VCCA Home Forums GENERAL DISCUSSION Meets, Tours & Events My Six Cylinder Tour Journal... Vermont/New Hampshire 2019

The call came from tour organizer Steve Dalphonse about a month ago...

"Are you going to be able to write the journal that you do on the Chat Site this year? We'd really appreciate it if you could throw that together..."

I sent back word that I'd be happy to do it. Now, you're all wondering what happened! The tour was over a couple of weeks ago, and not a word on the Chat Site about it. In my defence, it turns out that the otherwise fantastic hotels that we stayed at did not offer up the greatest wifi or internet connections for me to be writing journals into the evenings. Now that I'm back home in Canada, I've got nothing left but the photos and great memories of an enjoyable tour.

Settle into your seats, and hang on as we take a look back at the 2019 Eastern Six Cylinder tour from the front seat of my 1951 Chevrolet Deluxe Sedan...

January 2019... Me: "Hey Randy (to my good friend Randy Pettitt)... I've got the application for the Six Tour. Are you in?
Randy: "Naw... things are tight, and Brenda won't want me to go..."

May... Me: "Are you sure, Randy? I've still got room in the car..."
Randy: "No... Brenda will still be working... I shouldn't..."

July... Me: "Offer's still open..."
Randy: "There's no way Brenda will want me to go..."

Mid-way through August... Me: (this time in front of Brenda!) "Last chance Randy...I think I can still get you onto the tour..."
Brenda: "What are you waiting for, Randy???!!! GO!!!! I can use the week away from you!!"
Randy: "I love you, Dear!"

And that's how we got to standing on the street outside my house in Bolton at 6:00am on a Saturday morning. The 1951 is on the trailer, hooked up to my new-to-me 2015 GMC for it's first VCCA outing.(Thanks, Kaygee!!) Off we go to Stowe, Vermont and Gorham, New Hampshire with the Eastern Six Cylinder Gang...

Saturday Sept 7th...

The morning starts early, and just like every year I got very little sleep. The anticipation of friends, sights, and Vintage Chevys keeps me up half the night. The alarm went off at 5:00am, and I was up like a shot to get the car onto the trailer. Randy rolled up right at 5:55, to admire my new tow rig. My 2015 GMC Sierra is all decked out in full trailer towing package, and a fancy new six speed automatic for ease of towing through the Appalachian Mountains that we'll hit later on today. My 5yr old daughter Abby isn't a huge fan yet, because there's no DVD player in the back, and her best friend's Dad got a new black truck... she was hoping for a black one too. "Yeah, but theirs is a Nissan, not a GMC... You tell Emmett his Daddy didn't buy a real truck!" I'm winning all my parenting awards!

Off we head, with our nationally obligated stop at Tim Horton's out of the way. It's going to be my first time going to the USA by travelling over the north side of Lake Ontario. We head down the 407 Toll hi way, in a bid to avoid the parking lot that is North America's busiest freeway, the 401. It works. Very little traffic, despite the fact I can feel the cash draining out of my bank account onto the toll road. I'm liking the new trailer towing mirrors, despite their constant hovering in my peripheral vision. The transmission is a huge improvement over the 4 speed in my old truck. Gone is the constant gear hunting around 95kmh.

We pull up to the border crossing at Prescott/Ogdensburg at 10:30am. We had nothing to declare, and were allowed in right away. No line ups like around the Niagara Falls/Buffalo area. They asked me for the ownership of the trailer... but I think that was because he was too lazy to walk back to read the license plate number!

After our lunch stop we continued motoring across the top of Lake Champlain, and then south to Burlington along the east side of the lake. A lot of run-down properties considering the appeal of water front living! The good... lots of vintage tin sightings! just east of the lake, the foothills and mountains start. The roads start to wind, and the scenery really starts to look beautiful! I'm thrilled that the truck handles it all with ease. About 15 miles from Stowe we come across the exit...to Bolton! I texted my wife the picture to tell her that after 10 hours of driving, Randy had navigated us in a big circle!

Earlier in the week, we discussed our 6:00am departure time based on the fact that registration in Stowe closed at 4:30pm, and dinner is served at 6:00pm. We pulled into the hotel at 4:25...made it!

We may have been among the last to arrive, as the hotel lot is jammed with Chevrolets. The trailer parking is out the back, so I headed there to unload the car while Randy went and checked into the hotel room and picked up our tour packages. Lots of visiting with old friends, and checking out the "new" cars on the tour. Forty seven cars have been registered, with the oldest being an unrestored 1931 5 passenger coupe.

Dinner was held in the hotel's restaurant. Our fellow Canadians were all set up with a reserved "Canadian Table". With us on tour are Paul Rozon & Maggie Ross from Burlington Ont. in their 1953 Belair, and Barry & Pat Staples from Newcastle Ont. along with Vermayle Longmuir riding in Barry's 1951 Belair. We had a good laugh about our table centrepiece when Steve Jones came over and asked how we got Smokey the Bear into a Canadian Mountie outfit! Dinner was fantastic, then it was out to the parking lot to check on the cars, and then off to bed. Hopefully it's not raining tomorrow!!

Sunday Sept 8...

Around here nobody sleeps in! We're all up early for a 9:00am start to the tour. Randy and I get up at 7:00, and head for breakfast. I love hotel pancakes! Next it's off to the parking lot for my favourite hour of the entire week. Nothing beats the feeling of that early morning warm up for the first day of touring! All of the guys are out there in the morning, doing some last minute cleaning and adjustments. For some of us, it's as simple as checking the oil and coolant levels... and then for guys like Chuck Gibson, it's taking the entire exhaust manifold off and swapping out the gaskets 15 minutes before we leave! It really is the best place to do the easy work, as there is an abundance of hands and heads around that have boatloads of experience wrenching on old Stovebolts. The cars that spent the night in the enclosed trailers roll out for the first time, and it adds to the growing excitement for the week ahead. At 8:45 the older cars roll out, and the rest of us begin leaving around 9:00.

For those that have never been on a VCCA tour, this is pretty standard for how we get 50 cars through a hundred miles of touring on any given day. Our tour directors have run the routes, and triple checked all of the directions to go into our tour book. Each day is a different colour of pages. We run in smaller groups of cars. Some folks choose to head out alone, and others pair up. For myself, my goal is to surround myself with folks I trust are looking out for me if things go wrong, and I know I'm going to be looking out for them too. Our gang likes to look at the sites that are planned, and spend time socializing with each other and folks out there we meet. Rarely are ice-cream stops missed as well! Usually we're first out of the lot in the morning, and last home in the evenings! During the day there are always stops planned where all 50 cars get together again, and times for that are scheduled in the tour book.

Today's run is going to take us west to Shelburne via route 15. The first 20 miles puts us through Smugglers Notch pass. The tour book lists mile numbers 8.3 - 10 as follows...

8.3 Beginning of Smuggler's Notch
9.9 Ears popped yet? (we climbed in second gear the whole mile & a half!)
10.0 Boulders, boulders...
10.1 Switchback. (Ran out of steam in 2nd here, had to double clutch it into first... really steep on the turn!)
10.3 NARROW CUT (sphincter restrictive)! (yes, it said that in the book!)

We continued on through Jeffersonville, seeing lots of beautiful Vermont scenery and old farms. Arrival at the Shelburne Museum was at about 11a.m. What a treat this museum was! Of course, the paying public was treated to a free car show in the parking lot!

Originally founded by one of the descendants of the Vanderbilt family, they have collected various buildings, artifacts, and history from Vermont and nearby Lake Champlain. Many original buildings were disassembled and hauled to the museum where they were painstakingly rebuilt and restored. The crown jewel of the museum is the Lake Steamer Ticonderoga. It was hauled over 2 miles across farmers fields and the railway lines back in 1955. Seeing it's single cylinder upright steam engine powering it's paddle wheels was incredible. What a mechanical marvel!

Other notable displays were a round barn full of original and restored horse wagons and coaches, as well as three other barns full of them. There was a restored carousel, and a giant "U" shaped building that housed a scale 10 mile long parade of circus vehicles, and an exquisite collection of early hand made fire arms from around Vermont.

As always, we made sure to stop and read all the displays, and found we were about on quarter (or less!) of the way through the museum by lunch. We had to decide to knock off "early" at 4pm and start heading back to Stowe. After a small photoshoot at the round barn, we were the last few cars to leave. The route back happened to pass by the Ben & Jerry's ice-cream factory. We skipped the tour and headed right to the snacker to enjoy the ice-cream!

Upon our return to Stowe, it was dinner on our own. We headed into town and ran into a few others from our group. we waited for a table at the restaurant, and after a delicious meal came out to a nice dark evening. Construction blocked the way back to the hotel... and I'm pretty sure the construction workers were amused by the 6-8 vintage Chevrolet's driving around lost, trying to make sense of their poor detour signage!

Back at the hotel it was an evening of cards in the hospitality room. Women from Ohio are cut-throat card sharks!

More Sunday photos... Barry Staples and I always make sure to get a photo op with our cars at some point in the tours! That black 1951 sedan is the trusty original ride of our VCCA president, Franklin Gage from Maryland. It's always a pleasure to have Franklin join us on tours!

Well you did it again !! Reading your journals always gives me "wish I was there" feelings !! Who was driving the black 47 ? If it belongs to the fellow from southern Ohio, he had quite a tour getting to the NE Tour
assuming he drove it.
Looking forward to the next installment !!

Dick

Thanks, Dick... I'm hoping you (and a couple of the other guys... I'm looking at you, Charlie, Hawkeye, and Bob!) are able to make it out to one of these soon. Next year may be your year. Details to come at the end of this journal!

Monday Sept. 9th...

Finally... a day dawns with no forecast of rain! The hurricanes have all moved off to the north, and the day looks like it's going to be awesome! I made plans last night with Chuck Gibson to do a valve adjustment on the '51 this morning. It was a 6:30 breakfast with Randy, then off to the parking lot to set up for Chuck's arrival. The fog was hanging low in the lot, and the cars looked beautiful! Once the first hood opens, the crowd starts to form. Soon it's turned into another social hour before our 8:30am departure.

Having Chuck work on your car is a blessing in many ways... 1) He loves doing it! 2) He shares his tips and helpful hints and explains as he goes what he's doing and why. 3) He's got God's gift of a well tuned ear to set things up so a Stovebolt hums beautiful music. Chucks career is tuning pipe organs, and it's certainly debatable which sounds better... a Chevy six tuned by him, or an organ. One mile down the road and my money is on the Six! Between Chuck and John Hudson, many of us on the tour are spoiled with good mechanical service. We'll talk more about Chuck's career later.

8:30 rolls around, and it's time to move out. I make the mistake of asking Paul & Barry "who's leading?"... "You are!" is the reply! Crap, I lose that game pretty often. I've got a couple of trick moves up my sleeve now. Randy has a reputation as the U-turn King, so we can screw up the first turn of the day and get banished to the back of the pack... but then poor Randy has to hear about it all day. Besides, we pulled that move the last time Randy came with me! Trick 2, is to wait until another group leaves and latch onto them. There goes the New Jersey bunch now... we're off like a herd of turtles!

A quick look in the tour book this morning at breakfast has us noting that the stops are a rock quarry, a couple of scenic stops, a park for lunch, a cemetery (!?) and a church dinner. It sounded downright dull, but fortunately for us the brochure was really not reflective of what lay ahead!

Our first stop was Vermont Verde Antique Quarry... a quarry where all of the black & green "marble" tile and granites come from. Our "guide" was the man that owns the property today, and operates it. He explained how the slabs are cut carried out, and the process for finishing them into usable pieces. Samples were also handed out! The quarry itself had to be 150 to 180 feet deep. It was a huge hole, with straight edge sides. A couple of dare-devils amongst us even snuck back to walk down the stairs after we left. Not me though!

After the quarry, we followed more scenic Vermont roads into the village of Rochester to the town square. The cars all lined up facing the centre of the park on three sides, and we had a beautiful picnic lunch. The organizer of the Vermont half of this year's tour, John McTaggart, was raised around Rochester. It was interesting listening to him talk about his youth in the area both here at the park and at our later stops. The park was just a beautiful picture of small town America... towering trees, cool breeze, and all of those surrounding Chevrolets!

After lunch we hit the backroads for what the book seemed to advertise as the dull part of the tour. I can't believe how wrong my initial perception was. We headed off onto narrow country roads, that lead to narrower country roads. The directions got a little dicey here, as some roads were un-named and there were directions to "bear left" or take the fork to the right, etc, etc... Soon we had multiple vintage Chevy's going in every way, but we ended up finding ourselves.

At one point we came to the floating bridge at sunset lake. The '53 convertible owned by the Kanz's that I was following stopped at the far end of the bridge, and they got out to take some pictures. Soon we had a line up all piled up behind us! Pretty sure we were over the bridge's weight limit! One of the newbies on the tour stopped in the same spot at the end of the bridge in their 1954 convertible for a special photo. Twenty five years earlier, Dave Wilber's parents had stopped for a picture in the very same car on the first ever Eastern Six Cylinder Tour.

After the bridge, it was up into the hills, and over a couple of gravel roads to the cemetery at South Peacham. John Mctaggart wanted us to stop and visit the cemetery, not to visit the many family he has resting here, but to take in one of the most beautiful panorama's that rural Vermont has to offer. We've spent days driving through beautiful scenery and nothing held a candle to the serene landscape backed by beautiful hills and peaceful solitude that this cemetery had to offer. What we thought looked like it would be a 5 minute stop in the book turned out to be an hour long break to reflect on how thankful we all were to be where we were in both life and on this day. Some folks brought their cars along the cemetery road for some pictures, which we tried to capture with the proper respect to grounds where we were standing. Others enjoyed the quiet walk while reading many of the older grave markers. Our visit was only punctuated by the fact that we had to leave for dinner...

One of the newbies on the tour stopped in the same spot at the end of the bridge in their 1954 convertible for a special photo. Twenty five years earlier, Dave Wilber's parents had stopped for a picture in the very same car on the first ever Eastern Six Cylinder Tour.

Dinner was 7 miles away at nearby Danville. The Danville Congressional Church welcomed us with a very nice home cooked meal. Their pastor did a fantastic job welcoming us and helping serve meals to 100 hungry people. We passed around the collection plate for them, and they were very appreciative of our generous donations. Afterwards the kitchen staff was out checking out the cars. One of thee ladies told me her father had one just like mine. I asked if she wanted to go for a spin, and she hopped right in for a trip around the block.

The drive back to Stowe was 50 miles directly into the setting sun... and my sunglasses were on the kitchen ledge at home in Canada!

Tuesday Sept. 10th...

It's travel day! On most of these tours we stay in one hotel the whole week and branch out in every direction to see all of the sights. This year things are a little different. From Saturday evening until the end of today's tour our hosts have been Vermont's John McTaggart & Pat Halford. At the end of the day we will end up in Gotham New Hampshire for three days under the care of Steve & Jerry Dalphonse. (Steve is m006840 here on the VCCA Chat Forum).

In our tour application we had received a bunch of options for trailer parking during the tour to alleviate some of the parking congestion at the host hotels. Some folks that came from the southern routes had left their trailers at the McTaggart's house 2 hours to the south and will return to get them at the end of the week. Others dropped them at the beginning of the tour in Gotham, drove the old cars here to Stowe, and will be reunited with them at the end of today. Others brought their trailers here to Stowe, and will leave them here while we continue to Gorham, then return to pick them up on their way west after the tour.

Then there was our choice! We chose the difficult method of towing to both hotels. It sounds easy, but the problem was that the tour stops today did not have enough parking for trailers, so the choice was to skip the stops or drive out the 85 miles to the stops then return and load the cars. We picked the later, because the stops sounded so good in the brochure! It's going to be a long day at the wheel!

At 7:00 am the guys could be found out in the lot around Paul's car while it got a valve tune up. We left at 8:00 am with Randy navigating again. Lots more rolling hills and long climbs with beautiful scenery over to Bradford. Here we found the home of Sargent Metal Works. Another nice car show in their parking lot is all I'm going to be able to show you, as we were not allowed to take pictures inside.

The logo on the building offered a clue as to what was in this understated shop. Inside was the United States premier restoration facility for classic Bugatti's. There were 8-10 different Buggatti's from the mid 1920's to 1940's in various states of repair or restoration. Four guys worked in the building, and the work was fantastic! A couple of cars were all original, and others were in the midst of full frame off restorations. The work was exquisite! Also in the building were various other makes including a 1937 Ford woodie wagon, a 1927 Packard, a real '63 Ferrari GTO, and others.

Meanwhile, most of the ladies headed to the Red Kite Candy factory next door for a guided tour and samples. I'd love to tell you more about that, but I was focused on the eye candy at Sargents!

After we left Sargent's, we headed back up into the hills about 10 miles from where we were yesterday. This time our goal was Harvey Lake, where we enjoyed a Jamaican bar-b-que lunch, lakeside. It was about 2 miles of scenic gravel roads into the lake. You can sense the pending doom in the atmosphere when you get 47 vintage show/tour cars onto a gravel road. The common thought is "There better be something good at the end of this road!" Once again we were not disappointed... Harvey Lake was absolutely gorgeous, and our meal couldn't have been tastier!

Overheard after the gravel road... Our VCCA president, Franklin Gage, asking 2019 VCCA "Best of the Best" owner Dale Carter if his '47 convertible was now "worst of the worse" after the gravel road! Dale: "Nope, you've still got that title, Franklin!" (Franklin's '52 still sports a working dog leash to hold the hood shut! Lots of character in that old girl!)

We spent lunch watching over another beautiful Vermont scene, the waves lapping at the shore and the mountains surrounding us. Lots of great friendships and fellowship as well. This is what it's all about!

After lunch the rest of the group headed over to Gorham, while 6-8 of us headed back to Stowe to get our trailers. The drive between the hotels was a lot less work, but not near as exciting as driving the old cars. It was a welcome break behind the wheel of the truck in all of the mountains we were heading into. We followed Barry & Pat's motorhome most of the way, ducking off to get gas into the truck at one point. Barry was keeping it to 55mph, but the long climbs would knock him down to about 40mph on the hills. Randy and I had fun trying to guess how long it would take to catch up to them, since we stopped for 5 minutes, and figured he'd be 5 or 6 miles ahead. I ran it 5-8 mph over the speed limit on the level and downhills, and held 55mph on the climbs. We had the gap narrowed to about 2 minutes, when we came over a hill to find them waiting on the side of the road for us! Ruined the fun of our guessing game! On we headed to Gorham.

The Town & Country Inn in Gorham was like looking at a step back into the late 1950's. A nice, clean friendly hotel with great service! We got the car unloaded, then went into their restaurant for dinner. Our waitress loved our thick Canadian accents! After some more evening card playing, it was off to bed. We've got big mountains to climb tomorrow!

Wednesday Sept 11...

It does not go unnoticed that this tour is regularly scheduled over 9/11. Once again, we're reminded at every turn by the many half mast flags in memory of those that gave their lives in the name of freedom.

Wednesday Sept 11...

We wake up to one of the most anticipated tour days of the week... the tour to the top of Mount Washington. We also wake up to rain !! That's okay though, as there's no quit in this bunch of Chevy fanatics!

Departure time is set for an early 7:30am, as we have a train to catch at 9:00. The drive over to the mountain takes us through beautiful White Mountain National Forest. We got all of the trailer queens wet as well as dirty this time around. I guess it's safe to say that there really aren't any trailer queens on these longer tours, especially after seeing the weather, the grades (up and down works out the engine and the brakes!) and the miles put on. We all make it in one piece to Mount Washington... which is covered in fog! Who knows if it was really even there, you couldn't see the top half of it!

Our tickets were to ride up via one of the modern diesel/hydraulic locomotives pushing a coach. We got to see the steam engine previous to our train chug it's way up the first half until it was gone in the fog. Our brakeman/tour guide on the way up was both entertaining and enlightening. We learned of the history of the railway, and the early days of tourism on Mount Washington. Half way up he yelled "Look... a moose!!" Sure enough, there was a moose sticking his head out of the forest. After a few seconds we realized it was a pretty stiff looking moose, and we got the true story....

It turns out that at one time he was a real moose. Shot as a prize by a hunter and stuffed. The National Parks ended up buying it, and converting it into a decoy for trapping illegal hunters. The moose was outfitted with motors that turned the head and wagged the tail so it appeared real. Even got shot a few more times! Eventually he outlived his usefulness and was put up for auction where he current owner of the Cog Railway Museum found and purchased him. He thought it would be swell for the tourists to see the moose standing at the edge of the forest doing his tail wagging and head shaking. It all went well... until moose rutting season. A real bull moose found him, and didn't recognize him as a fake. Let's just say that after the battle the poor guy's head and tail no longer work, and he looks a lot worse for wear...

By this time we reached about half way up, and were told the grade coming up was 38%... that's going up 38 feet in height for every 100 feet of track. It didn't feel that steep, until he told us to stand in the aisle and lean frontwards. It was hard to capture the pic, but that's Dave Miner leaning standing perfectly upright, while the train is on a 38% incline!

At the top things were pretty foggy. We were in a cloud that looked grey and fluffy from the bottom of the mountain, but was really moving 56mph once you were up there! It was like being sand blasted by a fine mist! On clear days the view is spectacular, but we saw none of it. Apparently you can see Canada from up there. Not to worry... I've seen plenty of it! I'm sure the folks that go up on the nice days are told about the awful weather conditions, and leave wondering what that would be like. We didn't have that problem! The ride down was much the same as the ride up, but the brakeman wasn't as funny. He concentrated more on the brakes... which was a good thing!

As we left the railway, Barry pulled off for a photo op with the cars... because you know, we don't pass those up! As we paused to take pics with the steam locomotive at the entrance, we noticed others coming along that saw what we were doing and got in line for the same. When we pulled away there were 8 other Chevrolet's waiting for pictures! Our next stop was to read the plaque and get pictures of the world famous Mount Washington Hotel. It seemed to be more of a Cadillac type place, so we kept moving on in our little Chevrolets.

On down the road we head... about 3 miles. Barry has spotted something. It's a train stopped at a restored train station, and we love old buildings! A few of us pull in to take some pictures of the station and the train and an odd thing happened. We hopped out of the cars and were taking photos along the side of the train towards the station, and I got the odd feeling I was being watched. I turned around and at the windows on the train were all the passengers with their cameras out, taking pictures of our cars. It was like the zoo animals were watching us as we were watching them! The station is named Crawford, and is right at the head of Crawford Notch.

We finished up with our pictures and were pulling out just as the train pulled away from the station. The tracks paralleled the road for a mile or so, and then we dropped into Crawford Notch, while the train headed off along the tops of the surrounding hills. Along the bottom of the valley we came upon The Willey House. It is a rest area with a gift shop and of course, the required ice cream stop. A little slice of heaven surrounded by towering hills and mountains. Across the road is a pond filled with fish and ducks. We ventured over to watch the inhabitants fight over our offerings of fish food, or duck food... I guess it depends which you asked!

I'm pretty sure I could have rented one of the cabins they had there and moved in for the rest of the fall. We've noticed the trees just starting to turn colours all week, and in a few weeks the whole state is going to be beautiful shades of red and orange. We hit the road again, heading back towards Gorham via the covered bridge at Jackson. Back in Gorham, we turned the local gas station into a hot spot as we all circled around looking for a free pump. I compared travel notes with a couple of motorbikes from Ontario that were also enjoying the sights.

For dinner, four of us decided to head out to a local Italian restaurant. We'll meet you there! Oh, wait... it's closed! All of a sudden we've got a Vintage Chevy circle of indecision while we decide our other options. There's a rib place down the street. I can tell by all of the other vintage Chevrolets there that it must be good! We eat up quick, as we have a seminar to attend tonight!

Great photos and journal Bruce. A little info on the "little slice of Heaven". The Willey house while an idyllic setting is at the bottom of a mountain in an area prone to landslides. The occupants were aware of this and had a planned route of escape should one occur. That happened one night during a heavy rainstorm and the family living there along with two boarders fled for the "safe" spot but none reached it as all were killed by the landslide. Ironically the house remained in place and was never damaged-a large boulder in the path of the slide remained in place and diverted the slide to either side of the house-now the rest stop gift shop. On August 28th 1826 seven family members and two highway workers lost their lives there.