Ian Curtis
Senior Member
Last weekend, my wife & I took a trip up to the Oyster bar, a nice restaurant about 60 miles away with great seafood and a gorgeous view to celebrate our anniversary. We had a reservation for noon, and google said it was about an hour and a half by back roads. Just in case, we left at about 9:45 AM leaving a sufficient margin for slow driving, traffic, break downs, what have you.
Heading north from Snohomish on SR 9 was typical. This stretch of road is pretty heavily travelled, reasonably hilly, and full of stop lights where the speed limit is 55 MPH. Modern stop lights are not timed with Model As in mind, but after a full brake job this past winter I am much more comfortable along this stretch than I used to be. Only one light where a car in front of me slammed on the brakes required a full brake application from me, I tend to leave plenty of room just-in-case. North of Arlington, traffic mostly disappears, the terrain flattens out, and we had the road to ourselves. This stretch is popular with motorcycles and bicycles, and it is nice to pass a bicycle once in a while.
Just after Sedro-Woolley, we stopped for gas where they had a nice mural including a Model A. At the gas station we checked our watches & realized we had made great time. This left us with about 45 minutes to kill, so we thought we might stop at the small town of Edison en-route to the restaurant.
Unfortunately, shortly after we turned onto the Chuckanut drive (SR 11) there was a scary sound for about 5 seconds, followed by silence. We pulled off into a farmers driveway, and I opened the hood to discover that the fan belt had disintegrated.
After a quick call to another club member for advice, we looked on our phones and discovered there was an O'Reilly's about 15 minutes south of us in Burlington. Zooming down SR 11 at 50 MPH, the Moto-Meter indicated a comfortably cool radiator. Unfortunately, once we hit downtown Burlington there seemed to be stoplight every intersection, and drivers pulling out in front of us every 5 feet to force us to go as slowly as possible. We made it to the O'Reilly's indicated on Apple Maps only to discover that it had closed permanently! Meanwhile, the Moto-Meter was pegged, and the steam was pretty apparent. So, we sat in the parking lot for 20 minutes or so for a cool down followed by some replacement water. We checked Google Maps, and found an open NAPA another ½ mile down the road.
Picture after cooling down a bit.
At the NAPA, we called the restaurant to let them know that we had car trouble would be late, and purchased a new belt. Unfortunately, in the process of installing the belt I broke a few wires, so we also needed to buy a crimping kit & replace those connections. I took off my dress shirt, but was totally covered in oil from my elbows down.
After the repairs, the electrical system still worked & the new belt stayed on. We zoomed back up SR 11, arriving at the Restaurant around 1. When we walked in, the hostess was looking down at her book & asked how our car troubles had turned out. I said, “car is fine... but I look like I got inked by a squid, where is your restroom?”. The service & meal was excellent, for any curious Washingtonians.
View from the restaurant porch
On the way back, we drove along the coast, stopping at Bay View State Park which had some gorgeous views. The trip back was otherwise uneventful, but it ended up being quite a long day with the drive, lunch, and break down.
Bay View State Park
Spada Lake Trip Log (2016)
Mountain Loop Highway Trip Log (2015)
