Ramblings of a car guy.

I've always liked cars.

My dad's 1959 Riley One-Point-Five. My first car photo circa 1966 near Reading, UK.

I can remember almost all of the cars my parents had. I remember as a ten year old watching cars drive by the house and trying to name them all. I remember the first time I drove a car; it was a '64 Dodge station wagon with a push button automatic! 

Dad's '64 Dodge wagon circa 1971. Calgary, AB.

 I remember the car I took my driving lessons in and some of the routes taken. I remember the subscriptions to several car magazines that I would read almost the moment they were retrieved from the mailbox. I remember my first car and all the following purchases, most of them anyway, and fortunately the good ones outnumbered the bad ones. I remember buying my first socket set so I could fix the broken rear end in my first car. I remember the first car I bought brand new, where I bought it and how much I paid for it.

My 1959 Beetle. Calgary AB, circa 1974.

59 Beetle interior shot

 

Festiva in the Park: day 9

SATURDAY JUNE 9th, 2012

What a great day! We filled up the car and met up with Charlie for the drive up to the Grand Canyon. Charlie's Festiva is the one I wrote about in an earlier post. His is a 130mph+ track car that is very streetable. You can see just how fast his car is in the videos I posted.

Meeting with Charlie at the hotel.

With it being a Saturday we expected it to be a bit busy but it was made even busier with free admission! We stopped at the visitor center just to stretch our legs.

Welcome to Grand Canyon.



Parking is never an issue in a Festiva



Sharon, B, me, I and E at the first viewpoint.

Sharon, me, B, E and I at another viewpoint

B enjoying the view.

Leading the way up to Desert View.

E, I and B at the Desert View lookout

E with a great verse!

Me and Charlie at Desert View.

Charlie led us along Highway 64 and we made a few stops along the way. Our last stop was at Desert View and the Watchtower for a bite to eat. We parted company after lunch and headed east. Charlie left ahead of us but 5 minutes later Charlie flagged us down at one of the roadside vendors. Right away I noticed a blue Festiva which turned out to belong to the owner of the stand. Elmer was really happy that we stopped by. He told us he just recently started driving his Festiva and loves it... why wouldn't he? Charlie left some contact info in case he needed parts, we also told him about fordfestiva.com so hopefully there will be a new member soon!

Red, white and blue! The first "Southwestiva"

Charlie dubbed our little mini-meet "Southwestiva"... lets hope it's the first of many to come! Sharon and I want to say thank you to Charlie for spending the day with us. We really enjoyed our time with him as he shared his love of driving and Festivas, and his knowledge of the area.

We parted company again, Charlie heading south and us north. Our target for this leg of the trip was Cedar City UT. We stopped for gas in Page AZ and headed back west across the Glen Canyon dam.

On Highway 89 south of Page AZ

Heading west across the Utah desert.

The drive from Page was fairly uneventful until we reached SR 14 in Utah. There was a sign just after the turnoff that said road closed 7am-7pm. It was about 7:30pm by the time we were there so we forged ahead. This road climbed up to 2980m (9974ft), almost as high as Tioga Pass! It started to get dark on the downward stretch and this is where it got interesting. This is prime deer grazing area and we were being fairly cautious, not just because of the deer but also because it was an unfamiliar road. A car caught up to us and passed then within 30 seconds we saw him swerve and then hit a deer!! We stopped to make sure he and his passenger were OK. They were a little shaken up as can be expected and the front right bumper was pushed into the tire. Fortunately the air bags didn't blow. We were even more cautious from here on down to Cedar City as we also discovered the reason for the daytime road closure... major construction.

After a bit of a stressful drive dodging pylons in the dark we finally made it to the hotel. Day 10 is to be a light driving day as we plan to spend the day in Zion National Park.

CLICK HERE FOR DAY 10

Watch this space for another Festiva adventure!

In a few days we'll be leaving Calgary on another road trip in the Festiva.

Our route will take us west to Vancouver BC. From there we'll be heading south to Mount St Helen's then to Silverton OR to visit a Frank Lloyd Wright designed home. It's then on to the San Francisco area, east to Yosemite then on to the Grand Canyon. The next leg will take us to Zion and Bryce Canyon, Craters of the Moon and Yellowstone. We'll be visiting friends in north central Wyoming before heading home through Cody WY and Helena MT.

All told we'll be traveling about 7500km (4700 miles) in 15 days. That's about 2500km less than our trip last fall. Follow this link to the first blog post for that trip.



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We'll do our best to keep the blog up to date as we head out on this next adventure.