For A Site Generally Considered Unreliable...

...it is sure easy to spend a LOT of time on Wikipedia!

Today's rabbit holes include:

• Keweenaw Peninsula
• Keweenaw County, Michigan
• Keweenaw National Historical Park
• Rubus parviflorus, which sounds like a disease but is actually the delicious Thimbleberry.
• Fort Wilkins Historic State Park which is on 
• Lake Fanny Hooe, allegedly named for the sister (or sister-in-law, I forget which) of the post commander, after her disappearance. Evidence is that she eloped with... someone.
• And how in the hell did I never hear of the Keweenaw Rocket Range? (Link fixed!) I wonder if my parents knew about it and conspired to keep it from me...?*
  

Pronunciation note: KEE-wuh-naw: despite the spelling the first "e" is long, and the paired e's are short. 

Obviously, I was in a mood to Say Yah to da UP, eh today. Holy Wah and all dat.

That particular Wikipedia Rabbit Hole exploration was actually sparked by a Tweet in Iowahawk's Twitter weekly (or more often) feature #DavesCarIDService. (URL included, since embedding tweets these days is a mess in my browser.)

(Look, I understand if you don't want to get on Twitter, but Dave "Iowahawk" Burge's feed is worth it, if only for #DavesCarIDService, especially if you have old family photos featuring cars. Tweet him with the hashtag, and he'll try to get it when he can.)

Speaking of Iowahawk and old cars, another Wikipedia expedition started out with the 

• Volkswagen 181, AKA "The Thing" in the US of A, which led to the 
• Kubelwagen and then the 
• Europa Jeep, followed by the 
• Schwimmwagen and wound up on 
• Ford GPA "Seep"
• Also inspired by Iowahawk, at some point this morning I looked up the Dodge WC Series "Weapons Carriers".

*If so, I don't blame them, especially since they probably discouraged tourists, and it sounds like it was pretty hard to get to. Also, closed by the time I was old enough to visit on my own.

Going and Coming

Sort of an NRAAM post, pics on the way there and on the way back...

All photographs © 2019 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter.

On climb out from SEA

It got a bit hazy once we made altitude, but this gives you an idea of the local terrain.
(Click to embiggenate.)
I was on the wrong side of the plane for shots of Mt. Rainier.
Too far south for Mt. Adams, Mt. Baker, or Glacier Peak.

Somewhere over the Mississippi weather started to close in.
Last 45 minutes or so of the flight into IND was rough.

On final into SEA, sunset over the Olympics 1

On final into SEA, sunset over the Olympics 2

On final into SEA, sunset over the Olympics 3

SEA has airplanes hanging from the ceilings, so naturally, IND displays race cars...

Obligatory local color/architecture shots:

The buildings in that part of town are all connected by a series of skywalks.
Most of them are not this fancy.

$igh

Got the renewal notice for the Drangmobile's tabs.

• $30.00 License fee funds road construction and maintenance projects
• $25.00 Vehicle weight fee funds highway improvements, transit, and other transportation needs
• $3.00 Filing fee funds go to the county in which the fee is paid
• $5.00 Service fee retained by subagent, or funds ferry replacement if renewed at County Auditor/DOL
• $0.25 License service fee supports the computer system used to provide licensing services
• $0.50 The DOL service fee supports the computer system and reimbursement of county licensing activities
•  $143.00 Regional Transit Authority tax.

Ohhhh, look: Sound Transit uses inflated car values to collect higher tab fees | The Seattle Times!

One would think...

...that the owner's manual for an automobile would include information like what replacement windshield wipers it takes, and how to replace them, would one not?

If one drives a hand-me-down* Dodge product, one would be wrong.

Thanks, Obamamobile!

***
*I expressed my distaste for buying an Obamamobile, but Mrs. Drang was convinced she needed a car that size.
Note that several years later she went to a Ford Fiesta.
That reminds me, I think I'll check out the owner's manual on that thing...

NO WAY!!!!

Bertha’s restart delayed again; will there be drilling by Christmas? | The Seattle Times

The four-lane, tolled¹ Highway 99 tunnel from Sodo² to South Lake Union is now scheduled to be ready in April 2018, more than two years past the original December 2015 opening the contractors touted in 2010, when they won the $1.35 billion tunnel contract.

More from the "Duh" files:

• Watchdog: Obamacare Exchanges Fail to Detect Counterfeit Documents | Americans for Tax Reform
• Obama vetoes $612 billion defense policy bill in rebuke to GOP | Fox News
• Justice Dept.: No criminal charges for ex-IRS official Lois Lerner 

 

1. First I heard that it's going to be a toll road. Doesn't surprise me, Seattle being run by a bunch of car-hating collectivists who are always eager to squeeze another dime from the taxpayers.
2. "South of Downtown", originally "South of Dome", so-called for the Kingdome, which was demolished before it was paid for. Some ceiling tiles fell off, leading the PTB to assume it was about to fall apart. The demolition crew said it was one of the hardest jobs they ever had.

Carmudgeing

Carmudgeing, get? Being curmudgeonly about cars?

Anyway.

See my previous post, and put the studded tires back in the garage.

Also, if you're going to drive such a small car I don't see it until I'm halfway into the parking space, you shouldn't pull so far in. Also, consider one if those 6' bright orange flags for bicycles.

Dude, if the bumper is scraping the tire, do without a bumper.

Seen in a local newspaper: Street parking turning into bus and bicycle lanes. No shit. And Seattlites wonder why we avoid their socialist hellhole.

Thanks, North Dakota!

All you frakkers rock, too!

There may have been a loyalty point or two involved, but never mind.

One thing for sure, His Imperial Majesty Barack Hussein Obama I is no help at all.

"The sharks look hungry..."

So it has been decided to trade in the Drangmobile on a new, smaller car for Mrs. Drang to use in the commute.

Yesterday we went out to look at the selected models, the plan being to tell any salespeople "Just looking today" with various and sundry reasons why we weren't buying.

You see where this is going, right?

Turn out that shopping for a car at the end of the month, at the beginning of a new model year, apparently leads to the sales people begging their manager "I know we're getting screwed, but a sale is a sale", and smokin' deals on last years lightly used demo/courtesy model, identical to this years model you test drove.

As in, the absurd offer you made to get them to shut up is accepted.

Oh, and you remember how, in my post The Clue Meter: At The Fair I mentioned

Looked at a Ford Fiesta, and somehow resisted asking the rep if it came with a zebra head and a certificate for an amphibious landing.

It doesn't, but it is the same color. Zombie Apocalypse Green.

Neither Ford nor Mopar...

A few other sets of wheels that caught my eye at the Federal Way Lions Club Car Show.

Nissan S-Cargo. Who knew the Japanese were given to whimsical punning car names?  Of course, lately they've just had a computer generate meaningless ones...

 Myself, I tried to avert my eyes and ignore the thing, but Mrs. Drang wanted pictures, and her Korean phone refused to take it.

 Mu high school buddy Jimmy had a Chevelle SS.  Good times, good times...

Yes, a VW Beatle..

A bit customized...

Did I say "a bit"...?

When they fired it up, it sounded not unlike a top fuel dragster...

Ponies, and their siblings

This next one is just gorgeous.
Growing up in Detroit, of course, even if one did not have a direct connection to the auto industry, you probably had a relative who worked at one of the plants or maybe in an office.
Not surprisingly, tyhe Henry Ford Museum/Greenfield Village held a classic car show every year, and one of the guys' fathers won with his painstakingly restored Model A.
I told this guy I thought that he'd win, too, if he wanted to flat-bed this back there...

Apparently I didn't get a pic of the rumble seat...

 64 1/2!

Helpful hint

If every single driver you pass on the interstate starts flashing his brights at you, this is what we call A Clue: Your headlights are off.

The "interstate" portion of my homeward commute generally lasts all of 15 minutes, and I saw two, count 'em two, idjits running dark.

As one of them passed me I could see that she also needed to hang up the damned phone and drive.

These were far from the only behind-the-wheel jackasses I saw today, but they may have been the most egregious.

Maybe.

One of these things is not like the other...

Local Lions club was having their annual car show.  See if you can ID which one of these sets of wheels might be regarded as out of place:

Like it says, a T Bucket hot rod.

Camero

Camero

63 Nova, the only resemblance to the one Mrs. Drang learned to drive on is the name plate...

Mustang

GT500

This is actually a 78 Toyota pickup, with a Model T cab and bed, and Dodge engine compartment.

Lada.  That's right, a Lada. Who would bring a Lada to a car show...?

Help! I've been cuddled by cats and I can't get up!

This photo on Lolcats is titled And God Said, "Let There Be Cats" - Cheezburger

Woke up this morning at odd angles, with a car inside each angle.  It's nice when they want to cuddle up close, but they tend to cuddle so close that the move parts of me around, and when they each cuddle up so close that the move parts around, I almost suspect they're shilling for a chiropractor...

A couple of cups of coffee, a few ibuprofen, and I'll be ready to go see if the RUMINT of ammo at the local Super WalMart is true...

ETA:  The RUMINT re: Ammo @Wally World may have been true earlier this week, but it is no longer.  I haz a sad...

Apparently, it's true

Jeremy Clarkson really did punch Piers  Morgan's lights out.

R.I.P.

Carrol Shelby, 1923-2012.

Go like hell.

UPDATE: Original post made from The Salt Mines on my cell, so no links.

Carroll Shelby - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carroll Shelby, Creator of Cobra Sports Car, Dead at 89 - Driver's Seat - WSJ

Thus far, I have few real regrets in life. Passing on the Omni GLH¹ I found in the used car lot up the street from Mrs. Drang's house when we first started dating, and not hanging on to the 68 Mustang² with the 318 Cobra Jet I bought as a commuter for my summer job at Chrysler's while in college are two. For the first I had no need of a second car, and for the Mustang, well, there is no way I could have invested the time, money , or effort to rebuild that, um, rusty, abused thing.


1. "GLH"="Goes Like Hell"--a turbo-charged 4-banger econo-box! With no external signs of that, if you overlooked that air intake in the hood.
2. Among other things, the preferred method of dealing with snowy and icey roads in Southern Michigan at the time was to liberally apply sodium chloride, and this had been a "winter car", so it was pretty "holey"--I lost some fishing gear from the trunk that way. Also, the engine mounts were bad, and the water pump vibrated so much the fan mounting bolts had cut the mounting holes into slots--it was several cut water hoses before I figured that out. The headlights worked, but the dash lights didn't, nor did the fuel gauge. Yeah, I sure do miss that car...

Damned Bureaucrats

People keep asking me why I say plaintively--well, plaintively, for me--that I really want a Toyota Hilux, when I can just get a Toytoa Tacoma, and "it's the same truck."

Well, it's not, Uncle Sugar won't let you import a Toyota Hilux. 

These episodes of Top Gear (seen this evening on BBC America) show why I want one:





The Army bought a bunch of Hiluxes--Hiluxi?--during Desert Storm, and the EPA and DOT combine wouldn't even let the Army bring them back stateside afterwards. Some wound up with US Forces Korea; the MPs at 2^nd Division were driving them.

Amazing how fast a turbocharged diesel can go...