Today is Trudy’s birthday, she is now 61 years old.

Petra took decoration from the Netherlands,

Petra heeft vanuit Nederland slingers meegenomen, we decorate the shelter for Trudy.

slinger

We had birthday mail over to Trudy which we got from several people at home. She is very happy with it!

Trudy is in the back of the decorated Model T.

PartyT

We see our French friend Patrick on the road.

Patrick

At a huge Walmart we by pie. We enjoy it at a nice picnic place between the flowers.

Picknick

The last 2 hours we race along the 83, a nice road with a lot of curves along the lake. We see some deers, we got a nice picture of one of them.

Deer

We stop at Swan Lake at 6 p.m. A nice place picked by Trudy, because there is a restaurant in the village. We are going out for dinner to celebrate Trudy’s birthday there. A nice restaurant!

birthdaydinner

It is warm so we take our desert outside. When Trudy’s desert is brought out, a candle is put on it and the staff is singing Happy Birthday. The parrot inside sings with them.

desert

When we walk back to the campground we se a nice American mailbox.

Mailbox

Back at the campground we light the campfire and do some tricks with burning sticks. This gives nices pictures.

fototrick

We also make a multiple self-portrait of Joris, using a camera with a long exposure and a flashlight. Magic!

MultiJorisMagic

Today we drove 327 kilometers.

Dirk  puts the license plate of Utah he found yesterday on the Land Rover. He was still missing that one. He has a nice collection by now. Dirk-jan wants to take his Route 66 plate to home from Calgary, but Dirk does not fully agree to that yet.

plates

A nice panoramic picture of the campsite.

Campsite

Dirk-jan is going to drive the Model T wearing his new shirt.

Shirt

The Model T goes like a bullet, it looks like we have the wind in our back for the first few hours. We drive 52 mile per hour.

We drive north along the 89. We stop at a supermarket, where we can find a lot of vegetables. Inge is very happy!

Supermarket

We decide to look for a campground at the Canyon Ferry Lake. We find one at 5 p.m.

Together with the French biker Patrick we drink a beer at one of the many picnic tables. We are using 4 tables, a new record!

campingdrink

They have a great water tap here, it is a tap and a shower all in one…

SpecialTap

It was really warm today, so we dive into the lake. Very nice water!

Swimming

Trudy is doing the laundry. She gets help from the watchdog of the campground.

CampingDog

Dirk gets some firewood and lightens the campfire.

Today we drove 269, tomorrow is Trudy’s birthday!

Today we leave at Allen and Kat. Before we leave, we take a group picture with Allen’s oldtimers in it.

Oldtimers Allen

We stop in Victor to get gas. There we met Hondo Miller. He saw the Model T earlier, but wasn’t able to come to us then. He invited us to drive after his Ford Woody of 1949 to his t-shirt factory. They make t-shirts with very nice images there. This is one of only 11 factories that can use the Ford logo on shirts.

factory

factory team

Hondo was very enthusiastic about the World tour, so he wanted to drive with us for a while. Dirk-jan made a nice deal; Hondo could sit in the Model T, if Dirk-jan could drive the Woody. Hondo needed only 2 seconds to think about that and Dirk-jan and Joris jumped in the Woody.

Hondo in model T

After 60 miles Hondo still wasn’t bored of the Model T. He wanted to drive further with us. A good chance for Joris to drive in that nice car also. Later on Inge went to sit next to Dirk-jan in the Woody, and we entered a dirt road.

Woody off road

The dirt road lasted for 35 miles. The Woody had to cool down and get some extra gas regularly. After the dirt road it was time for Hondo to get back to the factory again (about 3 hours later). Hondo is so enthusiastic that he is thinking about joining the world tour for a few weeks.

We drive further towards Yellowstone National Park. When entering the park, we see a sign that tells us which campgrounds are still available. There is one campground (out of about 20) that is not full yet.

We drive quickly along the geysers quickly and have a coffee break.

mud geyser

view

On our way the road is blocked. We have to enter a parking lot. However there is no other route that leads to our campground, or we have to drive for many hours. Dirk-jan and Joris walk to the ranger to ask why the road is blocked. When the ranger sees them she becomes quite nervous: “Where is your car? We’ve got a Bear situation!”. She explained that a bear was walking around which caused trouble. We had to walk back to our car carefully. In about 5 minutes the road would be open again.

We arrived at the campground at 7.30 p.m. Unfortunately this campground now also had the sign “Full”. We had to leave the park again to find a campground 20 miles further.

late trip

A nice day of racing Yellowstone. We saw a lot of the park in a flash. We have driven 309 kilometers.

This morning we had to hand in the Harleys again, a really sad moment…

We had to be at the rental before noon, and we arrived ad 11.57 a.m.; perfect timing!

Allen is waiting for us at the rental and brings us back ‘home’.

The neighbor is around with his horses, he asks Joris if he would like to ride. Joris has been talking about that for two weeks… so YES!

It takes some time getting used to the horse but after some laps he goes like a rocket!

Joris horseriding

In the evening we go to the ‘Knotty Pine’ where Dirk will give a presentation.

We put the Model T and the Land Rover on the parking lot and put the rooftent up so the visitors can have a good look.

Parking

People with beautiful cars come by, in some of them we can have a ride. In the picture you see the hotrod of Dex, a living legend in the hotrod scene. He lives in Australia and drove races all around the world. In this Model B he holds his hat and drives very fast!!

Ride in Hotrod

We also drive in Allen’s Triumph TR03.

Ride in Triumph

Dirk gives a presentation about the World Tour, there are some enthusiastic listeners.

presentation

After the presentation the owner of the restaurant hands a check over for SOS Children’s villages. 250 dollars, that is nice!

Sponsorcheque

It was a beautiful, we sat in a lot of cars and got sponsorship money, what does a man want more…

Tomorrow we will go for a drive again!

Today we go to see falls and have a picnick. We drive with the Model T and the Harleys.

Inge prepares a healthy breakfast, which we eat on the patio.

01 Breakfast

02 Terrace

Before you can eat your breakfast of course you have to check first if the motorbikes are still in the garage.

03 Garage

Dirk-jan takes Dirk out for a short ride in his pyjamas.

03B Dirk2 en Dirk3

We first drive to Allens hangar, he hasn’t got his own plane in there anymore, he sold it two months ago. How sad for us!
In the hangar are his large Dodge and trailer, which they use to sell Thai food on festivals.

01 Hangar

05 Trailer

It is a beautiful ride to the falls, and very nice to drive behind the Model T on the Harleys.

06 Cruising

On a campsite at the river there is a nice place to have a picnick, Allen and Kat make delicious American sandwiches for us.

07 Picknick

After we cooled our feet in the river, Dirk is scared by a bear at the tourist info.

08 Bear

We pack our stuff again.

09 Starting

A lovely road to the falls.

10 Fall

On our way back the usual 3 o’clock thunderstorm comes down.
Later we go to Jackson to see a band, we all get together in Allen’s van. Two in the front, the rest of the people on the floor in the back.

11 Van

We go to the Stage Coach Bar. The same band is performing there for 44 years and they still do a great job.
There are a lot of couples on the dance floor, which is very nice to see.

12 Bar

Together with the band, Dirk sings John Denver’s Country Road. It looks like he has done this very often!

13 Dirks Show

14 DancingDIrksShow

It was a great day, we had a lot of fun. Tomorrow we go to drive with the Harleys for the last time, at 12 o’clock we have to bring them back again…

Our alarm goes off at 5 a.m., %@$@* that’s early!

We get all the stuff in the Land Rover and leave at 7 a.m. sharp, a good job!

Campsite

The first few hours the road is very good, we drive a lot of miles.

In Greenriver we see some hotrods.

Hotrod

We have to drive a short distance on the highway. However it is not very busy and we’re doing fine.

At 10.30 we drink coffee at an abandoned place with a lot of stuff. Dirk drives on the tractor.

Tractor

We drive north over a great road. We leave Wyoming and enter Idaho.

Welcome to Idaho

We pass some signs that warn for bears, however we haven’t seen a bear yet…

Beer Aware

At 16.30 we enter Victor and call Allen. He and his wife Kat invited us to stay with them for a couple of days. Allen doesn’t answer his phone. Therefore we have to while, which gives us a good opportunity to get an ice cream. It’s the perfect temperature for that!

IceCream

Allen and Kat pick us up in a nice Triumph TR3A of 1959.

At home they show us that the local newspaper wrote about the world tour. Coming Monday there will be raised money in a local bar for us.

Allen and Kat newspaper

Cheers on a good stay!

Cheers

So we will stay here for four nights and leave Tuesday morning. We get our own part of the house. Cool!

part of the house

With an amazing view.

view

Kat made us a very nice Thai curry, which should not be too spicy… Apparently it is, however it’s very nice!

Today we drove 395 kilometres, tomorrow we will rent Harley’s in Jackson, looking forward to it!

We start with a lot of wind and some rain. Therefore we reorganise the Land Rover so three people can sit in there, because we only have raincoats available for three people right now.

campsite

The wind makes folding the tent a hard job.

tent in the wind

In the meanwhile Dirk is checking the valves of the Model T, which appear to be perfect.

Maintenance01

Maintenance02

The Land Rover doesn’t close well at some points, so the Land Rover gets some maintenance as well.

door set1

door set2

On our way we pass an advertisement about 100 years Ford, what a coincidence!

100 years Ford

During a coffee stop Joris notices the front door of the Land Rover isn’t closing very well either, so this is adjusted. After cutting the inside covering of the door, it closes and opens perfectly again!

door set 3

Today is the 4th of July. In most villages you can buy fireworks and the streets are decorated with flags and flowers.

happy 4th july

We drive through a very beautiful area where dinosaurs have lived in the past. After that the landscape becomes greener, very pretty!

view

We drive a long road along the Flaming Gorge Reservoir. We arrived in Wyoming!

welcome to wyoming

There are no houses in this area, but suddenly we see the campground. A more crowded campground than you would expect in this area! At night we can see the fireworks which is let off at the lake because of the 4th of July.

fireworks

Tomorrow we have to drive about 220 miles (350 km), because we promised to arrive in a town near Jackson (Wyoming). This is more than we normally drive, so we agree to rise at 5, so that we can get on the road at 7. A challenge! Hopefully there won’t be too much mountains on our route…
Today we drove 249 km.

We rise and shine at 6.30. The floor of the tent was not flat this night, so only one half of the sleeping area was used.

Dirk is very busy working on the Model T. We will go full speed today!

01 Dirk at model T

To get back on our route we have to drive 8 miles off road. Dirk-jan is driving the Model T down the mountain. A nice piece of steering!

02 Dirk-jan off road

Today Petra and driver Joris form the Land Rover team. The Model T team consists of Inge, Trudy, driver assistent Dirk and driver Dirk-jan.

03 teams

The Land Rover really looks like a rover today. Dirk put the garbage in front of one of it’s eyes.

04 Pirate car

Dirk feels comfortable sitting next to his daughter in law at the backseat of the Model T. Now the only thing he needs is a cigar and a newspaper…

05 Dirk on back seat

We are driving the 72 North. A very nice road with amazing scenic views.

06 scenic view

After the 72 we enter the 10. The landscape is emptier and there are a lot of gray mountains. Such a difference with all the colourful landscapes we had before! However there are many hidden treasures here. There are lots of trucks and trains with coals. We have to wait long before a slow train with 7 locomotives passed.

07 train

There also appears to be oil in the grey ground. We see a lot of oil pumps along the road.

08 oil pumps

In the afternoon a strong wind and rain comes up. The raincoats were put on. The rain and wind doesn’t bother the Model T.

09 drive trough rain

The landscape becomes more colourful again. We see some green spots.

10 green and sand

According to the map we should find a campground, but we didn’t see it along the road.

The cows can walk free here. When they want to cross the road they look at you and then still just cross over.

10 green and sand

The steering wheel of the Model T lasts for more than 30.000 km now, you can see that very well.

12 steering wheel

When we arrive in Duchesne we ask for a campground. The women we asked drives us to a campground, so kind!

At 18.30 we arrive on the campground at the Starvation Lake. This used to be a valley with a village including a church and a post office. The government bought this in the 70’s and flooded it.

13 Campsite

We build up the tent and cook dinner.

14 Tent

15 Cooking

We drove 264 km today and are in the neighbourhood of Salt Lake City. Tomorrow we will drive through Ashley National Forest going north.