Classic Boats and Outboards

One of our favorite events of the season is the Schroon Lake Wet Meet. It is hosted by the Mohawk Hudson Chapter of the Antique Outboard Motor Club and this year's was fantastic! We arrived at 9:30 AM, with our freshly waxed Wagemaker Wolverine in tow, and the launch ramp parking lot was full! Luckily we found one small spot to pull into and had Flash Back on display. 

Boats of all sorts were on display, including our friend Clark's Cadillac, which is a sister to Flash.

Clark also had his wooden boat, that he won in a recent raffle, there for all to see. He is amazing with his restorations, but this boat he wants to keep original because it still floats and gets lots of attention.

A few of the other vintage boats and motors that we saw:

This is a Jet Drive outboard motor, that we were told could also be used as a fire hose when attached to the water jet.

Several of the hydroplanes were launched and had a few fly-bys and races, although some had issues running (notice the exhaust 'stacks' on the first boat).

Unfortunately the weather was quite chilly with some raindrops thrown in, so we didn't launch Flash. However, it attracted the attention of the publisher of the Lake George Mirror newspaper, and he wanted to write an article on Flash, so he interviewed Dave. This is exciting and I will post a link if and when it does get posted. This is the last of our events for a few weeks, so now it is time to think ahead towards heading south in about a month, especially with all this cold weather getting into our bones. 😉

Keep On Truckin'

This past weekend was the 32nd Annual Truck Show hosted by the Hudson Mohawk Chapter of the American Truck Historical Society, held each year at the Saratoga County Fairgrounds in Ballston Spa. This also always includes a car corral, tractors, and engines, and lots and lots of vendors. Although there weren't quite as many small engines, there was still row after row of trucks, making this a great event.

Dave brought up his 1956 Panzer tractor and pulled one of our wagons around the grounds on Saturday. 

The Divco milk truck was also on display for the second year and was a huge hit, especially when Dave would start it by hand cranking it. 

Here are several of the displays we saw. Hopefully they aren't repeat photos from previous years.

This Brockway carried Christmas trees to the nation's capitol. 

How low can you go?

The cab on this truck had to be manually raised with the bar crank that is sticking out of the side.

The rotator crane was gigantic on this tow truck that could handle just about anything... 

Older sleeper cab on this 1950 White...

It may say Mini Mack, but it was a pretty big monster truck.

This fleet of Mack trucks was gorgeous!

A perfect 1949 Ford delivery truck that makes quite the impression...

This highly polished unusual dump truck carries tiny glass beads for Corning and also does double duty transporting road salt. The dump body doesn't just lift up, the whole trailer lifts up. The entire rig is 65 ft. long going down the road and can weigh up to 107,000 lbs. loaded.

This Rat Road was called the 'Last Resort Fire Department.'

Dave's grandfather and father's septic and well tile business started with a truck just like this 1935 International. In fact, we have an engine cover panel just like this that is left over from when they scrapped the rest of the truck.

What a wild Seagrave fire engine!

This Dodge D 37 Power Wagon forestry truck was pristine.

More trucks being featured under cover...

Those are brand new tractors on this patriotic tractor trailer.

This Rat Rod truck looked to have a Halloween theme going on with an animated skeleton coyote in the back. 

Our shows are winding down for the season now, although there are still a few more on the calendar. We hope the weather holds up for next weekend's wet meet at Schroon Lake, where we are anxious to show off 'Flash'!

The Visitor

We only see this kind of visitor once every couple of years, but walking sticks are so interesting to look at. They have such great camouflage...except against our white house. It stayed in the same spot for several hours, but then must have wandered off to look just like so many of our tree branches. I'm glad I was able to take this photo while it was still visible.

As cool as they are, I hope it doesn't eat too many of our plants and leaves, or should I say the leaves that are left that the gypsy moth caterpillars didn't consume. We had quite a few defoliated trees in our neighborhood this year, but they have started to come back, now that it is autumn and time for them to fall down. Next year we should be back to normal. 

THE Weekend 2022, Part 3

Rice-O-Rama Show and Swap meet for vintage Japanese motorcycles! I did not go to this show, but Dave said it was the biggest one yet. The great thing about this venue is that you can ride what you brought around the Spencer MA fairgrounds where the event is held. Dave brought his1969 Honda Mini-Trail that he was the second owner of (the first owner was his cousin Eric). The only photo we have is when we first got it last spring from his cousin in its original condition. It is pristine now. 

He also brought his custom-made Honda Trail 212, which is a 1974 CT 70 frame with a 1981 Honda CM 200T Twinstar engine in it. Both of his bikes were huge hits of the show. 

There aren't very many other photos to share, but below are a few of the bikes Dave saw. The motorcycle show area is where the cream of the crop gets judged. Here is a great line up of classic 70s Japanese Super Bikes.

Rupp Minibikes have become extremely collectible and are iconic in their own realm. On the previous night, there was the Minibike Throw Down, which is an informal race consisting of various makes and models. 

This our good friend Jim Rulison's 1967 Bridgestone 350 GTR. These machines were way ahead of their time in engineering and performance. Dave maintains and services this particular bike and it is extremely road-worthy for being 55 years old.

This was the final event of our annual 'triple hitter' weekend. However next weekend is the Ballston Truck show, which is another one of our favorites. We will be there! 

Footnote: Of course, Dave has his own Rice-O-Rama every day. I can't believe this used to be our motorcycle parts showroom many years ago. It is still a showroom, just a 'tad' different. 😉

THE Weekend 2022, Part 2

Tugboat Roundup in Waterford! What a great morning we had along the waterfront, looking at all the tugboats, both large and small, commercial and privately owned. It was the biggest turnout of vessels that we had seen in several years.

The 65 ft. Coast Guard Cutter Hawser...

Dave got to go in the engine room of the 'Otter'.

The featured tug of the 2022 show 'J. Arnold Witte' was built in 2021.

The New York State Marine Highway's tugs...

Many of the tugs' wheelhouses slide up and down to get under the low bridges of the canal system, which you can see on 'Edna A'.

This was a first time seeing the tug 'Joncaire'.

The group of mini tugs has really expanded.

One couple built their own tug out of a kayak, complete with electric motor which ran on a battery recharged with a solar panel. It looked to be a bit unstable with the extra weight and height.

There were even some radio-controlled tugs that were perfectly detailed, including tiny cranes that worked.

As we were walking up to the top of the first lock on the Erie Canal, the gates opened and about 50 kayakers and canoeist came paddling out. I believe that it was a charity run.

To top off the show, we sat in on a talk given by Art Cohn who is Director Emeritus of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum and famous for finding and studying shipwrecks in Lake Champlain (among many other accomplishments). His talk included history of the NYS canal systems and his most current quest of charting the bottom and finding shipwrecks in very deep Seneca Lake. It was fantastic and so interesting!

Day 2 of our weekend was a huge hit. Tomorrow will be day 3...motorcycles (we ARE the definition of diverse 😉)!