I’d never been to this area so found the idea of visiting an old mining town interesting. So we gathered in Riverton with everything we had, TD’s, a TR3 to an XJ12 all of us. Motoring south on Redwood Rd. Kevin feels a wobble in the rear of his Healey, pulls over and as luck would have it in front of the home of a good Samaritan who directed him into the driveway, rolled out a floor jack, a roll-away of tools and says “help yourself.” Turned out to be an easy fix of a loose lug nut behind the knock off wheel. Meanwhile up ahead I’ve called Stephanie and Larry Farrington. They pull over to wait and a passerby who was a past member of our Club chats about his project. Larry says, “You can take them apart in two hours and it takes two years to get them back together again. The gentleman says “More like five.” His is still in progress.
So back on the road we come to Hwy 6 and a Jensen Healey joins us up to Eureka. Trees get smaller and we go from farmlands to bushes or not. The Summit Drive-In is different but actually pretty good, full of hard hat road workers so I’m thinking this is OK and it was.
Into downtown Eureka it’s not exactly a ghost town but a preserved old mining town. Many of the original buildings are in use today like the City Hall and the Police Station. The museum had articles you can’t even see anymore.
So a few of us drive out east then north to Dugway, Rush Valley and Tooele. That’s a very quiet part of the country with no traffic and vast vistas. Larry Bishop four cars back leaned on his graceful XJ12 and passed us like we were at a crosswalk waiting for the light to change. He must have had a grin on his face.
Up to Tooele and onto 80, Saltair and home. This was an interesting drive through a largely unpopulated area of the state.
Those attending were: Larry and Stephanie ’76 TR6, Rob Foye ’65 TR4, Jon Hermance, Jerry Bletzacker ’53 MG TD, Paul ’04 MB-ML, Wes and Kathy Himle ’60 MGA, John Progess ’62 MGA, Clayton Merchant ’58 MGA, Darin Graber ’58 MGTF 1800, Kevin Cowan ’56 Austin Healey, Richard Wayland ’68 TR250, Roger Davis ’66 Sunbeam Alpine, Janet and Adam King ’99 Porsche Boxter, Larry Bishop ’75 Jaguar XJ 12C, Jeremiah Curry ’57 TR3, Bob and Valerie ’56 MGA, Tom and Paris TR6.
Thanks to Duff for the planning and directions.
Paul Jaroch & Larry Farrington
