Author Archives: dhill

The Atlanta Saga – Part 5

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April 10

Today is my day at Road Atlanta. How will this go?

I’m well past the last day refunds would be available, so even if I don’t get any track time, I may as well go. I should be able to run a few laps at least. But the fuse is one that controls the VVTI business. Would the fuse blow as soon as I hit the second cam? If that happens, I may as well park it. We shall see.

The organizers, Chin Track Days, wanted drivers to get signed in before 7:30 and to have the cars through tech inspection before the 7:40 drivers’ meeting. I planned to arrive at 7. The track has a gas station, so I didn’t fuel up on my way. This was a minor mistake. Premium unleaded is about four bucks a gallon in these parts, but at the track, it was six. I could have saved about twenty bucks. So it goes.

I got checked in and took the car through the tech line. They don’t actually inspect the car. All the tech line is for is to submit the paperwork and have a sticker applied to the windshield. It’s pretty quick. I found a place in the already full paddock, unloaded my stuff, and introduced myself to my neighbors, relating to them a short version of my fuse woes.

After the drivers’ meeting and a quick second meeting (broken down by run group), the first session on track was a yellow flag orientation session. No passing, and not at full speed, it allows folks like me who haven’t been there to get a sense of the place. Drivers in all groups were allowed. Even though it was standing yellow flags all the way around and no passing, people were moving at a pretty good clip. Still, I wasn’t exactly sure what gear to use for each corner or where my braking zones were. But it was a useful session. Until, eight laps in, the fuse blew again.

Luckily, it blew near the end of the lap, and I could easily and safely limp back to the pits and paddock. I pondered what sort of fun it would be if it were to blow just as I was getting on the track. I swapped in another fuse and went in search of anybody who might be able to help me. I was the only Lotus, so I figured my hopes were slim.

First, I met Angel. He has a trailer and tools and even a couple of cars for rent (not cheap; I didn’t even ask). Unfortunately, he didn’t have a multi-meter and wasn’t confident he could be of any help. He did say he’d likely charge me $50. The first thing he did was take the cover off the fuse box, which he promptly fumbled down into the engine bay. He managed to get it out after 20 minutes of struggle and when he was done he told me he wouldn’t charge me the fifty to retrieve it. I pocketed it to make sure it didn’t get lost. Naturally, I realized a couple of hours later that I had lost it. Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy.

Angel then directed me to another fellow, Kirt, who told me he used to build Exige race cars. He loaned me his multi-meter and gave me a list of things for Angel to check. This proved fruitless. I talked to Kirt again and he said he’d reach out to Dave Simkins, the chief Lotus tech in North America. Dave is in California, so we were dealing with a 3-hour time difference.

Not yet ready to risk another fuse, I skipped my first couple of sessions and wandered the paddock chatting with people. I met another gentleman who told me he used to work for Lotus of Atlanta. I said I’d likely see if they could fix it; he said I shouldn’t go there. He tracked me down later in the day to tell me that he, too, had reached out to Dave Simkins.

  • First sight of the track
  • What’s going on in here?
  • Panoz Coupe
  • Toyota Supra
  • Dodge Viper ACR 1:28 (only 128 made)
  • The Mad Turk’s Ferrari F355
  • Stricken Porsche 911

By the end of the day, even people I hadn’t talked to knew that I was having issues. To be fair, I wasn’t the only one. One Corvette was up on jacks all morning and half a dozen guys were taking the turbo apart on a Porsche. Just before they packed up and left, I recognized that one of them was Randy Pobst.

I had met Randy a few times at the RMVR Race Against Kids Cancer events over the years. He’s a really personable guy, always pleasant. I’m sure he doesn’t remember me, he meets people all the time, but he might remember my car. I approached him.

“Rocket Randy Pobst! How are you?”

I told him we’d met a few times at the RAKC events. We chatted for a few minutes. I gave him my usual line: “I’m the idiot who drives his Elise cross country for track events.” He responded with “You’re my hero!” and gave me a fist bump. Then he left with the guys working on the Porsche. They went to his place to see if they could get it cured.

I decided to run in my next session. After three laps, I saw a black flag. Each corner station was presenting the black flag, so I knew it wasn’t personal. Then I saw the Mustang parked on the track. These guys don’t fetch stricken cars without stopping the session. After a few minutes idling on pit lane, they green-flagged us and we went out again. I got another 4 laps in.

Shortly after that, Jayne and Dan showed up. We got Dan his passenger wristband (sign the waiver, pay $20) and I gave him a ride. I know that being a passenger isn’t the same as driving. I’m not a great passenger. Once, after a few laps as a rider, I started feeling queasy and was happy to get back to the paddock. So I understood fully when he gave me the signal that he’d had enough.

Dan then suggested that Jayne get a wristband for a ride. Unfortunately, just out of the pits, the fuse blew again. Right at the start of the lap, the worst possible time. I had to limp the 2.5 miles back to the pits. There weren’t very many cars left this late in the day, so it could have been a lot hairier. Still, crawling along the back straight with 4-way blinkers on, seeing the Porsches blast by with about a hundred-mile-an-hour speed differential was unsettling, to say the least. But I could see the corner stations flying a white flag (slow-moving vehicle on track) as I went by.

So that was the end of my day at the track.

A Lap

Here’s the obligatory video of a lap of the track. This is my first track day using the new 360 camera. By the time I put the data and rearview on, I’ve taken away the ability of the user to move the camera’s view and all that’s left is the “horizon lock” and picture stability. Maybe next time, I’ll take more advantage of the capabilities of the camera.

The Atlanta Saga – Part 4

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April 9

Today’s plan is to visit Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s residence. It’s 110 or 120 miles from the hotel. Using back roads, it would be nearly 3 hours or less than 2 hours via the interstate. I elected to violate Rule #1 and take the most direct route. The scenic route would make for a long day and a late arrival in Atlanta.

About an hour into the trip, I was cruising along in the right lane, taking it easy, when the fuse blew again. When it blew the first time, in Dexter, I was pulling out of the gas station. I didn’t have any momentum and I was worried I’d get stuck in the middle of the intersection. On the highway, it’s manageable. The RPMs modulate between about 4k and about 0. If you have momentum, you can get the car out of hazard.

I wanted to stop at an exit. If I needed somebody to help me, I wanted to be at an exit to make things as easy as possible. It wouldn’t matter which way they were coming. If you don’t get off the highway, it can be a real hassle. Luckily, there was an exit sign just ahead and I only had to go a mile. I limped along the shoulder of the road with the 4-way blinkers on and made my way down nearly to the stop sign at the bottom of the ramp.

There were no services available here – it’s just a country road. The road goes under the interstate, so I’m below grade. Nobody on the highway can see me. There’s no gas station, no McDonald’s, no nothing. Truly the middle of nowhere Tennessee.

I popped the boot lid to pull the bad fuse. I didn’t have another 7.5 amp fuse, but Michael said I could use a 10 amp (but no bigger!). I did have a spare 10 in the fuse compartment up front. I had not yet even gotten my Allen wrench out to open the panel when a car hauler pulled up next to me. He rolled down his window and asked if I was having problems.

I told him about my fuse situation. “Let me back my truck up behind you and see if I can help.” Once he got out of his truck, he dug through his tool kit and produced a small box with 5 or 6 7.5 amp fuses. We popped one in and started the car. The fuse blew immediately. He went back to his truck and came back with a box of 5 or 6 10-amp fuses. He opened that box, took one fuse out, and gave me the rest. I started the car and all was good.

The problematic fuse location

He asked where I was headed. I told him I was going to Atlanta. He said, if I needed, he could give me a lift to either Nashville or Knoxville, but not Atlanta. It didn’t click with me right away, but what he was saying was that he could take me and my car to Nashville or Knoxville.

I asked him what I could do for him. “Nothing. That’s the road!” Before we departed, he told me he’d be behind me for a while and if anything else happened he’d stop again.

Thanks, Reuben, you’re my hero.

It wasn’t until I was a few miles down the road that something else occurred to me. Parked at the bottom of the ramp, I couldn’t be seen from the highway. And Reuben didn’t go down that exit ramp because he was exiting the highway. He knew to come looking for me. No doubt, one or more truckers saw me crawling down the shoulder with blinkers on and did a breaker one nine. In Reuben’s world, “That’s the road!”

So: a change of plans. As von Moltke said, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” I would no longer be touring Hermitage. I’d stay on the interstate for all but the last hour of the drive and get to Jayne’s place as soon as possible. I arrived at Jayne’s without further incident, although, between the fuse issue and having to deal with truck traffic on the interstate I was fairly stressed out.

As it was Easter Sunday, Jayne and Dan were entertaining guests. I had a nice ravioli dinner and a couple of tasty beers and made some new friends.

The day could have been much worse. But I best not let the godz hear me thinking like that…

The rest of the plans are now in jeopardy. Can I do Road Atlanta tomorrow? Am I doing any damage to the car by blowing fuses? I can’t troubleshoot it, so I have to find somebody that might be able to. The fuse lasted about five hours of operation. What will it do at the track?

I’ll go to Road Atlanta and see what happens. It’s paid for, may as well go.

The Atlanta Saga – Part 3

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April 8

From the hotel in Bentonville (on Walton Blvd, no less), it’s a short drive to today’s side trip. The hotel supposedly makes breakfast available for their guests. Keep in mind I’m being a bit frugal when it comes to places to spend the night. I want a clean room and a well-lighted parking lot. Free breakfast is nice, but not required. Today’s free breakfast lacked certain typical choices as fresh fruit and yogurt. If you were looking for Raisin Bran or Cheerios, you’re in luck. Let’s just say the free breakfast was worth what I paid for it.

Pea Ridge National Military Park

I got to the park at about 8. Google says it doesn’t open until 9. That’s the visitor center – you can drive the 7-mile one-way road and visit the ten pullouts any time you want. They had a brochure on display behind glass but I didn’t see any to take. So instead of taking the drive, I’d walk through the fields a bit and come back at 9. (When I got back I saw that there were indeed brochures available had I paid more attention. No matter, though.)

The visitor center has some very nice exhibits and the obligatory gift section. There’s a theater as well. Nothing was showing yet and I didn’t bother to find out what the show was and when. I just wanted to tour the park.

Almost nobody was there. There were a few runners and cyclists and a couple of walkers. I saw one other car the whole time I was on the loop, and that one only briefly.

The park is well maintained, and the paragraph or so in the guide that explains each location does a fairly decent job of telling what happened. It should be noted that the Park is only a fraction of the battlefield.

It was the largest Civil War battle west of the Mississippi River. The only other “battlefield” I’ve visited was Glorietta Pass in New Mexico. All that’s there is a roadside monument. It could probably be argued that the monument is too much. The battle was won when the Union soldiers ambushed the Confederate supply train, stealing some supplies, destroying the rest, and killing the horses and mules. The Texans had no choice but to return home.

Pea Ridge was much bigger, but not yet on the scale of the big eastern battles such as Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, or The Wilderness. Missouri was a border state and there were Missouri regiments fighting on both sides. The Confederates ultimately hoped to capture St. Louis and make Missouri a Confederate state.

At Pea Ridge, 16,500 Rebels attacked 10,500 Union soldiers. The Union general was expecting an attack from the south, so he arranged his front accordingly, with his field hospital, supplies, and so forth to the north. But the rebels made an audacious maneuver and attacked from the north. General Curtis had just enough time to completely rearrange his troops – no small task.

The rebels were able to attach from an unexpected direction due to a forced march of 42 miles in 16 hours. It was a daring maneuver but left the men well ahead of their supplies and quite fatigued. That’s not the best way to enter combat.

The battle raged for two days, with much close-in combat. Howitzers fired canister, case shot, and solid shot into formations of soldiers at close range; sometimes in the woods, sometimes in the open. Each canister shot throws out a spray of 27 iron balls each a bit bigger than a pinball. In extreme cases, the canister can be double-shotted (i.e. firing two canisters at once). Case shot projectiles have hollow centers packed with gunpowder and explode above the enemy, showering them with shrapnel. Solid shot (a solid 6- or 12-pound solid iron ball) is typically used at longer range to knock down walls or against enemy artillery.

The Park’s grounds cover most of the battlefield of the last day. The battle is sometimes also called the Battle of Elkhorn Tavern. The tavern was burned down by bushwhackers and the currently standing replica was built in 1865. The tavern sits on forested high ground while much of the combat occurred in the cleared fields to the south and west.

The Union won. Confederate casualties were about double that of the Union. Missouri was never again threatened.

A short time after Pea Ridge was Shiloh. We’ll get to that later.

  • The firing line
  • Anything wrong with this picture?
  • Obligatory car shot
  • Battlefield panorama
  • Spread your wings and … stand?
  • It’s the restroom: very convenient if that 250 mph 3 second gust scares the shit out of you.
  • Oh no!

The Drive

After leaving the Park, I enjoyed the scenery. The weather was fine, I drove many miles of worthy Lotus roads: twisting and turning, up and down, and left and right.

Not far from Pea Ridge, I came to a stop sign at a fairly busy intersection. I was third in line. The guy at the stop sign seemed to be waiting for an engraved invitation. Then I realized why. He wanted to wait for a big car club to pass by. They had a large number of cars. I didn’t think to count them. But we sat there for more than two minutes, so the line was at least two miles long. There were muscle cars, hot rods, and I don’t recall seeing anything imported.

Maybe twenty minutes later, I saw them again as oncoming traffic. They were making a loop and would return to the intersection where I first saw them. I must not have seen all of them the first time. It was a really long line of cars. There were a fair number of interlopers, to be sure, but it was a couple of minutes between seeing the first and the last of them. There had to have been sixty cars, at least.

So, the terrain was different than yesterday: twisty rolling roads and almost no straight-and-flat. And the forest changed throughout the day. Yesterday and this morning, almost all deciduous, and by late afternoon, sometimes evergreens were the majority.

And the vibe changed slightly. No billboards for Jesus, only a few about abortion. And perhaps I’m starting to tune them out but I don’t recall too many Trump flags. Today, it was guns. Lots and lots of gun shops. I’m guessing there is more hunting in Missouri than in Kansas, so that’s no doubt a factor. Guns and this, guns and that. I had a little mental list going but once I saw “Guns and Honey” the others just got forgotten.

Over the course of the day, the terrain changed from one with mile after mile of Lotus road to something more like what you’d find in Illinois: billiard table flat made up of cropland separated by narrow bands of trees.

By about 4 o’clock, I said to myself, “What a fine day! No new rock chips on the windshield and the phone is working fine. Nothing has gone wrong today!” Clearly, expressing this sentiment, even to myself, made the godz angry.

The Fuse

I stopped for gas in Dexter, MO. When I exited the station, the car ran very rough and I nearly stalled it in the intersection. I managed to get off the road and into an empty parking lot. The check engine light was on, along with most of the other bad lights. I could restart it, but it wouldn’t run. This is not good. Broken down a thousand miles from home, ignorant and incompetent when it comes to repairing cars, my anxiety went into overdrive. At least I wasn’t stuck on the side of the highway.

After three tries, I was able to use my phone app to read the engine’s fault codes. I got just about every code in the book: P0076, P0077, P0445, P0444, P0447, P0448, P2648, and P2649. I sent a screenshot to Michael just to share the misery.

It was just after 4:30 on a Saturday afternoon, on Easter weekend. I suppose it could have been worse: it could have been Easter Sunday. Thinking there wasn’t much Michael could do for me remotely, I searched the area for repair shops that were open. The first one I called, only half a mile distant, didn’t answer and his voicemail box was full. The second number answered. They were 16 miles away.

I explained what was going on, and read him the codes. I told him it was a Toyota engine. He was talking to somebody else in the background. Between the two of them, they figured out what they could bring to diagnose the problem. They suspected it might be a fuel pump. Even though I’m not a mechanic, I dismissed this solution. Worst case, they could tow me to their place and we’d go from there. They said it would take about 45 minutes for them to get to me.

In the meantime, Michael had texted me a suggestion. After a search of the web, he said that it could just be a fuse. So I took the cover off the fuse box on the front of the car and checked all of them. They all looked okay to me. I really hadn’t looked at this fuse box too closely up to now. I was pleased to see that it includes a spare fuse of each kind I might need.

I knew there were also fuses in the engine compartment, but I didn’t know where they were. Nothing looked like the fuse box in the front. I didn’t know whether Michael was at home or not. Luckily for me, he was. I had him go to the garage, find the Lotus manual, and take a picture of the page that shows where the engine fuses are. He also kindly told me which fuse it would be if this was the problem. I wasn’t exactly sure from his description, so it took me a couple of tries to find the right one. And, typically, even then it wasn’t easy. All the other fuses I checked were translucent and you could see whether it was bad or not. This one wasn’t translucent.

Just as I was inspecting this non-translucent fuse, my mechanics rolled up. One guy hooked up his computer to my OBD port while the other used a bright flashlight to inspect the suspicious fuse. He said it didn’t look good, so I grabbed the spare 7.5 amp fuse and installed it. The car fired up just fine. Woo hoo!

Even though they didn’t do anything to help me, I knew I’d have to pay them just for showing up. Silly me, I was expecting something like $40 or $50. The one in charge asked for $100. I told him I had $80 cash and no checkbook. He took the $80 and wrote me a receipt that showed a $100 charge and $80 payment.

That set me back a bit more than an hour. To add insult to injury, my phone gave me a different route than is in my itinerary. There are multiple road closures and this new route avoids them. It’s an hour longer. And with more traffic. Ending, ultimately, with me violating both Rule #1 and Rule #2 with the final half hour of the day’s drive on I-24 in the dark. So it goes.

I felt happy to dodge a bullet. Even if I didn’t know where the bullet was fired from, so to speak.

The Atlanta Saga – Part 2

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April 7

I was hoping to get out of the hotel by 7:45 with the idea I’d be at the Truman Library when they open. As it was, nature and technology threw up some roadblocks and I didn’t hit the road until a bit after 8.

Because I charge the phone all day while driving, I didn’t bother to plug it in overnight. When I got to the car, it was down to about 17%. When I fired up the car, I plugged both the phone and the iPod into the charger. The iPod told me it was charging, but the phone didn’t. The cigarette lighter port is a bit janky. Someone on Lotus Talk replaced the cigarette lighter with a dual USB charger. It looks like a simple mod that would mean I would no longer need to fiddle with the stock one, and I’d not have to worry about it not charging when I assume it is. So, naturally, I at first thought I just needed to “jiggle the handle”. But there was no joy.

By the time I arrived at the Truman Library, we were down to 8 or 9%. I grabbed the plug-in adapter and went inside looking for an electrical outlet. The guard pointed me to one in the corner near his station and I plugged in there. Still no joy. Now I was wondering if it was the phone or the cable. Everything worked fine yesterday. Why does it fail now? What have I done to anger the godz?

I often complain about the fragility of our technological times. This is a perfect case. I have very little battery in an unfamiliar city. What do I do with a dead battery? It’s a sort of range anxiety. Drive around randomly looking for a Verizon store? Sheesh.

The Truman Library

The Truman Library was the first of the presidential libraries. This is the second presidential library I’ve visited. Hoover’s was first. They’re very similar: a museum that covers the man’s entire life and is open to the public, and a library that is used by researchers that the public doesn’t get to see. And, naturally, there’s a gift shop as well. As with the Hoover library, Truman’s also includes the grave site.

I made my way through the place a bit more quickly than I anticipated. I’d allowed as much as three hours (cut a few minutes short by my late start) but was done in about half the time. I didn’t spend a lot of time reading about Truman’s history as I’ve read quite a bit about him already. Rather than reading all the material, I concentrated on viewing the various artifacts.

I think it’s a very nice museum. Anybody who doesn’t already know his story can learn all the important bits. There are quite a few videos to watch and a large number of text-heavy exhibits. There is quite a bit more in Truman’s museum than in Hoover’s. Here, there’s a reproduction Oval Office in the basement. Hoover didn’t have one.

  • Welcome!
  • Thomas Hart Benton mural
  • Harry liked his tropical shirts
  • Truman’s Oval Office
  • 1941 Chrysler Royal Club Coupe
  • Bess and Harry
  • Eternal flame self-portrait

The Cable

After enjoying the museum and the garden, I went back to the car and dug through my “bag of tricks”, a heavy-duty quart-sized ziplock bag full of cords and adapters. I sadly neglected to bring another phone cable, but I was pleasantly surprised that the cable for the GoPro Max fits. Plugged it in and it started to charge.

However, the GoPro cable is much too short for me to have the phone charging when it’s mounted on my dash. That’s just not going to work. I need a longer cable. I went to a Verizon store where I knew for sure I could get something that would work but also knew I’d spend two or three times what I’d pay at a Best Buy or equivalent. I am now the proud owner of a new 6’ cable that cost $25. The whole cable thing stressed me out more than it should have.

By now it was lunchtime, so I stopped and grabbed a sandwich for the road.

The Drive

I’ve gone on about the options Google gives us for navigation. For these cross-country trips, I always check the boxes for “No Tolls” and “No Highways”. “No Tolls” is pretty straightforward and unambiguous. “No Highways”, on the other hand, isn’t so simple. In Colorado and points west, it is my experience that “No Highways” is functionally equivalent to “No Interstates”, which is actually what I’m after. Google’s idea of “No Highways” isn’t very clear to me. It could mean that it avoids any multi-lane road with limited access, but I think it’s rather more restrictive than that.

In any event, knowing I’d be directed on roads often smaller than strictly necessary, I kept the “No Highways” option on and set out. I also knew that the drive time difference between highways and no highways would be significantly greater than it was yesterday. But I didn’t have far to go, so I wasn’t in any particular hurry. I’m much happier getting away from the big trucks and the traffic, getting off the beaten path, and getting (I think) a much better view of the countryside.

Using “No Highways” in Kansas still allowed me to use national highways (primarily US 36). On these roads, you pass through all the little towns between where you start and where you end. In Missouri and Arkansas, though, using “No Highways” tends to take you around all the little towns. Which also means you don’t drive past any gas stations.

I had a little “fun” trying to find a gas station. I pulled over and searched for gas stations, but none were on my route. The nearest, Google said, involved backtracking 17 miles. The best would be the one not far off my route 32 miles away. I was a bit surprised that there are no gas stations for 50 miles. Truly, these are the back roads.

About 10 miles later I spotted a Casey’s General Store a bit down a crossroad. Does Google not recognize Casey’s as being gas stations? I admit they’re not my first choice, as they don’t sell premium, but I figure low octane is better than no octane, so I filled up anyway. I’ll burn all the low-octane fuel off before lunch tomorrow.

The Geography

The first few miles of road after leaving Atchison follow the Missouri River. Signs along the road identify it as part of the Lewis and Clark Trail. On my Oregon trip a decade ago (!), I followed a significant portion of their travels. Today, it was just a few miles.

Once I got a short distance east of the river, my route was made up of an alphabet soup of backroads: Highway A, Highway H, Highway W, and so on. All of these letter routes were nice pavement (albeit so narrow they don’t have shoulders), 55 mph speed limits, and almost zero traffic.

Much of my route was on the western edge of a plateau. I’d traverse a few miles of flat agricultural land on an arrow-straight road, then drop off the plateau into a valley or ravine. In these ravines, the road becomes a Lotus road: twisting and turning, rising and falling. At times the ups and downs were like bunny hops on a roller coaster. I was tempted to add a little speed in these places, but there were far too many blind crests. There were a number of signs warning me to share the road with the horse-and-buggy set. I’d have hated to crest a hill with a steep descent only to find a buggy.

These bottom lands held other potential issues as well. Not actual issues now, but they probably were when I passed through Missouri a few years ago. These letter routes feature almost no cut and fill. That is, they’re pretty much at grade level. Grade level in the bottoms means “potentially flooded”. More than a dozen times I saw signs warning that the road may be impassable. These are permanent signs, not temporary ones that I’ve often seen when some side roads are actually flooded. In addition to the warning signs well in advance of the potential danger, they had a number of amber-colored signs that would show how deep the water is in the case that it’s actually flooded. All these signs could indicate depths of as much as 5 feet. I wonder how often the signs are totally submerged.

This up-and-down, on the plateau and in the bottoms, continued until nearly the Arkansas border, where the plateau seemed to end. Coincidentally, that’s when even these back roads started to see traffic. I was nearing Bentonville.

I’m not a farmer, and I’m unable to identify most of the crops I drive past, particularly this early in the season. Like any second grader, I can spot corn and wheat but anything else is a mystery to me.

A fair amount of land was devoted to livestock rather than crops. In Kansas, the cattle were all in the typical industrial feedlots, cattle shoulder to shoulder at the trough and manure piled ten or more feet high. Here in this part of Missouri, there are a lot of cattle, but they’re all grass-fed. Not nearly as many cattle per acre, but probably making for better beef.

I don’t know much about chicken farming. I’ve seen some documentaries about it, and how the three or four giant chicken companies have transformed the industry. I think I saw a few of these modern chicken farms. Each had between four and ten long, low buildings with ventilation fans on each end, and all the driveways and buildings festooned with “No Trespassing” signs.

Most of the roadside billboards in Kansas were selling Jesus and advocating against abortion. In Missouri, it’s Trump instead of Jesus and unborn babies. In this part of Missouri, you can’t go more than a few rural miles without seeing Trump flags. It seems no Trump supporter in these parts is satisfied with a single flag. It’s four or five or six at a time: “Trump 2020”, “Make America Great Again”, “Let’s Go Brandon”.

Everywhere I stopped, people were friendly and curious.

The Atlanta Saga – Part 1

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Saga

1. a long story of heroic achievement, especially a medieval prose narrative in Old Norse or Old Icelandic.

2. a long, involved story, account, or series of incidents.

The story of this trip is neither heroic, nor medieval, nor Old Norse. But it is long, and includes a series of incidents. So, “saga” it is!

What’s All This, Then?

Back in 2017, Lotus Ltd held their annual Lotus Owners Gathering (LOG) in Birmingham, Alabama. It seemed like a long way to drive, across a bunch of not-very-interesting roads, so I decided not to go. I’ve regretted that decision almost ever since. There’s not always a track day at the LOG, but for this one there was, and it was at Barber Motorsports Park. Which is on the same property as the Barber Motorsports Museum, which houses the world’s largest collection of Lotus race cars.

With this trip, I aim to rid myself of the ghost of LOG 37 and finally run some laps at a fabulous track and gander at an impressive number of interesting cars and motorcycles. So when the various track day operations started publishing their calendars back in January, I searched for events that I could combine into a nice trip.

I settled on a single-day event at Road Atlanta on a Monday with a two-day event at Barber the next weekend. Once I had that nailed down, I went about finding places to see on the way to Atlanta, things to do while staying in Atlanta, and more places to see on the way home from Birmingham. I came up with a trip that had me pretty excited.

Preparation and Packing

My track days on this trip are with Chin Track Days. I ran with them at Mid-Ohio a few years ago.

I changed the oil the Friday before I left. I upgraded the undertray several years ago so that I don’t have to take it off to change the oil, I just open a little door. This time, though, I took the undertray off. That gives us access to a bunch of bolts. I have solid motor mounts. Solid mounts make the whole car vibrate. So much so that, unless precautions are taken, some of the bolts work their way out.

When we did some work a few months ago, we found that a number of bolts were missing. We replaced them all and used blue locktite on them. Everything we secured with locktite was still there and in good condition. However, a few bolts on the diffuser had gone missing. I made a trip to the hardware store to get new ones, and when we put the car back together, we used locktite on all these as well.

Before we put it all back together, though, Michael checked that everything we could reach was properly torqued. I’d like to think that this will make for a few fewer rattles but I know better.

I had the car packed the night before I left. On previous trips, it was a bit like a three-dimensional puzzle: how can I fit all this stuff in the car?

This trip, though, I have quite a bit less stuff to carry than in the past. I’m not doing any camping or hiking this time, so I don’t have a pair of hiking boots, my day pack, or a tent. I’m taking both helmets in case I have a passenger one day, but I still have plenty of free space. Note that “plenty of free space” in an Elise bears no similarity to the same idea in any other car. I’m bringing a cooler with me so I can save a few bucks on the road. I packed it with four sodas, which will last a couple of days. This allows me to buy a 12-pack at some point. Not all 12 will fit in the cooler, but I’ll still have plenty of room for those that don’t fit in the cooler. At least, I’m pretty sure I have that much extra room!

April 6

I hit the road at about 8 am after gassing up at Costco.

The drive through Colorado was uneventful. I stopped at the sign at the Kansas border for a photo. About ten minutes later, a pickup truck headed in the opposite direction kicked up a stone that hit my windshield. It’s pretty nasty, the worst rock chip I’ve ever had. I hope it doesn’t crack – they won’t let me on the track if I have a big crack in the windshield.

It’s ironic that, as I left the house and headed directly into the morning sun, I lamented how badly pitted my windshield is. With the sun low on the horizon, it’s like looking through the Milky Way. Looks like I’ll be starting the search for a new windshield when I get home. I understand they can be difficult to source.

Near Lebanon, I made a short detour to the geographic center of the 48 states. The monument is in the process of getting a minor upgrade: a crew had just poured concrete for a length of new sidewalk. They were very interested in the car, so we had a nice chat. They directed me to a woman who was there. They said she was the local expert. I asked her if the monument was in the correct spot. She said the actual geographic center was a short distance across the field to the northwest. She said they have a marker buried there in the correct place and many folks have taken their metal detectors out searching for it, but nobody has had any success. One of the sidewalk crew suggested that it’s probably worked its way deeper in the ground.

There’s a little chapel there. It’s being worked on, so I didn’t step in. Is a pew still a pew if it seats only one person? Wide enough for one person on each side of the aisle. There is usually a visitor log there, but during the work, they have it at the visitor center in Lebanon.

Of course, Google directed me to the monument down a dirt road. On the way out, I went the easy way, on the nice, wide, smooth blacktop. I don’t know why Google keeps wanting to send me down dirt roads. I wish they’d add a “Avoid Dirt Roads” option.

Passing through the town of Marysville, I saw giant squirrels. About one on each block, or thereabouts. Three feet tall, maybe a bit more, black. The sculptures are the same. The squirrel has an acorn in its paws. They’re all customized to one degree or another. The one at the car wash had the acorn painted to look like a soap bubble. The one at the bank had a golden tail. I learned later that Marysville is called Black Squirrel City.

Between Lebanon and my hotel in Atchison, I saw quite a few pillars of smoke. At first, I thought I was imagining. But, sure enough, at any given spot I could see three or four of these smoke pillars. One looked quite big – was it a structural fire? In the end, I don’t think it was. I passed a couple of places where the ground was burnt. I think it’s just farmers clearing the undergrowth out of drainage ditches or something along those lines.

  • Entering the Sunflower State
  • That’s a nice rock chip!
  • The obligatory plaque
  • Very nearly the center…
  • One of the Marysville squirrels

After I checked into my room, I went in search of fuel and food. My phone directed me across the river into Missouri for gas, and on the way back I grabbed a burger at the place next to the hotel.

Not a terribly long day and the only negative was the damaged windshield.

The Leak, Pt 2

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The prevailing sentiment in the household was that I should get off my duff and fix the drywall. I was pretty tired of looking at the hole in my wall. I’m sure Michael liked the state of his bathroom even less. I wasn’t in a big hurry, though, for two reasons. First, I wanted to let it get some airflow for a while before I fixed it. And, second, I’ve never done any drywall work before.

Another concern was logistical: how to get a sheet of drywall home. If it was plywood, I could have it cut at the store. I don’t know if they’ll cut a sheet for me.

I took one of the scraps from Levi’s quack surgery on my wall to be sure to get the right size. I was pleased to find they sell 2×2 sheets of drywall for patches. Great! I bought four. It’s not an ideal situation. I’d rather have two 2’x4′ sheets. Studs are 16″ on center, so a fair amount of waste is guaranteed.

I spent about a hundred bucks at Home Despot for materials, supplies, and tools. I bought a 3-pack of blades for the oscillating saw. I only need one for the repair, so we’ll say $75 for the repair. I bought paint several days later which brings the total back up to a hundred.

When I finally got up my nerve to take the saw to my wall, I headed up to my bathroom. There are two small holes and a few other incisions below them, going lower than the top of the air register. I wanted to cut well above the top of the register. I figured my best bet was to clean the cuts, sand them down, and just cover them with joint compound.

Where the two holes are, I cut back a hole from nearly the shower to the next stud, and about six inches high. I cut a patch and after some trimming got it to fit without any significant gaps. The oscillating saw cut through the drywall like butter. With the patch screwed in, the surface of the wall stood slightly proud of it. I didn’t think it would be an issue once I taped it up.

  • Ready for the patch
  • Patch in place
  • Final product
  • The mess we start with
  • Patches in place
  • Final product
  • Kitchen floor

Michael’s bathroom was a much bigger job. Undamaged, the ceiling is a complicated shape. Not terribly complicated, but not a rectangle. And the damage was irregularly shaped, too. I spent a few minutes deciding how to use my material with the minimum waste and most efficient cuts. Measure twice, cut once how many times?

In the end, I think I did a pretty decent job of putting that puzzle together. It certainly would have been easier with bigger sheets. Given the number of seams I ended up with, I was happy that none had the same issue as my first patch: all my seams were nice and flat.

I sanded all the finished sides of the seams, taped all the seams, hit the few screws that weren’t on the seams with a bit of joint compound. The patch in my bathroom is not good. I slapped quite a bit of joint compound where it wasn’t flat. It’s not pretty. In retrospect, I should have made the patch bigger. I could have made it two inches taller without causing any more scrap.

The last task, the one that I was most skeptical of my ability to do, was adding the texture. I got a sponge pretty wet and buttered it with a thin layer of joint compound. I dabbed the sponge against the wall and applied more compound as required. It doesn’t quite match the original, but it’s not bad. I got a bit better by the time I was done. I also had run out of compound, so I couldn’t improve some of my earlier efforts.

A week or so later, I painted. I used a little 4″ roller and a brush. I thought the 12″ roller would be overkill. The paint isn’t an exact match. It’s the “pure white” semi-gloss from Glidden. The day after I painted, I found an old paint can. It turns out I used Behr before so that accounts for the slight difference.

Overall, I’m not unhappy with the outcome. That’s because I have low standards. The patch in my bathroom looks bad. If it annoys me too much, I suppose I could cut it out and redo it. I don’t think I can make it any worse. On the other hand, this was my first time working with drywall and I learned some things. The next time I find myself needing to do this, I’ll do a better job.

I have one item on the punch list. Before this all started, the valve to the outside hose bib was accessed through a round hole covered by a disk-shaped plate. I want to make the hole a bit bigger and put a better access cover on it.

Finally, the leak did have one more effect. The reader will recall that the leak was behind the range. Perhaps the same day Ralph identified the problem, I noticed that the hardwood flooring in the kitchen is damaged. I have no idea how long it was leaking before we saw water downstairs. I suspect it could have been several days. In that time, water has wicked up the grain as far as about three and a half feet from the wall.

The Leak, Pt 1

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It has been six months since I last posted here. A record for inactivity. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. A lot has happened. Some of it will get recorded here, but not now, and maybe not soon, or in great detail.

One of the things that happened I will tell now.

Thursday, February 9

Water is leaking through the drywall in Michael’s bathroom. I called Legacy Plumbing and Restoration in the morning, but the guy never called back so late in the afternoon I called Arvada Plumbing, LLC. Levi answered the phone. I told him we have a leak and he said he could be here in an hour. I told him it wasn’t an emergency. He said he’d come over at 10 the next day.

Friday, February 10

Ten o’clock came and went with no sign of him. He finally got here a bit after 11:00 and had a look around. He was here for fifteen or twenty minutes and talked the whole time. He tells me he’s a marine, his father does some business with Tony Hawk, and he invented something for his AK-47. After he looked around, he said he needed to get a helper and that it would be a total of 6 or 7 hours – five or six hundred dollars. He asked for “half” up front, saying $250 or $300 would be good. I wrote him a check for $300. He said they’d be back at 2:00.

Two o’clock came and went with no sign of him.

At nearly three they showed up. His helper has face tattoos.

They needed to start cutting holes in the drywall to find the leak. Levi said they’d clean everything up and not to worry about the mess. Directly above the leak, on the main floor, is the wall between the laundry room and the kitchen. There, they pull the washer and dryer away from the wall. There’s already a hole there, with no signs of water. Not satisfied that the leak isn’t here, they cut another hole in the wall. Dry as a bone. They move to the kitchen and check under the sink: dry. They pull the dishwasher out of its place: nada. They go upstairs to my bathroom (directly above the washer and dryer) and cut two holes and generally sliced it up. Dry. That one had me scratching my head. Why’d they look there? If the leak was up there, we’d see it on the main floor.

They go back down to the basement. In Michael’s bathroom, instead of using their saws, they just tore big hunks of the ceiling drywall down, causing a bit more damage than was necessary. There’s a lot of water up there, but nothing is obviously dripping. Levi tells me to aim a fan at it to dry it off and they’ll come back tomorrow at 10 am. They leave the washer and dryer in disarray (dryer vent not together, appliances in the middle of the way to the bathroom). They put the dishwasher back, but Genae says it’s not all the way in. They disposed of the big, damp chunks of drywall but cleaned up nothing else.

They were here for about an hour (approximately 2:45 pm to 3:45 pm).

I run a fan in there and it looks to be drying out after a while.

Genae ran the dishwasher and it seemed to be taking a long time for the heat-dry cycle to end. She finally stopped it and when she opened it up, it was obvious that no water had ever run. The liquid soap was just dribbled down the inside of the door, and the contents of the machine were at room temperature.

Everything was still dry under the sink, so obviously they’d never turned the supply line back on.

Saturday, February 11

Ten o’clock came and went with no sign of them.

At 10:56, I texted him, asking for an ETA. A bit later, I called him – went to voice mail.

So, he’s taken off with my down payment, ripped my house apart, and doesn’t want to finish the job. I texted him again, saying he needed to call me. About half an hour after that, I put a stop-payment order on the check.

Five minutes later, he calls. He’s sorry. He had an emergency. Somebody’s house was flooding and they didn’t get done until 4 am. When I ask why he didn’t call or text me, he tells me plumbing isn’t a 9-5 job. I ask him if he wants to finish the job. He says he does. I asked him what he did with the check. He told me he’d already cashed it. I told him I’d put a stop payment on it. I asked him again if he was able and willing to do the job. He said yes and told me they’d be there in an hour.

He never showed up and ignored my subsequent text messages.

I don’t know if my stop-payment order will go through in time. On the other hand, he may not have actually taken it to the bank. If the check clears, I’ll take him to small claims court.

We turned on the water supply for the dishwasher and all is now good with that. I reconnected the dryer exhaust line and put the machines back in place.

  • Upstairs bathroom. What the heck?
  • The hole on the left was already there. It’s dry, too.
  • Let’s not cut it this time. SMH

Sunday, February 12

When Genae ran a load of laundry through the dryer, we discovered that they’d shut off the gas and, like the dishwasher, didn’t turn it back on.

We called another plumber, Ralph, and described the leak to him. He’ll come by Tuesday and fix it.

Days Subsequent

Ralph was a bit flummoxed by this one. He saw a place where a copper supply line was up against a stud. The pipe vibrates when a faucet is opened, and there’s a little wear there. He repaired that section and we set the fan up again.

The next morning, it was just as bad as ever. Ralph came back again, looked around some more, and made another repair. He wasn’t feeling that good about it. I asked him if I had a ten thousand dollar leak. Still no go.

He came by the next day. He told us he couldn’t sleep last night, obsessing about my leak. It finally hit him. He pulled the range away from the wall. The line that supplies water to the fridge is fed through the back of the cabinets. It had a slight kink where the range was pushed in. He shut off the supply to the fridge and the next morning, the ceiling in Michael’s bathroom was clearly drying out.

Ralph installed a major upgrade on the supply line to the fridge and we’re good.

All that remains is a bunch of drywall repair. Something I’ve never done before.

What About That Check?

On the 24th, I received a letter from Money Tree. It was a Notice of Dishonor.

Levi did what he said he did: he cashed the check. At Money Tree. Maybe it’s just me, but I expect somebody running a business would have a bank and wouldn’t need to pay the high fees that check-cashing places charge.

The Notice of Dishonor tells me that even though I stopped payment on the check, I’m still liable because my check was “negotiated with a third party”. That’d be them. They tell me that I (or my attorney) should look at a couple of Colorado Supreme Court decisions. They give me a number I can call to make a payment.

I promptly called them and told them I refuse to pay. I explained that the guy was a crook who cut and tore holes in my walls and never came back. Their agent wasn’t impressed. They have a point: why should they be injured?

Here’s my calculus. It’s $300. For that amount, you go to small claims court. I’d be happy to have them take me to small claims, even knowing I’d lose. But I know that it’ll cost them way more than $300 to take me to court. It’s a losing proposition for them. So they’ll sell the debt for pennies on the dollar and collection companies will hound me. I’m not paying.

My credit score will take a small hit, but it won’t affect me. My credit rating is stellar, and I’m not looking to borrow any money anytime soon.

And I feel no guilt that an innocent third party will be out $270 or whatever they gave Levi for my $300 check. I know full well that Money Tree budgets a non-trivial amount for bad debts like this. It’s built into the system. I don’t knock Money Tree for providing services to the unbanked, but they certainly aid crooks like Levi. Had he taken my check to his bank, he wouldn’t have gotten the money.

When I got the Money Tree letter, I decided I needed to cry into the wilderness: I posted on Nextdoor. It was a long paragraph telling what Levi did (with photos!). That got about forty responses, including a few from other victims. Nextdoor sent me a message that that post had been viewed 9,600 times.

Marigold Lake

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Due east of Odessa Lake, on a small shelf two hundred feet up the north slope of Joe Mills Mountain, sits a small puddle of a lake. It has no inlet stream to fill it with snowmelt and no outlet stream to drain it. With an area of about a third of an acre, it’s not much larger than the suburban lot my house sits on.

I suspect it is rarely visited, being somewhat difficult to find. I’ve tried to reach it twice before, without success. The only reason I want to go there is to add it to the list of lakes I’ve been to. I admit that’s probably too much effort to reach a body of water not much more than a puddle that probably doesn’t even merit the designation of “lake”.

Chad told me he wanted to go on a hike so we agreed on a date and I made a plan. I decided we should circumambulate around Joe Mills Mountain as on my first attempt at Marigold. According to CalTopo, the saddle between Joe Mills Mountain and Mount Wuh was burned. Round Pond sits on that saddle. Based on what I saw on my Spruce Lake hike, I suspect the trees around the pond have survived. Why not find out? It doesn’t add any miles to the trip, but it does exchange trail miles for bushwhacking miles.

Saturday, October 22

The Park was very busy. The shuttle from the Park and Ride to Bear Lake was standing room only. We put boots on the trail at about 8:30.

It was a bit chilly. The forecast for the vicinity was “sunny and breezy, with a high of 46”. There were some thin clouds much of the day, but we could always see our shadows. In the woods, the wind is no big deal, and most of the day we’d be in the woods, so “sunny and breezy” sounds like a nice day.

An hour up the trail, we hit our departure point and headed cross-country. Our route would be to contour around Joe Mills Mountain at more or less 10,400′. From the trail to about the pond, the forest isn’t terribly dense and deadfall isn’t too bad, so the bushwhacking is a fairly pleasant stroll through the woods.

Before long, the ground in front of us started sloping down: we had reached the saddle, a bit west of it’s lowest point. We wandered around here for a short while looking for Round Pond but didn’t spot it. Frankly, it has a half-hearted search. I was more interested in getting to the burn. Missing Round Pond isn’t missing much.

The forest is denser on the north side of the mountain, and soon we’d need to traverse a fairly steep slope for a while, westbound to Marigold Lake. But first we started seeing burnt trees. Just individual trees here and there, all deadfall; burned with almost no damage to the surrounding forest. One was still standing: a hollow tree, like a chimney. After several of these we arrived at the edge of the burn scar.

I was expecting the edge to be “fuzzy”. Indistinct. Maybe a border of trees that didn’t ignite and kept their dead, red needles. But no. Green, apparently healthy trees directly adjacent to scorched earth: charred tree trunks standing like giant whiskers. The hillside won’t get shaved, but almost all those dead tree trunks will fall to the ground over the next several years.

It has been two years since the fire. Two summer growing seasons have passed. On my hike to Spruce Lake, the entire burn scar was carpeted with fireweed. Here, there were large areas where the ground is still black. I was surprised to find occasional piles of ash. I suspect they’re in dried puddles and the ash accumulated here. It’s bone dry now: disturb the frail crust and raise a bloom of ash.

On my hike to Spruce Lake, I noticed that the char on the trees is only a couple of millimeters thick, and it’s starting to flake off the dead wood. Here, I saw many interesting logs where the charred part has come off. The wood burned to different depths in random patterns, creating little topographic maps out of the tree rings.

As I said earlier, as we head west, the slope gets fairly steep for a while until we reach the bench that Marigold sits on. The forest isn’t burned here and is dense and there is much deadfall. It is a challenging route for about a third of a mile.

  • Dead trees burned, live ones didn’t
  • Tree Ring Topographic Map
  • Scorched Earth
  • Char and grain
  • Ash
  • Fern Lake from above
  • Marigold Lake
  • Marigold Lake and Little Matterhorn

Chad had taken a little tumble shortly after we left the trail and his ankle was a bit tender. Now he mentioned that he was no longer enjoying the dinner he had so enjoyed last night. Then he asked me how steep I thought this slope was. And he was huffing and puffing.

We found a spot with a couple of flat rocks and a nice view and took a break. He told me later how uncomfortable he was. I had been thoughtless. Almost everyone I hike with is quite happy to go places I’m not comfortable going, so somehow I had the idea that, if I was okay going there, anyone would be okay with it. I know exactly what it’s like to find myself in terrain that makes me uncomfortable. It’s stressful. I should have gone over the route with Chad beforehand.

If we’ve navigated correctly, we’ll exit the steep, dense forest onto the bottom of a talus gully, right next to Marigold Lake. We came out a little bit below the lake but found it soon enough. After the dense forest, I was expecting that this pond would have no view. The view of Little Matterhorn from here is quite nice. In my plans, we were to take a nice break here, but unfortunately, there’s no place to sit. So we pressed on.

From Marigold Lake back to the trail, we’d go up a gully gaining about two hundred feet of elevation, then cross a fair amount of talus until we reached the Fern Lake trail about two-thirds of the way from Odessa Lake to the summit of the pass near Lake Helene. Although it’s a rather large talus field, the rocks are small and easy to cross and there are occasional outcroppings of grass.

Did I mention it was breezy? To now, it hadn’t been an issue. Sure, it was windy, the trees swayed quite a bit. On the forest floor, it wasn’t windy enough to disturb ashes. Crossing the talus was another matter. The wind was howling down from Ptarmigan Point unobstructed. I’d guess sustained winds were twenty miles per hour with gusts over forty or fifty. Several times, I was nearly blown over.

On the way, I came across the oddest thing. I found a solar-powered light. The kind with a stake on the end, so you can drive it into your lawn. Who would bring such a thing to the middle of a talus field? And leave it there? I packed it out. How long could it have been out here? The stickers on it were still intact. It came from WalMart.

Back on the trail, we reach the top of the pass, where the trail returns to the trees and out of the wind and it’s all downhill from here. We stopped for a break on a couple of nice, flat rocks in the sun on the lee side of a slope above what as late as August would be a small pond but is now dry ground.

Today’s beer was a repeat: Palisade Peach.

When we got back to Bear Lake, the line for the shuttle was pretty long. After the first bus loaded, it looked like there was more than a busful of people still in line in front of us. Somehow, we managed to get sardined onto the second bus. We didn’t even stop at the Glacier Gorge trailhead on the way down.

Traffic was bad all the way from the Park to my house. We were back to the car pretty much on my expected schedule, but by the time Chad dropped me off at home, it was half an hour later than expected. Traffic sucks.

In Summary

I enjoyed my day. I can finally cross Marigold off the list (or, more accurately, put it on the list). Marigold Lake had a nicer view than I expected, but I don’t think I’ll ever bother to return.

The time exploring the burned area was particularly rewarding. It won’t be like this for very long. The ash and black will soon be gone, and grass and wildflowers will soon be here. And I hope this will be the last fire in the Park for an extended period.

I’m sorry that I led Chad into a situation that he didn’t enjoy.

“They’re Dead, Jim”

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I think it’s pretty cool to use racing slicks at the track. The grip is incredible. My best lap on slicks is 2:07, which is seven or eight seconds a lap quicker than with my street tires. Seven seconds may not sound like much, but it’s like driving a different car. I use a different gear in several places and I use a different line in a few turns. I can take turn three flat (foot flat to the floor) on slicks. It’s fun.

On the other hand, slicks are a bit of a pain. I can’t drive to and from the track on them, so I need to have somebody carry them (and a jack and impact wrench) for me. And even though seven seconds may not sound like much, the extra g-force in the turns is hard on the equipment. I spun once in turn 7 on slicks. The force was so hard one of my motor mounts broke.

So although they’re a lot of fun, I don’t think the cost/benefit ratio is favorable. I think I have a day left on the slicks and I want to use them up so I can put streetable tires on the track wheels.

Objectives, Goals, and Results

An F1 car can wear out a set of slicks in as little as a dozen laps. Obviously, Hoosier wouldn’t sell very many racing slicks to the track day crowd if they wore out that quickly. I bought these tires used. Years ago, I had a set of 60 treadwear tires that lasted four track days. I’m thinking these A7s would last about as long. So this is the last hoorah for slicks.

Ryan was kind enough to carry my slicks for me. It’s the second time: he brought them out for our Thursday evening session, but I didn’t use them because of the rain.

So, the objective for the day is to use up the slicks. What about goals? It’s important to have a goal every time you go to the track. Today’s goal is a big one: set a new personal best time. I did a 2:07 with Michael in the passenger seat. A passenger costs me about two seconds a lap. If the conditions are good, I should be able to do a 2:05.

The forecast high for Denver was 60, but the morning at the track was blustery and overcast. The ambient temperature was probably not much over forty and for the first couple of hours you couldn’t see your shadow; the track was cold. I wondered how that would affect my times. The usual case is that my times improve throughout the day. I expected the weather to improve somewhat, so that should help, too.

My best lap (2:09.95) was the 5th lap of the day. In spite of the improving weather and lighter fuel load, my times steadily got worse. My first clue that the tires were done was that I was never able to take turn 3 flat. By my fourth session, I was down to a 2:13.52. That was the last session for the slicks: I was down to the cords. The slicks were dead.

To end the day, I ran three sessions (more like two and a half) on the street tires and ran in the upper 2:13s.

Cars and Drivers

The paddock was a bit more upscale than I was expecting. There were some nice cars there.

I’ll start with the Lotus. Ryan and myself, of course, plus two Elises and an Evora GT for a total of five. In the red Elise was Cory, who I had met a few years ago. Neither of us realized we’d met until he mentioned spinning his car and hitting a stanchion. I was riding with him at the time. Buzz had a silver Elise with out-of-state plates. And the gray Evora was Kris, who also brought out his McLaren 570S.

  • Lamborghini Huracan
  • McLaren 570S
  • “They’re dead, Jim!”

There was a red Lamborghini Huracan there as well. I’ve seen a few Lambos at the track, but only in the paddock. This one ran laps. At one point, I thought I saw a red Evora, but I was mistaken. My view was partially obscured by a wall; it turned out it was an Alfa 4C. I never saw it in the paddock. Another car I’ve seen in the paddock but not on track was an Audi R8. This one ran some laps. The McLaren, Lamborghini, and Audi were fast on the straights, but were not turning quick laps. I’m not surprised – I don’t expect them to get driven hard. Even though they were running in the Experienced group, let’s just say they hit very many apexes.

I had some nice “battles” with a Miata and a Lemons BMW. On one of my street tire sessions, we found ourselves running together, nobody able to open much of a gap on the others. I had some nice conversations with the drivers. The BMW owner said he was surprised my last sessions were on street tires. He thought I was faster than earlier.

Conclusion and Highlight Reel

I shouldn’t have gone out for that seventh session. I cut it short, but not short enough. I had to buy five bucks worth of 91 octane at the track ($7 a gallon) to make sure I could reach the gas station in Byers. Good thing I did, because I’d have fallen eight or ten miles short otherwise.

Six sessions was plenty. With the abbreviated seventh session, it added up to three hours. It’s more physically demanding than most people think. A day later, my arms were still a bit sore and my spine, while not bruised was tender. I managed to keep my kneepad in place the whole time, so my knee isn’t very sore. It’s a thrill ride.

Spruce Lake

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The East Troublesome fire was first reported on the afternoon of October 14, 2020, eighteen miles west of Rocky Mountain National Park. Nine days later, it jumped a mile and a half over the Continental Divide to Spruce Canyon. That same day, it jumped the mile-wide burn scar from the Fern Lake fire of 2012, ran past the Morraine Park campground and reached Beaver Brook.

The East Troublesom and Cameron Peak fires burned a bit less than ten percent. It’s more than ten if you add in the Fern Lake and Big Meadows fires, both in the last decade.

The thing to keep in mind is that wildfires are a natural part of the lifecycle of the forest. They provide for renewal and increase the diversity of plants and animals. However, we spent a century suppressing wildfires, and we’ve seen climate change contribute to beetle kill. There’s much more fuel in the forests now than is usual. And with increasing temperatures and drought conditions (climate change again), the fires we get burn much more intensely than ever before. Historically, fires were smaller and tended to burn in a haphazard pattern – a mosaic. Today’s fires tend to burn everything. They can create their own weather – when East Troublesome jumped highway 34, it had created winds of 150 miles per hour. The result: scorched earth.

Last week, the NPS posted on Instagram that they had just re-opened the Spruce Lake trail after some trail work. I don’t know how long the trail has been closed – it’s possible it’s been closed since the fire or was just closed for the duration of the work.

I’ve been to Spruce Lake four times, most recently in 2019 on a two-night stay with Gordon, in an attempt to visit the four lakes in upper Spruce Canyon. Although that wasn’t the most pleasant of hikes, I did enjoy the extended time I spent there. I watched a cow moose and her yearling calf for a good, long time.

I wanted to find out how badly burned the place is.

Friday, September 16

My timed-entry permit was for 6-8 am. I arrived at Fern Lake Road at about 7:15. The road was lined on both sides with parked cars. In the meadow right next to the road was a large herd of elk. A disproportionate number of people had serious glass on their cameras, lenses as long as my forearm. I’d guess those guys could count the hairs in the nose of the majestic bull facing them from about twenty yards away.

A few yards up the road, two bucks were grazing maybe six feet off the road. Nobody paid them any attention. I got a picture, though. I see does all the time, but not many bucks.

From the parking lot to a little bit past the Pool, I can’t say I noticed anything different from my last few hikes here. At the parking lot, I noticed that a couple of the tall aspen had been burned, but nothing else looked like it had burned since the Fern Lake fire.

After the Pool, though, it’s a different world.

It is now the end of the second growing season after the fire. When I hiked through the Big Meadows burn scar just weeks after the fire, pretty much everything was black. There wasn’t a blade of grass, not an insect, no birds. The tree trunks were black, the ground was black, many of the rocks on the trail were black.

Two seasons after East Troublesome is already quite different. The black is starting to fade. Plants are starting to cover the ground. Today I learned why fireweed, one of my favorite wildflowers, got its name. It’s mid-September, well past the prime time for wildflowers. But today I saw more flowers than on my last three or four hikes combined. Almost all of them were fireweed. In some places, fireweed must have made up 90% of the plants. It was everywhere.

The tree trunks, both those still standing, and new and old deadfall, are still black. I saw a number of tree trunks had been cut by trail crews in years past. Some of them were unburnt on the cut end. This showed me how deeply the tree trunks are burned. It’s not thick, and it’s starting to flake off many of the standing dead trunks.

Standing on the hillside, looking north to the Fern Lake fire scar, the difference is obvious. Those trees, burned ten years before, are brown. The fresh ones are all black. Eventually, they’ll all be gray and you’ll have to look at differences in live plants to tell which happened first. And it might not be obvious.

The trail zig-zags up a north-facing slope. This whole slope is burned, except along Fern Creek, where some forest survives. Away from the creek, total devastation. After the zig-zags, the trail straightens and heads southwest towards Fern Lake. The trail parallels Fern Creek, but not always closely. Where there was water on October 23, there is still life. I stopped at Fern Lake first, as it’s only about a hundred yards above the trail to Spruce.

The old cabin is gone, razed to the foundation, which is now covered in brown tarps. But most of the trees around and above the lake aren’t burned in the same way as those below. Those below are scorched trunks only. Above, the fire clearly wasn’t as hot. There are still some green, live trees mixed in. And the many of the dead ones still still have their brown needles.

The bridge across the outlet was undamaged, but the privy has been replaced with a brand new one. And I find it a bit amusing that the little restoration area between the trail and the lake survived. It’s not amusing that that bit survived: it’s right next to the water. It’s amusing that one of the few unburnt places is fenced off, with a sign saying to keep out.

The trail to Spruce Lake climbs over a ridge, gaining about two hundred feet on the Fern Creek side. This slope is all burned, but from the top of the ridge, or a bit past, to the wetlands adjacent to Spruce Lake, it alternates between burned and unburned. The recent trail work included rebuilding the bridge with a bogwalk across the outlet. There are a couple of other new bogwalks, too, but others survived (if a bit scorched).

Speaking of trail work, a substantial amount of work was done on the trail where it zig-zags up the slope. There are a couple of long sections where the trail is paved with rock. The width of the trail (about four feet) for lengths of sixty feet in one place and more than a hundred in another. Looks like it’ll last centuries.

Spruce Lake has less damage than Fern Lake. The campsites look undamaged. The privy survived, but just barely: a tree trunk two feet in front of the stool is scorched. The wetlands at the outlet didn’t seem to get burned at all. In fact, there’s an enormous amount of dead tree matter that’s been there for years – it’s all gray – that doesn’t have a black mark on it. I’m amazed it’s still there.

The forest above the lake, on the way to Loomis, looked undamaged except for a small area of “slightly” burned trees (still with needles) high on one slope. Seeing no fire damage on the way to Loomis and an intact forest to the north and west, I decided not to go any farther. More about this decision later.

I haven’t seen any big game since the buck by the side of the road. Before I set out this morning, I was concerned that there wouldn’t be any left in any of this area. I’d imagine any moose or other deer would survive if they could get to the lake. But if they did, is there enough left to keep them here? Although I didn’t lay eyes on any game, I was happy to spot fresh moose shit and deer shit.

After only a short break at Spruce, I headed back to Fern. The idea was to get a short time-lapse sequence there, then hike down to somewhere before Fern Falls to eat my lunch and get a longer sequence, prominently featuring the burnt tree trunks. But, as Helmuth von Moltke noted, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.”

The Fern Lake bit of the plan went off well. But the weather was turning. I packed up after only fifteen minutes, and a light rain started to fall a few minutes later. It didn’t take long before it was raining hard enough to convince me to don my waterproof shell. Naturally, as soon as I did, the rain stopped. But I wasn’t fooled and kept it on. The rain came and went until I reached Fern Falls.

I stopped there for a quick snack. The sun was shining again, and it was calm. I took the shell off but kept it handy. The skies looked pretty threatening – everything to the west was dark. I was lucky to have a few minutes of nice weather for my snack and didn’t expect that luck to continue. And, not long after leaving the falls, I had the jacket back on. I wanted to have my picnic, but not in the rain. I hoped I wouldn’t need to eat my picnic in the car.

  • Roadside Buck
  • Trail Improvements
  • Fern Falls before
  • Fern Falls after
  • Fireweed
  • Fern Lake Cabin Site
  • Keep Out
  • At Fern Lake
  • Trail to Spruce Lake
  • New Bridge and Bogwalk (Spruce Lake)
  • Scorched Bogwalk
  • Veins!

By the time I was perhaps only a quarter of a mile from the car I decided to stop. The threatening clouds hadn’t moved down the canyon with me. The sun was shining. I found a nice place to sit next to the stream and had my lunch. It wasn’t until a family went by on the trail that I realized just how close to the car I was. They weren’t carrying their toddler, she was walking. Still, better a picnic here than in the car. In the car, I wouldn’t have drunk today’s beer (a returning favorite, Left Hand Brewing’s Wheels Gose ‘Round).

My picnic spot was a three-minute walk from the car.

Conclusions

When I got in the car, I figured I had a few options, depending on what I saw. I could just go to Spruce Lake. Or, if the fire above the lake was bad, I could go to Loomis to check on it. Or, if the fire was worse below the lake, I could contour around and take a look up Spruce Canyon. I took my squirrel-eaten poles with me, in case I went anywhere beyond Spruce Lake. Good plan!

But silly me didn’t bother to refresh his memory about the fire or to even look at the fire history on CalTopo. Had I done this, I would definitely have taken a peek up Spruce Canyon. Now I have an excuse to come back next July or so to put eyes on what I didn’t bother to look at this time.

You see, it occurs to me that, after the fire, another try on Rainbow Lake, Irene Lake, and Sprague Tarn might be considerably easier. Route finding would be much easier, and although the big deadfall will still be there, it should be substantially easier to navigate. I only managed half a mile an hour before, where I generally can manage twice that bushwhacking. It might be worth another shot.

It would mean another two-night stay at Spruce. There’s a privy there. We watched moose eating aquatic grasses. It’s not a long hike. Why not do it again? But only if I get a look at Spruce Canyon first.