[R W Burgess]

Fuqua-Varina, NC—Well, I caught some flack tonight for not posting my promised diary. When I first registered for this tour, I forgot to factor in a new-to-me car that had not been proven. For reasons that I could not control, I got behind the eight-ball and did not even start working on this car until one week before the tour. I had about given up on touring with this car in October. A new friend from Pennsylvania came to my rescue with a promised carburetor if I would bring my car down. I will not name him, but he like most AACA members came to the rescue and allowed Gloria and me to drive our own car.



Wayne

[R W Burgess]

...............I’m going to post a few pictures, but first I’ll explain that the carburetor cured my gas ills, until 30 miles into our first day on the tour, at which point we not only lost generating capability, but our fuel tank stopped fueling. A tour trouble truck brought us back to the hotel. As it turned out, another Essex on tour lost a rod, so we had another avenue for parts. A quick trip to Wally-World found a marine 6 gallon gas tank that would set in the back seat, and with some unique tubing fabrication, we got the Essex running again. The other ill Essex gave up its generator coupling device to allow us to generate again…problems solved. Check it out!

[R W Burgess]

Last one about me. We were tooling along yesterday heading back to the hotel, when a very large car came up in my mirror, very fast. Now, we're only running along about 35-40 mph tops. I had to speed up or get run over.....that darn Marty Roth, my friend from New Orleans. That's when I noticed this station and decided to go back for a picture, but had to run off the edge of the road and wave Marty on by.

[R W Burgess]

The Marty Roth Packard along with a row of tourers at the railroad siding waiting for our steam train trip.

[R W Burgess]

A large Franklin in the parking lot!

[R W Burgess]

Jean Soehnlein and Joanna Cooper having way too much fun in the Roth Packard. That's Marty on the side making the ladies comfortable.
Wayne

[R W Burgess]

A nice Studebaker from Martinsville, Virginia.

[R W Burgess]

The stream engine switching ends of the train as it went by to hook back up to our passenger cars.

[R W Burgess]

A very nice Chrysler and Randy Stone messing around with Carol Barlop and Franklin Gage in Don's Overland "big" car.

[R W Burgess]

We had our last stop of Tuesday at the Silk Hope, NC steam display, where we had lunch and home made ice cream, churned by steam...what else. Yum, Yum!