2010 CANON CITY TRI-STATE Updated 05-Jan-2020 ==== Copyright (c) 2020 Corvairs of New Mexico ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 2010 CANON CITY TRI-STATE REPORT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jim & Heula Pittman THU 20 MAY --- Leaving the 1965 Monza at home, we are on the road in our Brand-X by 7 AM or so. Drive up North 14 via Madrid. Take the bypass loop to the west of Santa Fe. Have a lot of traffic congestion and some road construction near Espanola. Somewhere south of Tres Piedras we have our first glimpses of Colorado snow-clad mountains, not to mention the snowy mountains near Taos. We are amazed to see an Air Force B-1 bomber swoop by us. It disappears at low altitude and high speed, headed north paralleling the Rio Grande gorge. Well, it is perfect weather and a perfect place to be flying in a high-performance airplane. At Alamosa we decide to take a short cut on Colorado 17 near the Great Sand Dunes National Monument instead of going around US 285 through Monte Vista and Saguache. It turns out to be a straight, smooth road with little traffic. We reach Salida at about 1 PM and head east on US 50. Beautiful road, river alongside, railroad next to the river. We start seeing hundreds of gondola coal cars parked on the railroad right-of-way. Can not figure that out. In storage? Abandoned? Waiting to be joined up into the world's longest coal train? No explanation was found. Arrive Canon City, find Quality Inn, check in. In our room by 2:15 PM. Our first sighting of a Corvair: nice early maroon coupe parks next to our car. The first of many to come. Spend rest of day visiting with friends. FRI 21 MAY --- Nice breakfast at the hotel. Talk to a few other early risers. Here is Dave Olwine who had the nice red 1963 Spyder convertible at Monte Vista. Yep, it's here again this year! Destined to win the early convertible category. We think we'll drive around town a little, scout the locations of the car show and our banquet, go see the Royal Gorge bridge. Wow, Canon City is bigger than we thought! We think we find the highway leading to Royal Gorge, but it takes us instead to the train station. Photos of old black locomotive and brightly painted modern (well, maybe 1950s) passenger cars and diesel locomotive. Take another street and come upon a huge cemetery, nice stone wall, nice trees, beautifully maintained. Would like to wander through it reading the strange names. No time for that today. Back to the main street, then ten miles west on US 50, then turn south at the signs. No problem finding Buckskin Joe's. Continue on curvy, hilly little road through the woods to the Royal Gorge bridge site. A busy commercial enterprise! We see a couple of parked Corvairs and a few fifties cars, probably part of the large Canon City car show. We find a vantage point to see the bridge. It looks like an expensive bridge that doesn't go anywhere. Later we learn it was built in 1929. We don't find out why it was built. Back at the hotel we find that many more Corvairs have arrived. Talk to our friends at registration. Walk the parking lot taking photos of nice Corvairs. The early model "trailer" was a big hit! We also get a thrill to see a beautiful yellow 4.2 Jaguar XK-E. Drive east 100 yards to a steak house for dinner. SAT 22 MAY --- All the car show folks prepare their cars for an 8:30 departure. There are many cars in town for another car show so the streets are filled with seldom-seen, bright shiny vehicles. Drive out to Florence and walk along the street admiring the Corvairs. How could anyone pick a "best" from this group? Take time off for lunch, then more walking, more photos. Drive around Florence a bit. Here's a Colorado Corvair that didn't get into the car show. On the way north toward US 50, see a field with a dozen llamas. They are out of place here in this semi-desert, but somehow seem to fit in. Back to the hotel. The wind is picking up. We get ready to go to dinner. The wind is worse, but we get to Buckskin Joe's, no problem. We find what almost looks like a working old west movie set -- all you'd need to do is take down the "touristy" signs, add John Wayne and Slim Pickins, and you'd have most of what you'd need to shoot a movie. Did I say shooting? The Buckskin Joe staff stage a couple of "ole west" shootouts for our pleasure. We can easily see that 1880s gunfighters would have a problem keeping their pants pressed and their boots polished. Not to mention keeping those pesky bullet holes out of their vests. These gunfighters seem to be mere boys -- then I think, a lot of the real 1880s cowboys were mere boys. In 1880 those shootin' irons on their hips would not have been cap guns! Maybe in this harsh country, not many lived to die of old age. Corvairs appear on Buckskin Joe's main street. Line up and park for photos. The wind continues. Time for a few more photos and then it's time for dinner. Everyone finds a seat somewhere and the dinner arrives. Steve Goodman is master of ceremonies and tells us his interpretation of the history of Tri-State events. He introduces the Saint Francis of Corvair Award and presents this year's plaque to PPCC's Garrie Fox. Speech time. Heula announces next year's Tri-State: to be sponsored by CNM in Red River, New Mexico. The crowd approves. Well, we have been there twice before with great success. Time for awards for the car show. (Details will become available in the DRIPLINE and DENVAIR NEWS newsletters.) Fifty-fifty prize, door prizes, raffle for Ruth's afghan. After the ceremonies, all thank the staff for their hard work and the Corvair people start driving out. SUN 23 MAY --- We pack everything and load up the car. Need to get an early start for fear that the wind will pick up before we get home and we'll have to drive in blowing dust. We go back for one more breakfast with early-rising friends. Drive east on US 50 into the sunrise. How to go back? Should we take the safe, dull and boring I-25 freeway, or go west through the mountains to Questa? We turn off on US 160 to go to Fort Garland, but either the road signs are bad or I miss them, so we end up back on I-25, heading south. Okay, we could turn west on US 64 after Raton to get to Questa. We do. We find there is a very VERY long straight stretch until we get to Cimmaron (we saw many pronghorn along the way) then we find some very VERY curvy, hilly stretches on the way to Eagle Nest, Angle Fire and Taos. Get gas in Taos, same place as last year. By now we are really tired and just want to get on home. Forget about the scenery, just drive! This time we don't stop to watch the rafts on the Rio Grande. As we get closer to Espanola there's all that congestion and road construction again, but this time it's Sunday traffic, crowded but not so rushed. It seems ages and eons later (actually it is only about 2:15 PM) when we roll up to our door. We are tired but safely back home after attending another great Tri-State! Here's our count of CNMers at the Tri-State: 1. Ruth Boydston 2. Rita Gongora 3. Steve Gongora 4. Pat Hall (brought 1964 Spyder coupe) 5. Vickie Hall 6. Heula Pittman 7. Jim Pittman 8. Emma Rogers 9. LeRoy Rogers 10. Bill Reider 11. Lee Reider 12. Ollie Scheflow 13. Wendell Walker (brought 1964 Monza convertible) 14. Amanda: Ruth's granddaughter 15. Bernadette: Steve & Rita's daughter 16. Kim Patten: Former member 17. Sherry: Ruth's daughter Here's a list of all who attended: CANON CITY TRI-STATE ATTENDANCE CLUB NAME HOW MANY ==== ============================= ======== CNM Boydston, Ruth 1 plus 2 guests PPCC Campbell, Paul 2 PPCC Darnell, Darren 1 plus 1 guest RMC Dinsdale, John 4 RMC Drage, John 1 PPCC Ehrman, Warren 1 PPCC Fox, Garrie 2 (also RMC) PPCC Frantz, Peter 2 plus 2 guests PPCC Gilbert, Bob 2 CNM Gongora, Steve & Rita 2 plus 1 guest PPCC Goodman, Steve 2 (also RMC) RMC Grippen, Tom 1 BCC Gwyther, Bruce 2 Bonneville Corvair Club, Utah CNM Hall, Pat 2 RMC Halpin, Edward 3 PPCC Hesco, Marilyn & John 2 plus 2 guests (Graybull, Wyoming) ? Jess, Robert 2 Grand Junction PPCC Koll, John 2 ? Mahlum, Marshall 1 RMC Miller, Marcus & Debbie 2 plus 2 Children ? Mindenhall, Rich & wife 2 Grand Junction PPCC Neal, John 2 PPCC Neal, Larry 1 RMC Nelson, Earl 2 RMC Nielsen, Dale 1 ? Norris, Dexter 2 ? Olsen, Lee 1 Kansas RMC Olwine, Dave 2 plus 1 Child ? Pfeiffer, Roger V. 1 Inland Empire Corvair Club, California ? Pierce, William 2 CNM Pittman, James 2 CNM Reider, Bill 2 RMC Riblett, Charles 2 CNM Rogers, Leroy 2 CNM Scheflow, Oliver 1 RMC Schubert, Scheryl 2 RMC Seyforth, Paul 2 PPCC Shields, Kermit 2 RMC Shortle, Timothy 2 plus 1 guest BCC Stowell, Charles 2 Bonneville Corvair Club, Utah CNM Walker, Wendell 1 plus 1 guest PPCC Westerfield, Kelly 2 RMC Williams, Jim 1 plus 1 guest (Cheyenne, Wyoming) PPCC Wilshire, Joan & Laura 2 (also RMC) RMC Yoder, Larry 1 ? Zetterman, Bob 1 NONE Langlois, Dave & Mona 2 (from Albuquerque, not a club member) NONE Staeben, William & Cheryl 2 (winners of Late Open class) CANON CITY TRI-STATE ATTENDANCE BY CLUB: RMC : TOTAL = 32 not counting children or guests (6 also PPCC) PPCC : TOTAL = 25 not counting children or guests (6 also RMC) CNM : TOTAL = 13 not counting children or guests BCC : TOTAL = 4 not counting children or guests OTHER: TOTAL = 16 not counting children or guests (another club, or no club) REGISTERED BUT UNABLE TO ATTEND: RMC Duncan, Bud & Linda 2 (Did Not Attend) ? Mattics, Bill 2 (Cancelled) ? Strecker, Julie & Bernie 2 (Cancelled - Funeral) CNM Sutt, Tarmo & Kay & student 2 + 1 guest (Cancelled) The DENVAIR NEWS (Rocky Mountain CORSA) and the DRIPLINE (Pikes Peak Corvair Club) and ENCHANTED CORVAIRS (Corvairs of New mexico) newsletters for June have reports on the Canon City Tri-State. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ STATISTICS (gleaned from the DENVAIR NEWS and the Pikes Peak DRIPLINE): REGISTRATION NUMBER OF HOW MANY HOW MANY TOTAL NUMBER CLUB FORMS FILED CARS ADULTS GUESTS OF PEOPLE ============ ============ ========= ======== ======== ============ RMC 21 ? 32 5 37 PPCC 14 ? 25 5 30 CNM 10 2 13 4 17 Grand Junction 2 ? 4 4 Bonneville 2 ? 4 4 California 1 ? 1 1 Kansas 1 ? 1 1 Ute Trails 1 ? - Other ? ? 15 15 ============ === === === === ==== TOTALS 52 44 95 14 109 AWARDS: Best of Show George & Carolyn Evans (silver 1966 Corsa coupe V-8) Early coupe Ed Halpin (it's a red 1960) PPCC & RMC Late coupe Dale Nielsen RMC Early Sedan Paul & Pat Campbell PPCC Late Sedan John & Deborah Dinsdale RMC & CNM Early convert Dave & Brenna Olwine (that red 1963 Spyder) RMC Late Convert Bill Staeben PPCC 1962 Rampside Jerry & Betty Seale (Eckert, Colorado) Longest Drive John & Marilyn Hesco PPCC (Greybull, Wyoming) Hard Luck (not awarded this year) BOYDSTON AWARD: Garrie Fox Pikes Peak Corvair Club ATTENDANCE AWARD: Rocky Mountain CORSA, Denver