Sunday, September 12
Unless I want to leave the hotel, I’m pretty much limited to Starbucks. Luckily, they have more kinds of sandwiches than I’ll have mornings here, so no repeats are necessary. I sat down to eat my sandwich in front of the TV, which was showing the F1 race. I only missed the first ten laps. I’m so happy the cars have the halos. That halo saved Hamilton’s life, no doubt in my mind. The race kept me entertained until it was nearly time to meet for the guided group drive to the ghost town of Eureka City.
The fellow running the drive collected us in the lobby at 10. (I will refer to him from now on as Speedy Gonzales, SG for short.) He gave us a short description of Eureka City and talked about the historian who will meet us there. The museum is normally closed on Sundays, as is the restaurant, but both will be open for us. He then described the route. Somebody pointed out that his route doesn’t match the route that was published. Obviously, nobody was carrying paper and pencil, so nobody took notes. He told us, “You’ll just have to keep up.”
Exiting the hotel, I was near the end of the train, but at our first red light I switched from the center lane to the right lane. It wasn’t that I wanted to get to the front of the line but more that I didn’t want the line to be so long, people would miss the light. When the light turned green, I was third in line. A couple of miles later, we got on the interstate and were soon going quite fast. I use a speedometer app on my phone. It keeps track of driving time, total distance, average speed, and so on. It recorded a maximum speed of 98. This was on the interstate in south suburban SLC. I like to go fast, too, but that’s why I do the track day. I think we lost half the group within five minutes of leaving the hotel.
We exited the interstate and Bobbi pulled up next to me at the light. I hollered, “Does he know people are trying to follow him?” She replied, “I don’t think he gives a shit!” He didn’t make things any better when, shortly after getting on UT 68, he stopped for gas. The experienced drive leader will tell everybody to be gassed up when we meet or will arrange to meet at a gas station so folks can top off their tanks if needed. SG was the only one who needed to fill up, but I took advantage and made a comfort break and bought a beverage so it wasn’t a total waste.
When we were all ready to leave, a bunch of us LOCOs decided to make our own way and stayed at the gas station for a few minutes. Wayne was quite familiar with the area, so we put him in the lead. To our surprise, SG and the few cars that went with him were waiting for us on the side of the road not far from the station.
UT 68 goes south alongside the western shore of Utah Lake. It’s a fairly scenic drive, with a view of the lake and the Wasatch mountains behind it. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a salt lake, too. (I learn later that it’s a freshwater lake that is a bit saline because two-fifths of its outflow is evaporation.) Unfortunately, we were again going at a pretty good clip, not as fast as before, but still too fast to enjoy the scenery. It’s not a curvy road, but there are some bunny-hops that add a little lightness.
We stopped at the junction with US 6. We pulled into the parking lot of a defunct gas station. SG had mentioned the rustic ruins of a station where he had taken pictures of his car, but this didn’t look that photogenic to me. And we were all jammed in together, so I’m not sure what sort of photo one could get. In any event, nobody got out of their cars. We got going again, heading west on US 6. (On the return trip I think I figured it out: the rustic station was on the other side of US 6 from where we parked.)
Not long after, we arrived in Eureka City. It’s not what I’d call a “ghost town”. It has a population of about 700, has a nice new post office, a couple of restaurants, a museum, and a high school. And, driving around, we saw quite a few new or nearly new houses. When I think ghost town, I think nobody lives there. This, to me, seemed more like Central City before the gambling, without the tourists. A ghost of its former self, but not a ghost town.
We met our local historian who launched into his spiel. About ten minutes later, the cars we lost back at the start of the drive showed up. With everybody assembled, after a brief introduction, we followed him up the hill to one of the mines. We were parked everywhere. One of the homeowners invited six of us to park in his driveway.
The mine itself is sealed, looks like an unpaved parking lot now. There’s a tall stake in the middle, with a series of painted markings. “That tells us if it’s sinking.” The EPA did quite a bit of work here. They took the top eighteen inches of topsoil of every lot in town (if you can call it “topsoil”). Many of the old mine buildings are still standing, and still full of derelict equipment. He took us through one, the hoist building.
This held the machinery that ran the lifts to get the miners in and out of the mine. It was dark inside, too dark to shoot pictures with the SLR. The floor was covered with debris, lots of broken glass. In one area, everything looked to be covered with feathers. I don’t think it was feathers, though, because I didn’t see or smell any bird shit. Mostly it was just dusty.
It was quite interesting, so, in spite of the problematic drive down there, it was good in the end.
After the mine “tour”, we headed to the restaurant. Somehow, I managed to get there almost last. I was the second to last to get served. I had a raspberry shake, which is strictly off the diet. It was tasty, and I only ate half. I sat at a table with three other folks, a nice couple from Scottsdale and a doctor who lives in New York but had worked for a while in Denver. Nice folks.
Most folks went to the museum after eating, but by the time I was done, it was getting pretty late and I elected to pass on the museum. I wasn’t alone – our little LOCO breakaway group was still there. We let Wayne lead us back to the hotel. We weren’t going a million miles an hour, so I enjoyed the drive a bit more. We were a small group now; the most common car was the Evora, and all three were yellow.
Tonight’s agenda at the hotel was a buffet dinner and a virtual tour through Classic Team Lotus.
The buffet was in the same room as last night’s banquet. I figured I’d just sit at the same table as last night, but the seating chart by the door was a bit different. I’m not sure it was the same chart. Did I miss seeing two of these things? My table from last night was full tonight, so I looked for another table that had some open slots. Again, I wasn’t carrying a writing utensil, so couldn’t write my name in the appropriate blank.
I found myself sitting next to Richard and his wife, Sandy, who I visited with last night. After I sat down, a couple came in and claimed two empty chairs and went off searching for food and/or drink. While they were gone, another couple came in. They were chagrined to find that there all the seats but one were taken. They had signed up on the chart to sit here. As I hadn’t, I told them to take my seat. They insisted that I remain where I was and they found another table. I felt a little bad.
The entertainment this evening was a virtual tour of Classic Team Lotus. Richard Parramint did the tour for us, which was quite kind of him, as it was about one in the morning his time. As is usual with these things, it took a few minutes to get through the technical difficulties, but once he got going, all was good. They’re working on quite an interesting bunch of cars at the moment. But then again, I’m sure they’re always working on an interesting bunch of cars.
This is the end of the festivities for most LOG attendees. I, however, have one more day: the track day at Utah Motorsports Campus.
To that end, we had a drivers meeting in one of the conference rooms after the buffet. It’s not the same sort of drivers meeting we get at the track and not a substitution for that meeting. Here, we were handed our tech forms, told when to arrive at the track, got a count of cars by group (novice, intermediate, advanced) and based on that data decided to combine advanced and intermediate. I applauded this move. With three groups, we’d be having 20-minute sessions. I much prefer 30-minute sessions as a much smaller portion of your time is spent on in and out laps.
Our friend Speedy Gonzales ran the meeting. He made a point to stress, repeatedly, that we shouldn’t try to impress the instructors. He told us he had hundreds of hours racing Formula Fords, and nothing we could do would impress him or the instructors, and may, in fact, just scare them. So we were supposed to be on our best behavior. I wasn’t too concerned with this topic, as I won’t be needing an instructor and I always try to be on my best behavior when I’m on the track.
The last thing we were told was to get a good night’s sleep. I’m down for that!