delayed for road construction and blasting.

The road follows a river that is popular with rafters. At Banks we went north on ID 55 through McCall and when the road ended we rode north on scenic US 95 through Riggins, Grangeville and into Lewiston then across the river to Clarkston, Washington where we spent the night at the rather decrepit El Rancho motel.

In the morning we rode across Highway 12 to Mac's Cycle where John P and I had new tires installed on our bikes. We had breakfast nearby at Hazel's, a favorite restaurant of ours. All went well with the service and we continued on US 12 through the treeless, agricultural Palouse area with its rolling hills and endless wheat fields. Before we reached Walla Walla we turned on WA 124 to Pasco and after a few miles on I-182 went on backroads WA 240 and WA 24 to Yakima. We picked up US 12 again and then WA 7 towards Tacoma.

The next day we rode into Tacoma for our visit to the LeMay Collection - America's Car Museum. This is a new museum that opened in June, 2012 and it contains over 350 automobiles and motorcycles. We spent a happy few hours there taking pictures and wandering around.

Every museum should have a Flying Merkel

The Popemobile - a 1964 Lincoln

I've always liked the lines of the Kaiser from the early 1950's

A brass era Cadillac

The Tucker Torpedo - production ceased after about 50 cars were made.

 The luxury cars of the 1920's and 30's often had very elegant radiator cap ornaments.

A Lincoln greyhound

A Pierce Arrow archer

The 1956 Pontiac Safari station wagon was similar to the Chevrolet Nomad

 I learned to drive on a 1956 Pontiac Station wagon, although our four-door family wagon was less flashy than the two-door Safari in the picture above.  The post WWII Rolls and Bentley automobiles had what came to be called razor edge styling. You can see why from the picture below of the boot on a Bentley.

A Hudson Custom 8 convertible has art deco styling.

British icons of the 1950's - a BSA Gold Star and an Austin Mini

The MG-TC popularized sports cars in the USA in the early 1950's.

Mrs. Peel in The Avengers drove a Lotus Elan

Scooters and mini-cars - cheap transportation

I almost prefer the Cord sedans over the roadsters.

There is a section devoted to electric cars with many examples from the early days of automobile production. Back in the nineteen teens and 20's electric cars could go 40-60 miles on a single charge, not that much less than today's pure electric vehicles.

The French 2CV is a post-WWII icon that was produced in great numbers and like the Volkswagen bug kept being made long after it became technologically obsolete.

There was a special exhibit of Ferraris, including an example of the very first Ferrari model sold to the public, the 1947 Type 166 Spyder Corsa.

We finally left the museum and rode out of Tacoma on I-5 and then north on US 101 along the east side of the Olympic Peninsula. After spending the night in a motel we continued on US 101 through small towns along the water with vacation cottages and recreation areas. We rode through Port Angeles and by Lake Crescent, and then on Highway 112 to Neah Bay, where we stopped for a quick visit at the Makah Museum before riding out to Cape Flattery, the northwest corner of the lower 48 states. We parked and walked for 20 minutes to the view area at the tip of the cape.

John C takes a picture of the island. You can see the lighthouse if you look closely.

We rode back to US 101 and south to Forks, famous as the setting for the Twilight novels. The Twilight craze appears to have abated, and the town wasn't nearly as crowded as it had been three years previously when we rode through there on our way to Alaska. We spent the night at the somewhat funky Town Motel, and the next morning we continued south on US 101 all the way into Oregon and camped near the coast.

The next day we rode inland towards Salem, but stopped first in McMinnville at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. This is a huge place with the collection spread over three buildings. There is everything from replicas of the very first airplanes to the latest jet fighters, including an SR-71 Blackbird. I hadn't thought that I'd be very interested in the building devoted to space exploration, but I found it quite fascinating.

A double wasp radial engine

The crankshaft is fixed on this Rhone radial - the propeller rotates with the engine around the crank.

The first jet fighter - a WWII Messerschmidt ME-262

The Spruce Goose is so big that I couldn't get a picture of the whole thing. The tail section give you an idea.

John and John finally dragged me away from the museum and we rode into Salem, checked in at the BMWMOA rally headquarters, and set up our tents.

Later a lot of the spaces between the tents filled up with more tents

We spent the time at the rally surveying the vendors (and even buying several items), attending seminars, looking at vintage bikes on display, and wandering around the fairgrounds looking at other people's bikes.

This 1929 R-11 had a perfect score in the 2012 coast to coast Cannonball Run.

I suppose it could be handy to have a spare bike behind your sidecar.

There were various field events and rides, and this GS must have been on a special off-road event.

Phil Funnell's bike tows a little pod trailer in which he sleeps.

I first met Phil Funnell in 1975 or thereabouts when Carol and I attended a BMW 49er rally in Angels Camp, CA. At the time he owned a shop in Vancouver, BC and he came down with one of his employees. His homemade, fiberglass trailer rides on a single bicycle wheel. Below is a picture of the BMW F650GS on which Benka Pulko rode around the world. I saw the bike last year at a BMW dealership in Pensacola, Florida. Benka may no longer ride the bike, but it still gets around.

Benka Pulko's F650GS - world traveler

We left the fairgrounds in Salem on Sunday morning July 21 and rode down I-5 to Grants Pass, where John P and I rode US 199 to connect with US 101 in Crescent City and spend the night at a motel in Eureka, and John C headed for the coast and another night of camping.

John P had his R1200GS Adventure serviced before we left, and at the time he asked them to check the rear drive and universal joint, because he thought he detected a clicking sound. The shop couldn't find anything amiss. He asked again at the BMW shop in Fort Collins, and also at the shop in Salem. The next day we were riding down US 101 and just north of Willits I looked in the mirror and didn't see John P. I pulled off the road and waited a bit, and then turned around to see what had happened. After a few miles I saw his bike parked on the shoulder and John was on the phone. He said that the bike had started making a real racket from the driveline, and also began vibrating and smoking. The smoke was coming from the front universal joint, and it had heated up so badly that the paint was blistered.

After a lot of phoning around we got a tow truck to come out from Willits and take the bike to a parking lot in Ukiah. I rode to John's house in Corte Madera and hooked up his bike trailer to his SUV and drove back to Ukiah where we loaded the bike and drove back to John's house. I rode home, arriving just a little after midnight - 20 days, 4700 miles.

Update: Fortunately, John had an extended warranty on his bike which covered new universal joints and driveshaft housing. While they had everything torn apart, he had them put in a new clutch, which only cost him the parts.

The BMWMOA rally for 2014 is in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the three of us will probably ride out there. Watch this space.