May 22Epilog Woke up this morning to a dreary, rainy day, and the forecast is for three more days of the same. Are we lucky or what? We must have stayed just ahead of this weather system all across the country. Except for the rainy day when we left Portland, OR (no surprises there), we had mainly terrific weather, wearing shorts and tee-shirts nearly every day. We had almost always sunny, mostly warm days with some cooler ones, and only a few brief showers from time to time. Most of the mud on The Warrior came from construction sites, with the brief showers serving to glue the accumulated dust to her body, giving her that crusty patina. I wish I knew how far we went, but—I don't think we mentioned the car's odometer: We knew that it was reading a little high, due to tires that are lower profile than stock. But it seemed to be reading higher than we expected, so we starting comparing it to roadside mileage markers. Surprisingly, the results were inconsistent, sometimes 10% high and other times 30%! Then, on one stretch that was 30 miles according to our map, we clocked 80! So we started watching the odometer closely. Most of the time it was fine, but then the "ones" digit would suddenly start spinning as fast as the "tenths" digit on the trip odometer! "Aha!" we said, thinking we'd witnessed the whole problem. But then, a short time later, we saw the "tens" digit flip all by itself, i.e. it went from xx455 miles to xx465 miles! According to the odometer, we drove almost 9000 miles; actuality is probably half that, but we'll never know. We'll also never know how many miles the car has traversed in total, but that doesn't matter to me, since so much of her has been recently restored. Anyway, however far we went, we had a safe and fun trip, and got to see a lot of the US and Canada that we'd never seen before, all while driving our exciting little Alfa Romeo. Even on the last couple of days of the trip, I was still looking forward to getting up and driving a few hundred miles! Part of the fun is doing whatever it takes to keep a 27-year-old Italian sports car on the road. That includes the 500-mile detour to Portland, Oregon for the repair of our failed brake master cylinder. And speaking of which...
Tech Corner: So what's the car like? I've written up a summary, which may not be of interest to all of you, so click here if you want the nitty-gritty. Finally, for those of you who are curious, the railroad locomotive with the engineer who waved to us was firmly planted on the ground. So was the Canadian army tank. So were the fighter jet and helicopter, via pedestals that we choose to remove for aesthetic reasons, in order to eliminate clutter from the scenes. Thanks for traveling along! Until next time, here are a few parting photos:
Beer(s) of the Day
Culture Feature Here's a culture shot we had in reserve—cute little raggedy-ann dolls made of current-technology hay bales. Can't remember where it was taken, but it doesn't really matter—it could have been practically anywhere along our way.
Alfa Spotting!
The PrattBrothers@yahoo.com address is now defunct! (This was a temporary address while we were en route.) Thanks to all of you who took the time to write—it kept us connected with all of our friends, family, and fellow Alfisti. Sorry if our replies were non-existent or terse—the time in front of our laptop's tortuous screen and keyboard was too long as it was. The End
Back to the Road Trip 2001 title page |
We want to once again thank the Alfa Romeo Owners of Oregon club for coming
to our aid and offering us their hospitality, and especially for the Herculean effort of
Doug Zaitz. We won't list again everything he did for us, but it's all there for you to
read in the previous pages. We're so inspired that we're considering the purchase of a car
trailer of our own, partly to haul our own cars, but also to be ready to assist other
Alfisti should the need arise. Thank you, Doug, thank you, thank you, thank you. AROC
members: You'll never find a more dedicated guy to vote onto your Board of Directors that
Doug Zaitz, so please cast your vote in his direction!
