Another drive to add to the bucket list.

I follow a few blogs on road trips and one of my favorites is Marathon Mouth which I first discovered when writing up one of our earlier road trips. Bill Corbett's posts are primarily focused on the food side of road tripping but occasionally there's a post on the trip itself. This is one of those posts....

One of the World's Grandest Drives: Through the Palouse Hills

Here's one of the photos from the post...

From the Marathon Mouth blog.....

Enjoy! 

Our next road trip is in the planning stages

We are in the process of planning a  road trip for the last week in August. We'll be in the "new" car and are being joined for a portion of the trip by friends on their "new" 2009 Kawasaki Vulcan 1700. They purchased it last fall with only 7800km (4850 miles) on it.

 

Kawasaki Vulcan Classic 1700

We will be meeting up with them in Great Falls MT. From there we'll head to Laurel MT via the Kings Hill Scenic Byway.

From Laurel we'll head to Cody WY over the Beartooth Highway and Chief Joseph Scenic Byway. From Cody we'll head across Yellowstone to Ennis MT for one night.

We are still working on the tail end of the trip but do plan to stop at the Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park. Not sure yet if we are just going to head straight home from Ennis or take another couple of nights and perhaps revisit the Going to the Sun road.

Here's our proposed route...

Preliminary route for our next road trip

 

Watch this space for more details! 

If you have any suggestions regarding things to see or do along the way please share them in the comments section!

Just a little update... we've decided to head home directly from Ennis MT, with a stop at the Lewis and Clark Caverns, saving the Going to the Sun Road for another day. We will be taking the less travelled routes by avoiding the main highways if we can.

An early econobox

Another of my favorite websites in Petrolicious. They recently posted this article about an early econobox, a 1973 Honda N600, for sale. 

1973 Honda N600 as posted in the referenced article

The oil crisis of the early seventies triggered the popularity of Japanese imports of which the featured Honda was one. This oil crisis precipitated the instigation of the US governments Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard in 1975. It is this standard that we can thank for the introduction of many of our favorite econoboxes in the 80s and 90s.

Out of the garage and into the real world!

A huge milestone with the project car today! We're out of the garage and into the real world. Took the car for a spin and things are working well. Now it's time for lots of driving and fine tuning. Still a number of little things to work out but the car is roadworthy. A more detailed update will follow soon on the "Our new econobox" page....

Even Jay Leno drives a Festiva...

... well sort of. Jay's is one of seven Shoguns built by Rick Titus and Chuck Beck in the late 80's. They took the drive train from a Ford Taurus SHO 3.0l V6 complete with its 5 speed manual transmission and mounted it in the back of the Festiva. This, of course, was after removing the stock 1.3l four cylinder engine from up front and replacing it with a larger radiator and fuel cell. And because Jay lives in a hilly area he added nitrous! Enjoy.....

 

Here are a couple of the other SHOguns...

To the best of my knowledge #7 was never completed.

Our "new" econobox page!

I've just updated the "our new econobox" page... you'll find it here. I look forward to your comments!

WESTIVA 2016

Plans are well under way for this year's edition of Westiva. This will be the 8th time we've hosted the event at the picturesque Wedge Pond Day Use Area in Alberta's beautiful Kananaskis Country.

Westiva is very casual, informal event originally geared towards owners, fans and fanatics of both the Ford Festiva or Ford Aspire with invitations extended to owners of other econoboxes from the late eighties and early nineties such as the Dodge Colt, Chevrolet Sprint, Geo Metro, Suzuki Swift and Nissan Micra.

The "official" start time is around 10:00am. At about 1:00pm we’ll cruise up to the Boulton Creek Trading Post in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park for ice cream, about a 30km drive. From there we'll continue to Upper Kananaskis Lake.

2010 attendees (This shot was taken before the tenth car arrived)

When Westiva was first held in 2008 there were four attendees. Two from Calgary, one from the lower mainland of British Columbia and the fourth driving up from Worland WY. Our best year attendance-wise was 2010 when we had 10 Festivas show up with the furthest being from Ontario. 

In keeping with our expanded area of interest we had the owner of a Suburau Vivio RXR come to the 2012 edition. There was no event in 2013 due to significant flooding in southern Alberta

The 2014 event saw a couple of Suzuki Swifts in attendance, one from Calgary and the other from Spruce Grove AB. We also had owners bringing the cars from as far away as Pasco WA and St. Albert SK.

Westiva 2014 attendees.

Westiva 2015 attendees

Looking forward to some long distance attendees this year! Festiva owners in Georgia, Utah and Montana have expressed an interest in coming up. If the exchange rate on the Canadian vs. US dollar stays anywhere close to where it is today it would make for an inexpensive trip! 

Speaking of distances... if you're thinking of coming here are some approximate one way travel distances:

Great Falls MT: 400 miles
Spokane WA: 425 miles
Portland OR: 775 miles
San Sioux Falls SD: 1250 miles
Denver CO: 1175 miles
Fransisco CA: 1300 miles
Los Angeles CA: 1600 miles
Kansas City MO: 1600 miles
Phoenix AZ: 1625 miles
Louisville KY: 2000 miles
Knoxville TN: 2200 miles
Raleigh NC: 2475 miles
Miami FL: 3025 miles

Edmonton AB: 400 km
Vancouver BC: 950 km
Saskatoon SK: 725 km
Regina SK: 875 km
Winnipeg MB: 1425 km
Toronto ON: 3500 km
Montreal QC: 3625 km

So consider yourself invited! I hope to have my new Festiva project car done in time for the meet.


8th ANNUAL WESTIVA

When: Saturday July 16, 2016
Where: Wedge Pond Day Use Area, Kananaskis, Alberta
Who: Ford Festiva and Aspire fans and anyone interested along with owners, fans etc of other econoboxes from the era.
Why: Why not?

If you'd like more information either leave a comment here or check out the "Meets & Events" section at FordFestiva.com

Update: It was a great day! Follow this link for a bit of a write up and some photos.