Part 1 of 2
It’s not that I didn’t get along with my brother. We lived at home with Mom & Dad for the first 22 years of my life. Sure we had some squabbles but nothing serious. It’s just that we had different friends, went to different colleges and for the most part had different interests. So once I bought a condo and moved out in 1975, I hardly ever saw my brother again. While Mom & Dad were still alive we would often meet at a family gathering but generally that was it. It’s not like we lived very far apart. Although my condo and the two houses I have lived in were within a few miles from where we grew up, Chris moved a little bit further away but still within 100 miles. I think I can count on one hand the number of times Chris visited me in 40 years. And he can count on one finger the times I visited him. About 10 years ago Chris took an early retirement package and moved with his wife out to Washington State. I started calling him on Christmas day just to say hi. That was about it.
Two years ago I got a Facebook message (like a text) from Chris. Apparently all the tough years he had working in Coal and Nuclear electricity plants had exposed him to some nasty stuff. He recently had his prostate removed and was about to undergo some even more radical surgery and he just thought I should know about it. We looked at the calendar and by the next weekend, Sue and I were in a plane on our way to Washington to visit Chris, Barb and their four dogs. We had a wonderful time.
I think for the first time in over 40 years we talked and found out that we really had a lot of things in common and only a few things where we differed. And those were no big deal. All four of us liked nature. Sue and I would take short walks in the woods. Barb would take a medium hike and Chris would go climb a mountain - Similar, just different extremes. Chris and Sue like to cook, Barb and I like to eat. Such a deal! We have four birds. Chris has four big dogs. Every day Sue would clean the bird cages and feed the birds. Every day Chris would load the dogs into a beater Honda boxy car type thingy and take them to the woods for a run. Where I usually keep all my cars pretty clean, this thing was full of mud and all the upholstery on all the seats had been literally torn out by the dogs. So there’s a little difference there. But we even agreed 100% on politics! I remember I thought he was a bit weird many years ago when he went door to door campaigning for McGovern. Now we just totally agree.
Chris made it through all the surgeries that the Doctors had told him he probably wouldn’t. And although he had endured such tough and unpleasant times, he was feeling good and had actually done some easy mountain climbing - If there is such a thing as easy mountain climbing.
So, if you are still reading this, you may be wondering what the heck this has to do with Lotus cars. Well, here’s where an opportunity popped up. I got an email from a guy who we will call John - because that’s his name. John had bought a stalled 1965 Lotus Elan project car a few years ago and had done some work on the car himself but had decided that he had too many projects. He knew I had recently finished up my 9th Elan restoration and was wondering if I wanted to buy and finish this project. The car had a Brand New stock chassis that had been reinforced in all the right places and painted with Eastwood (not Clint) Por15 – the good stuff. The engine was just rebuilt to S/E spec by a reputable Twin Cam expert. Trans and rear end rebuilt. All new suspension bushings. Body was in good shape and had been soda blasted. Most of the chrome had been replated. Brakes all rebuilt. A lot of new parts and a lot of receipts and it appeared that everything that was done had been done right. So it got down to the price and how to get a rolling chassis, body and 10 boxes of parts shipped from Seattle to Chicago. Hmmmm.
After a couple calls and emails I found that the normal truckers wanted a car they could steer and stop. They could get around cars that did not run, but I guess they didn’t want the cars running down the hill on their own once they got them out of the trailer. Since the steering wheel and pedal cluster were in boxes, this would not meet their criteria.
I started to think about packing the project into a shipping POD. I did a little investigating and did not find any red flags there. I had rented a POD a few years ago to temporarily store all the stuff from my garage while I had the garage insides modified to accommodate a car lift. The POD worked out well (and I’m very happy with the set up for the lift)!
So the price on the Project Elan was a bit high and the shipping on the POD was a bit high but as I thought about what else we could do here, the total package would be pretty nice. I’m sure I could have talked the owner into packing the project into the POD without my help. But it was October. The kids were back in school so tourist traffic would be light and the fall colors were bound to be brilliant. And Seattle is only a couple hours away from Washugal where my brother lives, so we decided to fly out to Seattle, rent a car, pack the Elan in a POD, tour Washington State for a couple days and go visit my brother. And so we did. And it was great! Let me tell you a bit about it. It won’t take long.
We flew into Seattle on a Tuesday, grabbed a rental car and drove out to inspect my newest project. It was only a 15 minute drive from the airport and as we drove the last few blocks we were treated to a gorgeous view of Washington State Puget Sound. A huge body of water that was glistening from the sunshine. Looked like a million diamonds floating of the water. As we approached John’s address I could see the POD in the driveway. Soon we were greeted by John and were inspecting my latest project. All looked good. New chassis, paint soda blasted off a straight body with doors, hood and trunk all in primer. All the parts seemed to be there as well as some nice extras. We rolled the car into the POD, tied it in place with some trailer tie down straps and packed all the boxes around and inside the car. Although the tie downs were strong, I stuffed a lot of boxes around the car so that if a strap broke loose, the car could not go anywhere. We laid the engine down on it’s side on an old piece of carpet and tied that to the wall of the POD. Everything was all packed up and we were on our way in about 3 hours. The POD would be picked up the next day. John was very easy going and we enjoyed the views of Puget Sound from his back porch for a while before we hit the road. John had another Elan project as well as an old Porsche 911 project still in the garage. It appeared to me and Sue that he was fighting some physical issues and that getting rid of at least one of his projects was probably a good idea.
Our plans for the next few days were to follow a route that circled the Olympic National Park and Forest. A couple years ago I picked up a used book by Reader’s Digest titled: “The most scenic drives in America”. It shows a lot of real neat road trips across the US. We had no hotel reservations but I had done some research and had a list of all the brand name hotels on our route. We are not into Bed and Breakfast type hotels… or the worn out roach type motels. Big brand name boxes are just fine with us thank you. We were planning on staying in Tacoma but John’s face kind of turned sour when we had mentioned this to him. I guess Tacoma is not the scenic garden spot of Washington. He suggested a little town called Gig Harbor and also suggested a nice seafood restaurant right on the harbor. We fought rush hour traffic for a bit and then cut off west to Gig Harbor. We found a brand new Best Western, checked in and went to the recommended little restaurant gem called the Tides Tavern. Since we were in a Seafood town at a Seafood restaurant our expectations were high. The food exceeded our expectations! The food was great. Best clam chowder we ever had (until the next day’s lunch). We strolled around the harbor a bit and hit the hay.
Since our bodies were still on Chicago time, we were up at 4:30 AM Washington time. But, as we were having some coffee and some Continental breakfast in the lobby we observed a half dozen German speaking young folks with all their mountain climbing gear, carbing and sugaring up in preparation of their trek to the top of one of the grand mountaintops in the neighborhood. We were all filled up and packed up and driving down the road by 8 AM local time. It was still pitch black out but we were rolling.
We had a paper copy of the pages we wanted to follow from our Reader’s Digest Scenic Drive book. As the sun started coming up we cruised through several beautiful state parks. Many of the trees provided beautiful landscapes suitable for paintings. The colors were brilliant. The clean, smooth curvy roads guided us through several small towns. We took a little spur road off to Port Townsend and followed the road till it met the water. We were greeted by a little restaurant right on the water and Trip Advisor said it was very good. And it was! Best clam chowder anywhere (it had bacon in it!) and some really, really good fish fry. We traveled some more and took a walk down a hill to the Dungeness Spit (a sliver of sand surrounded by water) in the Dungeness Wildlife Refuge. Although everything was beautiful, we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t see any wildlife until… Whoosh! An eagle went flying by our heads, maybe ten feet away. What a beauty!
We found a good hotel in Port Angeles and spent some time walking the docks checking out some huge ships filled with shipping containers. (Sue used to be a Freight Forwarder). We took a few pictures and sent them to a couple of folks that Sue used to work with and told them that she was checking on their containers. After a nice dinner we drove around a bit and found a dock where they had hundreds and hundreds of huge tree logs. I guess they were shipping them all over the world.
Next morning, again leaving in the dark, we greeted a forest ranger with her cup off coffee just opening the gates to The Olympic National Park and Hurricane Ridge Road. We had to drive some 17 gorgeous miles in the preserve just to get to the Ridge. The colors on the leaves were popping out and wow was it cold and windy! There was some snow on the side of the road as we went uphill and there was lots of snow in the parking lot. We got out but did not spend too much time visiting as there had to be 40-50 MPH winds. And did I say it was cold? Luckily the bathroom door at the info center was unlocked.
We got on the road again and continued to follow our map and make the suggested stops. We hit a section of the state where there were some Indian reservations. We traveled down this beat up road and found only a few tired homes by the ocean. Later that month I would hear about that town of La Push on NPR. Apparently because of rising ocean levels and eroding beaches, the town is trying to get money to actually move the town and everyone in the town further inland before all the buildings disappear into the ocean.
Further down the road we hit a beautiful stretch along the Pacific. We got out at Ruby Beach and got our feet wet. A couple stops down the road and we took a good hour hike through the Queets Valley Rain Forest. Very green and mossy and damp with lots of huge trees. We made it down to Aberdeen as the sun disappeared and got a hotel room, a little dinner, and called it a night. (After some DQ!)
