2-3-09

To St Helens

Gee, I didn’t go very far today but I saw a lot of different things…

The first thing was this nice little Morris Minor sedan. My dad had a pickup like this and both my brother and I loved that little pickup. It got 30+ miles to a gallon and at that time gas was 29cents a gallon. You could drive it 100 miles for a $1.00 or a cent a mile….

This was a tight corner little road. I have never seen a honk your horn before going around a corner. I almost stopped and got my ear plugs out but didn’t. I hugged the inside of those corners though.

There is a little restaurant on top of elephant hill that is famous for its pancakes, or so it says it is. The new owner is an elephant freak and there were elephant stuff everywhere. These two are really seats for a nice woodedn table. I just had coffee to warm up with which was good.

I took the road up to St Marys especially because it said that there was a historic train there. I asked a gal in town and she said that it was a little further down the street and she thought it was for sale. Down the street I went and found this water tank for an old steamer but no train.

The gal had said that the train hauled coal and this is the little old station house along with an underground coal car I guess that is what it is. The station is or was a café now and gift shop. Yup, it is for sale too.

I was heading out of town when I went past this old store where the big front doors were open. I had to stop and go back and check out the Ford Anglia sticking its nose out. Wow, a cool little unrestored car, my favorite kind.

don’t ya just love the clean lines of this little car?

English and Australian Fords.

I wonder if you could license this as a three whell motorcycle in the US?

This one was restored and looking pretty cute for sure.

The guy you will meet soon said it was 9 hp but that is English figuring and it really has 25 brake horse power.

some photos on display of a Matchless being worked on.

This building was just full of neat stuff. From these little cars to model airplanes, boats and just a collection of neat stuff.

how about this 1/8 scale model of a Citron.

ah, my favouite Citron….. a CV2 or could it be a CV4?

We had one of these in High School auto shop class. It is a sandblaster for cleaning spark plugs. Now you just remove the old and put in new ones.

I liked this sign. A poet cook maybe?

As I was leaving that store with all the cool stuff in it I met this guy that came walking across the street. The shop had been empty and it turns out this guy is the owner of the building. He has two friends that have gone in with him and have there ‘stuff’ in the building. There are work places where they can work on their projects and have their cool stuff out on display. It is free to walk around and see everything. They just decided that they don’t need any money for it and would like everyone to see what they have. This guy teaches school three days a week. He teaches auto shop and they have an amazing array of old cool vehicles in the shop for the kids to work on. This dude is way laid back and just the nicest person you could ever want to meet and visit with.

I told him that I had a couple of friends that were teacher and they were disappointed with their students abilities. I asked him if he had any problems with his kids. He thought a minute and then said that he didn’t have any problems other than, and here he held up his hand,  and his finger was about an eighth inch from his thumb, with cell phones. Other than that he said, they were really good kids. He liked them and I bet they like him too.

We talked a long time out in the street and I could have spent all day there but the road was calling and we parted friends. Man, these people down here are really nice.

Not far out of town is this mail box.

I saw a potato digger much like this in Iceland when I went over there to see the sheep farms. The covered area in the back is for potato pickers to sort out any bad spuds before they get bagged up. This is for bad weather digging. In the stores I see the new potatoes in bins and it is interesting to see that they don’t wash the spuds here. There is actual dirt on them. Amazing!!! American women wouldn’t allow THAT on their food or in their kitchens.

One for Steam Boat Jack. He likes steam engines of all kinds.

I made a few little runs out to check out the coast. It was a little cool today but there were a few kids in the water on the sheltered bay areas. There wasn’t anybody on this beach as far as I could see. It is a national park.

Here you can see the ‘spring boards’ that the loggers are standing on t chop the tree down. that is what that narrow bladed axe is for I had in a post back a few days. It cuts a narrow deep hole for the spring board. I see that they must have used an undershot water wheel to saw this timber and a hydraulic water cannon to wash the hills down to mine gold. 

It turned out to be a really nice day even if I didn’t travel very far. This Taz island is really a nice place.