Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Pics and Videos Misadventures Picture Story (23 pics=56k probly not)

Ok, so these are my misadventures on the way from Montana-to-Iowa-to-Wyoming-to-Idaho-to-Washington.

First up is from Montana to Iowa. Had my car all hooked up with an AC invertor for my laptop to plug into. Was going great listening to all my MP3s thru my car system until about 100 miles into the trip I start smelling a sulfur smell. Figured it was my exhaust or something... was getting worse and started hurting my eyes, so I opened the sunroof to get some fresh air. Stopped at the next convienent area and couldn't find anything smelling like that in my engine compartment or the exhaust. Hmm...

So I keep going until I got about 75 to Billings and I remembered I put a blanket in the trunk and it might be touching my amp and melting... So I check, and not that... but I smell that sulfur smell. So I peek around, and WHAM, it's BAD above my battery. Then I see this:

Nothing too odd about that...


Pull off the cover and see this!


The damn battery was boiling:


So I had some time, and looked around the town waiting for the battery to cool off (waited an hour). Saw these:




Waited for about an hour with the trunk open, and the battery finally settled down. Since I was 75 miles from civilization, I decided to attempt the drive... made it to Billings and to Batteries Plus. We put a voltmeter on the battery, and the alt is putting out 13.8V. So all he could figure out was that I had a dead cell and was suprised I made it so far. Said it would have exploded soon.

Bad Exide:


Good yellow top:


So yeah... that was the end of the 1st misadventure of mine.

Made it all the way to Iowa without any problems!

My friend's 96GL that was identical to my 96GL... he even wrecked it just like me


And the Gentex I installed while I was back home. Didn't have the time to route the wires, but I'll do that when the car gets here.


So on to the 2nd misadventure

Got a late start from Iowa (3pm) due to staying out late the night before

Made it to Lincoln, Nebraska for food/gas and first noticed my car chug at 3,500RPM. Could hear the fuel pump loud outside the car and the fuel pressure guage needle vibrating. Then I ate at an Arby's right next to there and headed out on the road.

Started feeling like s**t not too long after that and was doing real bad by the time I got to North Platte. Got a Super 8 room and found out there was a blizzard warning and stuff. So I got to my room and puked my guts out for 4 hours straight. Still felt like crap in the morning, so I went to the ER and they came up with the Arby's gave me food poisoning. All I could think of was that Davo saw me and was like "this town ain't big enough for the two of us" and proceeded to have Arby's give me tainted roast beef... Damn you Davo!

Ended up finding out there was a huge storm moving in from Colorado and I-80 was probly going to get closed, not to mention the hospital told me to try to stick around in case I got worse, so I camped out at Super 8 again.

Woke up again feeling a lot better, and I-80 west was open, so I headed off to Wyoming.

Drove thru a lot of this:

(sorry for horrible quality, that's a screenshot of a video from my digicam)

Wind was so bad that my door seals were not sealing anymore, and I had to have the heat on the highest settings just to stay warm.

And that's the end of misadventure #2

Made it to Wyoming fine, but heading off to Idaho makes...

Misadventure #3

I was driving on backroads and attempted to make it up the continental divide on W-rated tires. Not a good idea!

So I make it up probly 9600ft or so before my tires just wouldn't grip the hard pack snow. It was a 6% grade and even my dad's rental Cadillac had no problem going up.

When I got stuck, a park ranger came up and hooked me up to his truck and pulled me over the crest.

Notice the "US Government" plates!


Finally got there!


After that was smooth sailing, well, except going down the 6% grade with no ABS (apparantly the ABS doesn't like it when you spin the tires a lot).

So that's the end of misadventure #3

Not really any more misadventures, but made it up Lost Trail Pass into Montana only because it wasn't completly plowed. Powder helped me get traction!


Montana/Idaho DOT kept 1 lane completely clear on Lookout Pass:


And no problems after that, except a bit of fog after getting into Washington:


I thought I might have problems at Snoqualamie Pass b/c I kept hearing on the radio how bad it was and "watch out, snow on Snoqualamie Pass". It was like a 2600ft pass and maybe 2" of snow NOT on the road. What a joke! I could have easily exceeded the speed limit on it, it wasn't slick at all.

Finally got to the Navy base (Bangor?) near Silverdale where my sister was... look at how dirty the SVT was!



Got it all washed up and headed off here... here's a couple of my last pics of her before someone else took over:



And finally, the rental car I had so I could get to my sister's and the airport:



Looks like another fine piece of GM machinery!

Kane: u have a bight future - guaranteed - to become a staff writer for C&D or something like that; I am serious man, your thread was interesting and informative

what are those black tabs in your headlights?

Damn that satt image is old! That area is completely developed now. You're right, that's where the Arby's is. There are a couple fast food places that are decent around there, such as the Dairy Queen (nicest DQ evar), but that Arby's isn't one of them.

Wow crazy adventure you had. Nice pictures.

Excellent post!

Makes me want to hop in my Tour and go for a roadtrip!