First a note about daily results. Like last year, the best page on the TargaNewfoundland.com website for current results is at Targa Newfoundland Results

…and a bit of history since last year’s event. After a winter of rebuilding Willy’s motor from the catastrophic meltdown on Day 2 of last year’s event along with myriad minor tweaks resulting from the lessons learned during that event, we loaded Willy on a train in Vancouver, BC about a month ago for his journey to Newfoundland. …no, this year there wasn’t a cross-country journey with “The Enterprise” (our motorhome) hauling the trailer – a full month away from home and 9000+ miles was enough – instead we opted to ship the car by train/truck and ourselves by Air Canada.

We picked up the car on Thursday and spent the day prepping, plotting and planning. Tomorrow, Friday, Ed and I will do some practicing and make sure Willy is fully sorted. Saturday is media and tech day and Sunday, the event begins.

Weather right now looks like a mix of showers and sunshine. Sunday looks wet, Monday – Wednesday look dry. The wildcard is Thursday and Friday. Right now, showers are predicted, but the extent of the wet stuff and where it hits are completely uncertain. Ed and I both hoping for rain on at least 2 of the 5 days as this could help us quite a bit with the competition. …we’ll see…

The rules have changed quite a bit this year and there are now two main divisions – classic and modern. This should help eliminate the noise a lot of competitors were making about bias in the handicapping. For those that want more details on this years rules, please visit: Targa Newfoundland Rules and click on the link there.

…to be continued…

A note about results, standings, etc.  The best page on the Targa Newfoundland website to find out about current standings is: www.targanewfoundland.com/results/ .  Check this and if you can find the tracking page, we have a GPS unit provided by Targa as one of the few cars provided with this random selection, you can check out where Willy is and has been.  If I can find the specific link, I will post that here.

Sunday – Prologue Day

We started out with a drivers meeting and then some media “stuff” – photos, etc.  Around noon, we “transited” from the Remax Center in St. John’s to “Flatrock” where we did two “prologue stages”.  In each stage, we did pretty well.  Our target time in the first leg was 3:35 for our class and we did 3:15 or so.   In the second leg, they tightened the time to reflect what would happen as the week progressed (times get tighter) and we did a 3:05 our second time through so still beat our target time of 3:20.  This was good news.  We have a small oil leak that is difficult to fix, so will put up with occassional blue smoke unless we are forced to do more permanent repairs.  We have some braking issues to sort out and have a bad synchro in our 3rd gear, but can see our way through that.  

In the second stage, a factory Suburu car rolled (#906) so we had a bit of a delay waiting for the course to clear.  Other than that, it was a great day and the weather was cloudy but cooperative.  Not to be tomorrow.  We will most certainly see rain on our first “real” day but that isn’t bad for us or our car (I like the rain).  We will be up at 5:30 AM tomorrow and headed towards Gander (check the Targa sight for more info).  It will be a long day with many stages.  …should be challenging, but the times to beat won’t be that difficult until later in the week.

Thats all for now – but check back here as the week progresses (assuming I can get time and an internet connection).  If all else fails, just check the Targa sight and you can find some up to date info there.  A few more pics from today:

Monday

Day 1 – the “real” Targa event.  …what a day…  Not much time and a lot to report.  Sadly I can’t do many pictures as I’m in Gander with no internet except at the Hotel where Fish and Ed are staying, so I’m typing fast.  …Suzanne and I have ATT so we don’t have mobile service either.  Fortunately this event leaves you no time to reflect on this lack of “connectivity” but thought I would report a few things that happened today.

We pulled up stakes from St. John’s and moved our circus to Gander – well Fish and Suzanne did.  Ed and I transited Willy to Argentia at 0-dark-thirty in pouring down rain weather and “high wind warning” conditions.  My kind of weather!  …well, maybe not that extreme… 

Stage 1, I was a bit nervous, but Ed and I worked well together.  We beat the “targa time” and so my nerves calmed down significantly.  Stage 2 was in Placentia.  I loved this stage!  I’m hoping the in-car video shows the kids on the side of the road outside their house gesturing for us to go faster right before a really aggressive crest in the road.  It was classic!

We transited back to a third stage in Argentia but ran into a problem with the alternator.  Thankfully Open Road Motorsports came through.  Five mechanics descended on Willy and changed the alternator, put in a new ground and had us back on the stage just in time to depart.  This is Targa!  This pic taken during the frantic action:

After this stage, we opted not to shut down due to a depleted battery and uncertain charging issues and transited 60 klicks to Osprey.  It was at this point that Ed got an email from his wife letting him know that she was following Willy on the Targa website.  The GPS unit we got apparently is kind of cool as you can follow certain cars (our number is #409) by going to: www.targanewfoundland.com/results/ under “competitor tracking”.  Check it out!

There was a brief stop where some great local folks provided some sandwiches – of course all the local kids came out for “cards” (those hero cards) and to meet the “race car drivers”.  Ed attracted some “kids” who asked him for his autograph:

…they said the cards were for their kids… 

Stage 4 was a “fast stage” and we seemed to be charging up the battery.  We dared to shut down for a fuel stop and all was well.  Stage 5 was another fast stage – all zero’s so far.  We then transited up to Eastport – a really cool town and I hope to get pics on here next week when I have more than 5 minutes on the internet.  The first stage in this town went great until the very last corner where I ran out of talent in my “late braking” maneuver and overshot the corner, slid through a gravel driveway through the red tape and came within inches of a garage.  ….no problem – I put it in reverse, got back on course and finished the stage just seconds past the “targa time”.  …OK, so I got a few points on my first day – but Willy is in one piece!

After the second round and final stage on the same “circuit”, we did great, beat the time, “zero’d out” and finished strong.  Later, the woman who owned the garage brought her kids up to our car and asked for a “hero card” and said with a smile “I’m the owner of the garage you almost hit”.  She was great, we signed the cards and both Ed and I felt pretty good about our day, the people of Newfoundland and the great attitude towards our sport.

Later in the day, Fish took a few shots:

Tuesday:

We started at the Gander Community Center (hockey rink) in the morning.  Right before we headed out:

Great day until Stage 3.  We started out with a few great stages.  Here’s a picture before stage 2 in Bobby’s Cove – I’m talking to a few of the “Mini guys” – probably trying to explain why I was adjusting tire pressure:

We “zero’d” the first two stages then transited to Pleasantview.  This 3rd stage of the day was a long and fast 28km stage.  We were halfway through putting a lot of time “in the bank” (ahead of our target time) – 32 seconds ahead – when we heard a bang and the all familiar sounds of motor trouble.  I shut down and we coasted a while to find a safe place to pull over.  We put out a triangle and investigated.  …there was a fist sized hole in the side of the case…  Day done.  Ed displays the “OK sign” to fellow competitors some of whom were doing close to 200 km on this stretch:

After the final car came through, the “sweep car” stopped and we got a tow to a safer place since the next stage would be the reverse and cars would be coming back through.  They got us off the road annd took off telling us to wait out the next stage.  A tow would be up to us.  Ed investigates:

Willy sitting forlornly on the “sidelines”:

We settled in and waited on top of a hill by the car.  Looking down the road that we never made:

We finally got a ride from our crew back to the small town where we were staged.  They called a tow truck to take us and some fellow competitors who’s Alfa lost all the oil in their engine after hitting something with their oil pan.  Ed decided to wait for the truck so he could get some of his “navigator’s homework” done and Suzanne, Fish and me headed back into Gander.  Around 8:30, the tow truck, Willy and Ed arrived at M & R Automotive in Gander where the owner had graciously allowed us to do our engine swap.  The place where Willy would be for the next 24 hours:

Later that night, Jason, Bert and Rick got going on the engine swap.  This was a tough job as we were going from a fuel injected motor to a normally aspirated motor (twin carbs).  They wasted no time:

We were not out of trophy contention, but just hoping to finish.  The best thing Ed and and I could do at this point was hope they could get it done in time for Wednesday and get some sleep.

Wednesday:

After struggling until 4 AM to change out the blown fuel injected motor with our twin-carb spare, the awesome mechanics that teamed up to try and get us back on the road today had to pack it in.  They got a few hours sleep and we all re-convened at M&R Motors to try and wrap up the swap.   The problem was a throttle linkage that didn’t get in the parts bin.  There were many other issues – this is not an easy swap – but the linkage was the main slowdown.  We worked feverishly until about noon at which time we had to let the mechanics get back out to a service point to join up with the cars that were still running.  We went with them to try and find a part that would help us out, but no luck.  We returned to Gander and made a decision to rent a dolly and tow Willy to Marystown to join up with the event and give it one last shot Wednesday night.  We had an idea from Jim Froula at Racecraft as to an alternative type of linkage that we could fashion ourselves.  It was our last hope of getting Willy back on the road.  As we towed Willy to Marystown, I took this photo of some construction – it gives you perspective on the roads in Newfoundland:

Thursday:

Success!  At 2 AM, Willy fired up and Bert – one of the great mechanics on the team – took Willy out for a test run.  The team had built a few parts from scratch and all was well.  Ed and I didn’t have time to test ourselves - that would happen during the day.  But Willy was back!

It felt great to rejoin Targa as a competitor albeit with a somewhat rough running engine.  We Zero’d the first three stages but took some points in others.  During the day we worked through various problems but ulitimately solved most of them.  …we seemed to be running for every stage after spending time under the hood resolving one thing or the other.

In the morning we had a stop in Harbour Mille.  It was a great stage and before we ran it in the opposite direction there was a breakfast available and a fairly lengthy stop.  The small fishing village was incredibly picturesque and the day was stellar.  Some photos:

 There were several “in-town” stages today in Garnish, Fortune and Marystown.  In one of these I missed a corner where an arrow sign had fallen down – no excuse – but the calls from Ed were coming fast and furious and I just didn’t make a hard right but went right around a small barrier.  I reversed and got back on course, but a mistake like that will cost you 10 seconds or so.  At this point, it’s somewhat moot since we weren’t in contention after missing a day and a half of competition, but I still felt bad about it.

The final stage of the day was in Marystown.  Fish took some great actions shots of Willy.  A few:

After this stage we headed back to the arena in Marystown where The Enterprise was, cleaned up the car, adjusted the carbs (nice job, Ed!) and rolled Willy into the arena.  The place was packed with locals coming to see the cars.   Here is a cute local girl holding her “Flying Rubber Racing Hero Card” and one of our tires that we gave out:

Friday:

This morning we woke up early for a 6:30 breathalizer (yes, might have forgotten to mention that every morning starts this way just in case somebody has decided to drink into the night and drive – we passed…).  We were stoked to finish after such adversity earlier in the week.  Our day on Thursday was a real positive when we compared our points for the one day against others – we were competitive!    …but sadly adversity dogged us all day once again.    

The rain was coming down hard all day with some added features like high winds and lightening.  … but I wasn’t bothered.  I figured this could only work to our advantage.  …and it did for the first several stages of the day.  We zero’d 2 out of 3 (on a Friday – the toughest day of Targa).   However, on the way to the 4th stage, Ed pointed out that our voltmeter was reading “12″ – we figured the alternator wasn’t working…  A quick alternator change by our fantastic crew got us into the start of the 4th stage with 2 minutes to spare.  …but that stage ended up getting scrubbed – more on this later as time permits, but in summary it was one of the most treacherous “in-town” stages any of us had ever seen.  It most likely with the rain and “ponds” and other crazy stuff would have taken out half the field.  After that stage on the way to the 5th, Ed dejectedly pointed out that the alternator was out again.  …this just wasn’t possible and there had to be another reason.  Many stops and missed stages later, we think we figured out that the wiring had not been done correctly (missing sensor wire).  We spent quite a bit of time debating what to do and ultimately handed in our card.  ….we did not finish…

We headed back to Pippy Park to rejoin Suzanne and Fish on just battery power and then piled into the rental car to go down to the finish of the race at The Keg Restaurant in St. John’s.  Some photos at the end:

We have lot’s of “unresolved issues” here in Newfoundland and have decided to come back and try again next year after we get our car in true “Targa shape”.   Not that our car wasn’t well built – it was – but this grueling all week “torture chamber” called Targa Newfoundland is simply like no other.  There is no room for errors.  The car needs to be tough and sorted.    It’s difficult to describe but the true meaning of how this event is “the ironman of motorsports” has sunk in.  And I love it!

The adventure was amazing and one that I feel fortunate to have been part of.  I have met some very cool people along the way here and feel blessed just to be part of it.  Suzanne, Fish, Ed and I have bonded as a team and under some very difficult circumstances found we could operate well together and all found an important role.  We had a really great team of mechanics in Open Road Motorsports – Jason Byrne, Bert Potvin, Rick Hoyt (there were others, but my memory is short) – these guys were heroic, selfless, dedicated and nothing short of awesome!  Willy tried.  …he really did….  He is part of our family and although I was a bit upset with him today, he tried his damndest.  

Ed Millman – I will go on record saying – is one of the most patient, positive and “salt-of-the-earth” guys I know.  He taught me a lot this week and I am in hopes this is just the beginning of a “contender” rally team.  Fish has proven to be a great friend and we could not have done this without his help and even-keeled demeanor.  …and Suzanne as always was stalwart, positive, supportive and the love of my life.  And to the Racecraft boys back home – a big shout out – ..and get ready for the huge list we are bringing home for Willy  - we’ll get ‘em next year!   …good times, good times…

Tomorrow, we wake up, load Willy in the trailer, gather up our parts from the boys at Open Road Motorsports and head down to catch the ferry to  – hmmm – well wherever it is in Nova Scotia.  I’m sure there will be more stories to tell after that ship ride….

Tech (scrutineering) took place at the Remax Center.  Here’s some pics:

The final touch was the Targa license plate – this was a new one on me.  It shows our number (409):

Tech went well – a few items we forgot (3 safety triangles rather than just 1), but Fish and Suzanne did a lot of running around and we got things sorted out.  Our mechanic for the week, Jason, fixed a sway bar bracket that was broken and we started on a few other things.  We are headed back to the Remax Center where there is the first of many evening car shows, so we’re taking lots of “Hero cards” and the little rubber “tires” we have. 

Tomorrow is Prologue day – Drivers meeting in the morning, media photos afterwards, then two stages through St. John’s.  These stages will determine start order, but are more for “demonstration” and won’t count for points.  It will be our last opportunity to make sure we have everything sorted.  Should be a full day.  Monday, the event kicks off…

….to be continued…

We were asked to sign all their arms with our only writing instrument – a “Sharpie” – so these marks won’t be coming off for a while…

The day didn’t start out that smoothly, however, as we drove the 15 minutes to the small ferry there was a strong smell of raw gas.  As we pulled into line, I got out and looked under the car at a little pool of fuel.  After opening up the fuel, we found what 4200 miles of trailering can do to fittings, nuts, bolts, etc.  A few fuel line fittings were very loose and fuel was spraying around the engine compartment.  We pulled out our 5-finger tool kit and tightened things as best we could and loaded up on the ferry.  Fellow “02′ers” and past overall winners Roy Hopkins and Adrienne Hughes were right in front of us and offered assistance.  After arriving into Bell Island, we opted to drive the short distance to the town of Wanaba where our school was being held and we did a few more lasting repairs:

After that, a guy named Evan who was working for the owner Glen came down and gave us a summary of what we had missed yesterday and answered multiple questions:

After that, they had closed down a stretch of local roads for some “real Targa training”.  We donned our driving suits, pulled out the helmets, went to hook up the intercom, and my ear buds were nowhere to be found…  ….OK, no intercom – well we would have to have more real life training and rely on hand signals…   As we queued up for our first stage:

And Ed’s favorite car there:

We had some great moments, some not so great moments, but all in all it was a really fun day and incredibly important to my learning curve.  Cold tires (they never have time to heat up), inconsistent road surfaces, off-camber turns, gravel on the road, no knowledge of what is coming up other than the tulip diagrams (more on that later in a different blog), crowds just off the roadway as you scream by at 140k plus - these all add up to a completely different experience than running around a predictable track with lots of run off. 

We wrapped up our day and headed back to the picturesque ferry terminal but as noted earlier, had an interesting experience with the local folks that I hear becomes a common experience.  As we pulled into a parking area to watch the turn that had been a problem for me, we were swarmed – literally:

Every kid wanted an autograph.  I’m really happy we brought lots of “hero cards” (earlier on this blog you can see a copy) and some other cool things to give away – none of which we had with us today…  So we made a sharpie do with little autographs on their hands.  So many kids were around the car and poking their hands in that my window gave way (small fix later – hopefully) but it was worthwhile as this is what it’s all about!

Finally, a few other pics of the ferry terminal and our ride back:

These posts will probably get shorter as the week progresses due to time constraints, but had to share…

The photo below was just taken an hour ago right after we unloaded Willy.  We haven’t unstrapped the car since it left the Racecraft shop in Woodinville, Washington 4200 miles back.  He fired right up!

On Wednesday, we left the “Arm of Gold” RV park in the afternoon and after some grocery shopping, queued up for the ferry to Argentia, Newfoundland several hours early so we could grab some dinner before boarding.  The departure time was 9 PM, so we had a few hours to kill.  This ship is massive:

We were parked right by several fellow Targa competitors who we ended up going to dinner with and swapping stories.  All these guys had competed several times at Targa so I definately felt like a “newbie” however they were good fun, had a lot of great advice and I was happy we ran into them.  Here is Michael Salter’s 1953 Austin Healey:

And Dave Pledger’s mini “Lucy”:

In another enclosed trailer was Richard Paterson’s first generation red mini named “Betty”.  Richard, Michael and Dave are all part of the “Brick n Brute” team.  Great name!  Since this year is the 50th anniversary of the marque, Richard has organized ”Targa MiniFEST” – a week-long celebration for Mini (and MINI owners and enthusiasts) that will include displays, special events and discounted entry to the annual tarmac rally challenge.  Should be fun – they are great guys!

After dinner, it started to rain just as we were loading for the first time since our trip began.  Lest you think otherwise, I am not opposed to a little rain during Targa – it may be my only chance to do well…  It started getting dark as we loaded and that little ship in the distance turned out to be one amazing large beast – a little bigger than our Whidbey Island ferries:

After getting parked, we made our way up to the 5th level where our “cabin” was supposed to be.  Turns out it wasn’t bad for a ship of this type and we had our own private head.  After we got found our room, I didn’t see any towels so raced back down to the “garage” level before they closed it up for sailing, grabbed some towels and headed back to the cabin (this sounds easier than it is – I think I’ve described how big these ships are?).  As I threw my overnight bag and the newly acquired towels on the bed, Fish casually brought up that our towels were around the corner on a shelf.  ….yeah, we’re newbies all right…

We had a great time with the Brick n Brute team, that also included their mechanic Carl, in the lounge where our entertainment was a pretty decent folk guitar singer who was later accompanied by an accordian player – great stuff.  We drank wine from a box.  …not so great stuff…  We retired to our cabin as the ship rocked and rolled through a fairly brisk gale.  The next morning it was a not-so-bad breakfast sandwich in the ship’s galley and around 12:30 Newfoundland time, we arrived at the Argentia ferry terminal:

We got stuck behind a house for a while – yeah, a house – that seemed quite a bit larger than a typical “single wide” and had inches of headroom to spare as they went through the “mouth” of the ship.  …finally we were off for the last 1 1/2 hours of driving to St. John’s from Argentia.  We made a quick stop for fuel in both The Enterprise and Willy where more than one Newfie stuck their head in the trailer to find out “what was in there”.  They all know about Targa!

….and here we are at Pippy Park RV campground in St John’s.  It was a relief after unloading Willy when he fired right up.  I hope he looks this good at the end of next week:

The weather here is sunny but brisk – typical Newfoundland this time of year.  They are forecasting showers for the prologue on Sunday into Monday, but we’ll see.  Things change quickly around here.  Regardless of how the weather turns out we are excited to finally be here in one piece and beginning another phase of our adventure.

Day 1 – Saturday, August 29th.

…so it all begins….  Fish arrives at our place on Whidbey Island pumped up on caffeine and bringing far too much gear.  …so much for travelling light…  We fire up The Enterprise and catch the 9 AM ferry from Clinton to “America” (Muiklteo), gas up, hit Starbucks and head to Racecraft in Woodinville to pick up Willy.  We spend a bit of time trying to lose 500 lbs of spare parts in our various nooks and crannies, Fish has to fix the door that squeaks, and we’re off!  …not 10 minutes later, Fish has developed a list of at lest a dozen items that need to be fixed – the speakers aren’t “phased” correctly, a certain drawer’s latch isn’t working just right, a few other drawers need re-organizing, and so on.  On the plus side, he whips out his iPod with a wireless transmitter, we dial in the appropriate FM channel, and we have tunes!  …of course to Fish, the audio leaves a lot to be desired, but we both agree that the 104 decible engine noise sort of cancels out any incremental improvements we might make in this whole affair – plus the music really sounds good when we are going downhill!.  … so - fast forward to making our way East on I-90 through Spokane and then into Idaho – along the way we do some Google searching and find the Blue Anchor RV Park (with wireless internet), and here we are.  Enjoying a tasty beveridge and meeting our new neighbors. 

Day 2 – Sunday, August 30^th

 Lot’s of windshield time today – over 12 hours and 600+ miles.  We have the opportunity to meet up with son Bo near where he is attending University in North Dakota Monday night, so the half-way point was Miles City, Montana.  ..so at 7 AM, we set off for our destination thinking we would be there by cocktail hour.  …wrong…  We forgot to factor in the myriad mountain passes and the fact that we are heavy and really don’t travel that fast uphill (requiring hazard lights on many of these ascents).  The Continental Divide came and went, but Montana is one looooong State.

This was Fish’s first day driving The Enterprise and he showed off his years of experience traveling with bands on tour buses by performing flawlessly.  …well, there was a minor scrape at a Flying J gas station, but we won’t talk about that….  Any day where we are still running and don’t have to detour for some emergency reason is a good day.  Fish was talking to the duck the whole way:

I keep looking back at the trailer in our rear-view camera that’s hauling Willy and cross my fingers that everything goes well so we are on time for our ferry in Sydney, Nova Scotia.  We’ve factored in what we thought were a few extra days, but The Enterprise fully loaded hauling a trailer slightly over gross weight isn’t exactly like driving cross country in a car… 

Day 3 – Monday, August 31^st

Today was another early start and 10 more hours of windshield time.  We crossed into North Dakota and watched the same scenery roll by all day…  We decided to deviate from our route slightly to meet Bo halfway to Grand Forks and avoid what are some pretty horrendous RV parks in the Fargo area (great business opportunity for somebody!).  We chose the Hillsboro Campground & RV Park in beautiful Hillsboro, ND with one of the nicest hosts I’ve met.  He was pretty interested in the Targa event and took some time to check out Willy.  Fish’s project of the day was to fiddle with The Enterprises side mirrors – constantly – I think they are now broken…  After Bo got out of class he brought down his friend and roomate Jerome and met us at the campground.  Some pics:

We had a great dinner at the “Paddlewheel Restaurant & Bar” nearby and got to catch up on their final year at UND.  We decided we would meet with them on the way back as well. 

Day 4 – Tuesday, September 1st

…a late start today as both Fish and I slept in after a raucous night at the Paddlewheel with two college kids…  We rolled through North Dakota, Minnesota past Minneapolis (a major milestone) and then into Wisconsin.  Here we are in Osseo, Wisconsin at the Stoney Creek RV Resort – an amazing park with a sand volleyball court, skateboard park, basketball court, tennis courts, pool – and so on.  I’ve never seen such a large RV “resort” so empty…  We had our choice of over 100 pull through spots and took the one closest to the WiFi.  I finally got out for a run.  The Wisconsin countryside is beautiful and every driver that passed me had a friendly smile and waved.  …all 6 cars in my 50 minute run…  Using a few RV review sites, we have so far managed to find some great places!  …now on to some Wisconsin beef on the barby…

Day 5 – Wednesday, September 2nd

Today we made it to the Eastern time zone!  Our route today included a really tortuous trek through the Chicago area and toll booths – lots of toll booths.  I’d forgotten what travelling was like in this part of the country…  After Chicago, we needed a break and stopped for fuel and decided that this place looked pretty good:

….and it wasn’t – but it seemed like a good idea… 

Another observation today was that the roads steadily got worse.  A lot worse.  Between toll booths and bad roads, I can see that our travel times will get longer.

Another not so good idea was choosing this place to stay tonight:

We got into our spot and listened to 14 million screaming kids who can’t get enough of the waterslide and other really “fun stuff” at this park (if you are pre-adolescent)….  However, we did have great neighbors and managed to have a good time:

Day 6 – Thursday, September 3rd

Today was another milestone day (as far as travel goes) in that we made across Ohio, a short segment through Pennsylvania and then into Upstate New York.  Not much to report, but felt happy to have made it this far with very few problems.  …OK, there is a new “whining sound” (probably AC), the sunshade crashed down on my side after a major pothole.  …and in trying to fix said sunshade, Fish decided to get onto the dash to investigate and there was a major “CRACK” as the dashboard gave way under all those years of chips and salsa.  …but other than that, The Enterprise is still running!   Here in New York, we saw sights like this:

And just after getting into Byron, I had to remind Fish of our race team:

We pulled into our new “home away from home” here in Byron, New York  at the Southwoods RV Resort and quickly realized that Labor Day weekend is upon us.  It’s crowded!  …and looking ahead at tomorrow night, most parks are booked…  I’m sure we’ll manage as we are getting close to Sydney, Nova Scotia and finally Newfoundland.  We have a lot of miles behind us and spirits are high.

Day 7 – Friday, September 4th

Wow – it’s been a week!  Fish and I are still speaking, The Enterprise seems happy, we’re in Massachusetts and the weather is fantastic.  We started our day with an oil change for The Enterprise along with an inspection of the dilithium crystals.  All pressures and fluids were good. 

After $80+ in tolls, we made it to Sturbridge, Massechusetts where the only RV park we could find was – (sigh) – yet another Yogi Bear RV Park.  …this one could be called “Yogi’s misadventures”.  It must be their first one.  Old, run down – but hey – they have cocktails at the above-ground pool.  …I kid you not…  I took a short and very dangerous 4 mile run along what the locals call “thickly settled” rural country with small windy roads and zero margin coupled with speeding cars that seemed not to notice my frantically waving arms.   Although our drive is short tomorrow, I suspect we’ll be leaving early.

Day 8 – Saturday, September 5th

Today was an incredibly beautiful ride through the Maine countryside.  3800 miles and 8 days later, we are just minutes from the Canadian border here in Houlton, Maine.  We’re staying at a great place tonight called “My Brothers Place RV Park”.  Rolling green lawns and nice trees.  The weather our entire trip has really been phenominal.   The temps here are a bit cooler – low 70’s – but mostly sunny.

 Along the way today, Fish fessed up that he had bought a Yogi “doll” at Jellystone – probably after last call at the poolside bar (hey, they had a DJ).   Yogi saddled up on to Mel the Mallard:

 …yeah, I know – but these long days of driving get a bit boring…

Day 9 – Sunday, September 6th

I booted Fish out of bed early today as I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get over the border.   For the first day on our trip, Fish didn’t wear one of his signature tie dye shirts to avoid any wrong first impressions at the crossing…  As it turns out, crossing from Houlton, Maine into New Brunswick on a Sunday morning at 7 AM is pretty easy.  There was just one commercial truck and ourselves.  We were asked the usual questions and waved on through.  I believe this is the fastest crossing from the US into Canada that I’ve ever had.  

From there, we had an amazing drive through New Brunswick then Nova Scotia.  The countryside is extremely hilly (The Enterprise worked hard) and we were either going up a hill or down (seemed like mainly up).  Around every corner it seemed, there was even more awe-inspiring scenery.  Traffic was light and we made quick progress.  We saw a lot of scenes like this:

We arrived in North Sydney, Nova Scotia at the Arm of Gold RV Park and settled in for what will be 3 days before we catch the 11 hour ferry to Newfoundland on Wednesday.  The trip odometer reads just over 4100 miles since we tripped after stopping for fuel right after the ferry from Whidbey Island to “America”.   From our park looking out over St. Ann’s Bay these are some of the scenes:

On our first day Monday morning the weather was sunny, brisk and a bit windy.  Fish and I will be exploring Sydney on our bicycles today and do a little laundry.  As Fish was getting the bikes out of the car trailer, the wind slammed the door closed.  The latch was loose and he was trapped.  …no, I’m not making this up…  My mobile rings (I was in The Enterprise working on these photos) and Fish meekly asked if I would come let him out of the trailer.   All kind of exciting possibilities raced through my mind as I stood outside the locked trailer door, but decided to give him a break and let him out.  …besides I was getting hungry so we hopped on our bikes and rode to this place:

Oh yeah – I bought a shirt.  And the hamburgers weren’t bad either!  Right across the street was their “sister” business:

We worked off our meal by biking into North Sydney but everything was closed – even the supermarkets.  It’s Labor Day here in Canada – the first one in recent memory where this Holiday falls on the same weekend as Labor Day in the US.  The only place we found open was a small museum, but it was actually pretty cool with lots of old photos of the town, coal mine, etc. 

….to be continued….

The project of applying all the vinyl decals took about half a day and lots of patience.  Ed and Suzanne applied both their skills (Suzanne owned a design firm and Ed owns AdServices.com) in coming up with the decals.  This was a big project in and of itself.  After several mugs of coffee, the fun began.  Ed sizes up the rear quarter panel:

Suzanne and Ed were a great team:

I was pretty useless but enjoyed watching Suzanne at work:

I did however apply a few of the easier decals like this one:

…naw – I’m talking about the ChaseCam sticker…

Probably the toughest was the SinksOnline.com decal on the hood:

I wasn’t sure about the green Suzanne chose for our own company’s logo, but as you can see it really pops!:

….and the final result:

The following shows the 18′ Featherlite in the background that will be loaded up in 2 days so the car can get it’s final “race prep” at Racecraft in Woodinville:

One final photo – we made a few of these hats for the team:

Stay tuned for more of the adventure!

For a more full size view, click here: Targa Hero Card – Front

And for the fun part – the back – click here: Targa Hero Card Back