Here are some pictures so far of this years covered bridge in Rockville In.
Doug, thanks for the pictures. Hope to see more as the tour goes on. Anja and I did the Covered Bridge Tour twice. Lots of fun both times.
I don't see any bridges.
Dave, that's because they're covered.....
This is a weather vane that was being silent auctioned. Very good workmanship.
And another one.
The food of course was awesome.
But meeting new people from the tour was the overall highlight so far.
The attendees came from all over.
Yesterday, nature's car wash cleaned the dirt for us. My car has dirt in places it has never been before.
Then the day cleared up. It was fun having so many Ts on the road without any modern traffic to take away from the view.
Dave, I mostly have video of the bridges, I will try to get pictures from the video. Here is one.
Here are a few more.
This stop was special in that the gentleman who had invited us to stop here was killed in an explosion in May. His wife asked if we could still stop by and visit. They provided pastries and hot chocolate for us. We proudly wore red ribbons on our radiator caps for her late husband. We tied these in various places around the farm as a memorial.
This is a panoramic shot I did from the farm. I hope it looks ok.
This is was a brick factory that we stopped to look at. It still is functioning and was when we took this picture.
I was there Saturday for the tour and had a lot of fun. Ran the speedster on it's maiden voyage. Took it to Newport Friday and ran the hill with it. Made it up in high gear with 2 of us in the car.
More pictures
I love the old mills with several stories of machinery running off a single power source by belts and pulleys. This looks like one of those that was modernized a hundred years ago with a turbine to power a single electric motor.
Steve amazing history on the mills which I did not know. They were built in the 1830's. The water wheel you see is inefficient and can not be used when the river freezes. They fitted them with water turbines mounted to a vertical drive shaft. Most have 2 races for the turbines which put out 65 and 85 horsepower to run all the internal mull machinery, including hundreds of small one cup tin scoops mounted to a leather belt which delivers the raw corn and wheat to the top of the mill. Gravity then allows the grain to be automatically crushed cleaned and processed. Genius.
Great places to visit and have a picture of your Model T with them in the background
David - You reminded me of a little piece of history that I found to be interesting. Back in the days of the early pioneers in Oregon, long chutes (tubular I think) were built to drop the grain down from the top edge of the high and nearly vertical cliffs above the Columbia River for river vessel loading below. Sounded like a brilliant idea, right? Well, it instantly proved to be a total failure, because the long drop of the grain produced flour by the time it came out of the chutes at river level. "Automatic" milling might seem like a good idea, but not a good way to ship grain I guess!
To get back more on topic Doug, Kenny & David; I love the way you showed where all the "attendees" came from on the map Doug,.....thanks all for the great photos,.......harold
I want one of these when I grow up.
We thought this was cute.
This was one of the stops along the way on Tuesday. My memory isn't too well, hopefully someone who remembers can chime in on this one.
Odd style steel spoked wheels on #80, any idea if they were a period accessory or homemade?
Number 80 or "Colorado Ugly" was built by the late Bob Plegge former Secretary Treasurer of the MTFCA. It's not only shortened but the axles are offset. The wheels are accessory ones.
Terry and Dorothy Ryan from Pacific MO now own the car.
Hey Doug, looks like you made it home ok. Thanks for posting all of the pictures, great tour. The black and white looks pretty good, I think that was the Mansfield bridge place.
Thanks for posting Doug & Dave.
How about a picture of your speedster Bud?
I was looking at the photos and noted the brickyard and thought I would comment on the operation.
It is owned by an 84 year old man named Dan Schultz, who is also the plant manager. He works every day at the plant and is a truly an interesting man.
This is the only 100% coal fired brick plant in the US, operating beehive or periodic kilns. Most operators choose a more modern tunnel kiln.
He employs roughly 40+ dedicated people. Back several years ago, before the brick industry went south when the economy tanked, Dan was building a new office. Instead of using money complete the office, he chose to use the money to keep his folks working. The office has yet to be completed but the employees still have a job.
The state of Indiana is working on forcing him to change to natural gas to comply with pollution requirements in the best interest in public health. Depending on how it all shakes out, he will either spend a million dollars or so to upgrade or potentially shut the plant down.
Another fine example of small towns loosing jobs and without jobs to replace these, locals have to go away to find work.
More pictures. Great time letting non =T drivers try driving slowly on the back gravel roads. They really enjoyed it.