15, 16, 17 July 2020

Waterfalls, a Pilgrimage, the 101, and GIANT TREES: Hey everyone, I apologize for not updating for a few days, but I hope it makes sense by the end of this post. 

15 July: I spent the 14th and 15th with one of my good friends who lives in Portland. We spent most of our time either paddleboarding or hiking. The 10 mile long 'Trail of Ten Falls', a combination of most of the trails in the Silver Falls State Park, was beautiful! Although we were running into a lot of people at first, it quickly thinned out as we hiked a few miles in and most people either turned back or took a much shorter route back. Though we both had a heavy breakfast, by the end of the hike we were starving! One call to Big Burger late, and we both scarfed down Triple Bacon Burgers, fries, and milkshakes in record time. 

    

    This was the first day since the trip began that I haven't started the Cougar. Luckily for me, she didn't get jealous or petty on me.

16 July: And we're off again! Although the drive to Redwood National Park was not trivial one, especially with the extra time and distance added by taking Rte 101, I couldn't drive into Oregon with the Cougar and not stop by West Coast Classic Cougar! For all you Cougar aficionados reading this, WCCC needs no introduction. For some from VMF and almost everyone else reading this blog, WCCC is pretty much the Mecca of classic Cougar restoration and repair. In simple terms, they strip down Cougars that have been consigned to the scrap heap, and remove their usable parts and make the parts available to people like me so that we can keep our Cougars functioning properly. But that sentence doesn't give them a quarter of the credit they deserve! As far as I can tell (and their mission statement on their websites states), they have an almost complete catalog of every screw, bolt, nut, washer, ect. that came on every Cougar from 1967 through 1973. The sheer amount of work that must have took is incredible, and even with all that tedious work, everyone there still seemed genuinely excited and energized to be there! 

    I can't thank Scott enough for giving me a tour of their facilities (and enduring my endless questions)! From helping me locate the right brake-light switch for my Cougar, to identifying that the previous owner of my car had butchered the install of the trunk weatherstripping, everyone was helpful and interested. Many of them have even been keeping up with this blog (Hi Everyone, thanks for being awesome)! 

P.S. As most of you know, Mustangs and Cougars share most of their structural pieces, so Mustang owners can find a lot of hard to find original pieces at WCCC along with us Cougar folks.

    Alright, West Coast Classic Cougar advertisement over! After spending much more time than I had anticipated at WCCC, I made my way down to Route 101. Unfortunately, I've heard that the Southern part of 101/1/PCH are more uniformly nice to drive than the Northern part, and after driving that I can believe it. The route spent most of its time threading through towns filled with stop-lights and stop signs, and precious little time next to the Pacific. 

    Driving on 101 was the first time I have ever wished the Cougar had more power. As of right now, my drivetrain is as such:

-1970 351W w/ stock interals (as far as I know)

-1970 351W stock heads and valves (almost 100% certain it has hardened valve seats)

-Comp Cams 262H camshaft (110 LSA, 262I and 270E duration, .493I and .500E valve lift), hydraulic flat tappet lifters, Comp Cams springs, and adjustable stock ratio (1.6:1) rockers

-Edelbrock Performer RPM Air Gap Intake

-QuickFuel 600HR Double Pumper Carb (I would prefer vacuum secondaries for my 3.00 rear gears)

-Headman Headers, which hit EVERYTHING, and have been bashed into shape multiple times by your's truly.

-Wide Ratio 1970 4-Speed Toploader Transmission

-McLeod StreetPro 11" Clutch and Diaphram Pressure Plate

-SpeedMaster SFI stock weight flywheel

-3.00 open rear differential

    The reason why I wanted more power is that the passing lanes on the sections of 101 I drove were short, rare, and horrendously placed. Though not a missile, my car is by no means slow, especially if it is in the right gear. But the inability to make safe passes given the space constraints of the road meant that I spent as much time cursing 'those bloody caravans' as a Top Gear presenter, and was constantly distracted from the scenic views by brake lights from an automobile in front of me, or traumatized by the minivan in front of me going 5 under the already preposterously low speed limit. 

    Then again, it is possible that this is just my inner New York-driver coming out... as a species, we're not known for our patience with other drivers. If you suffer from a similar affliction, I would suggest you avoid the upper portion of 101 unless you have a Hellcat-like power-to-weight ratio so as to make quick work out of even the smallest passing opportunity. All that being said, I still got some great pictures!

It was very windy on the beach!

I couldn't avoid the cliche of 'dipping my toe' in the Pacific

    As you may have guessed, I did eventually make it to Redwood National Park, and preceded to hike about 4 miles into the woods to get to my campsite. Once again, I was treated to a gorgeous view of nature right outside my tent, although this view was certainly misty-er than my previous views. I also took some more pictures of the Milky Way and made an attempt at another star trail, but I'm a little short on time to do the post-processing on those images, so they will likely appear at a later date. 

17 July 2020: The real treat of Redwood National Park, though, was the Avenue of the Giants. If you've read along so far, you probably have realized that I use exclamation points and very positive words extremely frequently. Unfortunately, such overuse often leads to a dulling of the original meaning of such words. Because of this, I'll just post the pictures and let you all come up with the right words to describe the rather over-sized trees.

I tried to go for an old-timey look for this picture.

    Ya, those were some BIG trees. Having the Cougar there really does lend perspective to that fact, which is why there are no pictures of just trees; the scale just wouldn't come through and the picture would be unremarkable. That's why so many landscape photos have people in them, even if they're just tiny specs that you barley notice. 

    I also had my first meetup with a fellow forum member today! I was able to meet up with Ed, who goes by 'Sir Ed' on ClassicCougarCommunity.com, at the overlook of Donner Lake. He brought a his very original '67 Cougar to meet mine. I'm not sure she (my Cougar) has ever met another Cougar, so this was a first for both me and her, as we have never seen another Cougar on the road. (The first pre-facelift Cougars I saw in the flesh were the ones at WCCC, but they weren't on the road so they don't officially count.)

Oh if cars could talk, the things they would say!

Tomorrow is Death Valley! Due to the recent massive heatwave and the loss of my fan shroud earlier in the trip (a causality of the AC v-belt incident), I've decided that spending too much time there might not be the best idea if I wish to continue this trip with the same Cougar. As a result, I won't be camping there, but I'll still get plenty of great pictures! 

Hopefully none of them include a cloud of evaporated coolant...

Thanks for following along, and Wish Me Luck!

Ken