They’re everywhere!

Day -5:  Airline travel can go so wrong. Parking the car at PDX, our carrier’s auto-texting system notified us our flight would be late. The buzz-buzz of similar texts arriving grew so familiar that, by the following morning, I no longer detected new ones. They were just part of the background.

Day -4: started off rocky with more flight delays, but smoothed out as soon as we landed in Portland, ME.  Our checked bags were already there since they fit on the last flight the previous night (we couldn’t get on that plane).  Then our car showed up promptly, with 3200 miles worth of bugs on front, and we peeled out for the ferry dock, 700+ miles away. We had two GPSs on the dash, one garden variety unit and one Special Commercial Vehicle Tracking and Dispatch System from Renee’s work. The two GPSs disagreed about whether we’d make the ferry at 23:45 that night. I was optimistic, ’til we were cresting some mountain pass in Nova Scotia and a wall of fog clamped visibility to nada. Can’t haul ashes if you can’t see.  But the wall was thin, and as the night came on, the traffic was thin, too. 300km of wet, dark, unknown roads to cover on a deadline.  How dreadful.  🙂

We made the ferry.   Not our original boat, of course – the airline snafus had put us six hours late for that – but there was another, smaller ship queued for the late sailing. A possible problem lurked with the change-of-schedule. These are long runs, 7hrs on the short route and 14hrs on the long, and vessels are serious seagoing stuff. You don’t “just show up” at the dock, you must have a “booking”. And we didn’t. What we had was a missed prior ferry booking, and hope.

Top marks to Marine Atlantic. They bent the language of the contract and let us aboard. We chomped on nachos and fell to sleep in the cabin they granted us.

Day -3: Off the boat and rolling, a mere 921km driving miles to St. Johns, following the main road all along the top of the island. No problem except exhaustion, but we swapped drivers often and got to the city by 5:25 p.m.

Note that Newfoundland has its own time zone, one that’s offset a half-an-hour from those in the U.S.   When it’s 8 a.m. in Portland, Oregon, it’s 11 a.m. in Portland, Maine, then noon in New Brunswick, and finally 12:30 p.m. in Newfoundland.

No moose sightings yet.

More agonizing airport antics this morning, then, when we arrived in Portland, Maine — all lights went green. Our lost duffles appeared,and then a bug-fronted red car pulled up at the curb. A few words of gratitude and we split for the ferry. Rollin’

Still on the ground at PDX. I promise I am not the cause for the delay; I’m on my best behavior.
But this does threaten to scramble the next few steps on our trip – and the ferry tomorrow won’t wait.

Some stages are out in the wilds, on sweeping asphalt surrounded by compact pines. And some stages are downtown.

Our outbound driving team’s reached the edge of Minnesota, almost halfway on their journey.

Once we grab the car from them in the other Portland, we’ll … drive off the edge of the map.

Went up to the LeMay Family Compound last weekend for a ‘movie cars’ show that went bust on high winds and rain… but the classic car auction that was scheduled did happen. Here’s the most intriguing thing I saw:

Lancia Thema 8.32

Built on the ‘Type Four‘ platform underlying the Alfa 164/Fiat Chroma/Saab 9000, the Lancia had an upmarket full leather dash, and a crazy electrically stowed rear spoiler.

From the front, only the grille badge hints at the rarity of this Thema version.

Yes indeedy, that’s a 32-valve 3.0 litre Ferrari V8. A passerby said it was basically a ‘308’ motor. The caretaker had the keys, so they fired it up and …. brrrr! it made beautiful music. Hooked to a five-speed manual transaxle, front wheel drive. Want. It sold for just under $8,000.

BMW 328i cars come with 12.4″ front brakes – more than adequate for normal use.

Targa ain’t normal use.

Good thing the 335i cars had 13.7″ front brakes… and they bolt on.

Before & After

We heartily recommend these folks.

 

Here’s a youtube playlist from a car that ran the 2014 Targa Newfoundland. They ran in one of the ‘targa’ classes, so they’re basically going as fast as they can.

We’ll be in the Grand Touring class, where there’s a both a set ‘average’ speed per-stage, and a fixed ‘not-to-exceed-ever’ limit of 130kph (81mph).