My-West Road Trip – First Impressions

By Bennett Owen

Credit: My-West.com. All rights reserved.

Let’s just say that our love for the west and awe of those who inhabit it has been doubly re-enforced by the things we’ve seen, the people we’ve met and the stories we’ve heard over the past four days and 13-hundred miles…

Credit: My-West.com. All rights reserved.

… starting in Salt Lake, straight into the high desert heart of Wyoming to Rock Springs and Lander, then upwards to the still-snow-capped Wind River Range, topping the pass at 85-hundred feet, and dropping into cow country at Thermopolis, Meeteetse and Cody.

Credit: My-West.com. All rights reserved.

Credit: My-West.com. All rights reserved.

Credit: My-West.com. All rights reserved.

Pointing northwards we crossed into Montana, passing through Red Lodge and severe ‘weather’ to Livingston, the white-capped Absarokas, dropping southwest again into the Pioneer range that we call home.

Credit: My-West.com. All rights reserved.

We will be telling you our stories in the days to come and believe me they are fascinating and compelling, including names like Amelia Earhardt, Butch Cassidy and the cattle baron Otto Frank. 

Credit: My-West.com. All rights reserved.

Buffalo Bill Cody is also on our list and his story alone would take a lifetime to chronicle.

Credit: My-West.com. All rights reserved.

If we’d had more time we would have taken longer! Here are some impressions to whet your curiosity.

Credit: My-West.com. All rights reserved.

Credit: My-West.com. All rights reserved.

Credit: My-West.com. All rights reserved.

Credit: My-West.com. All rights reserved.

Come Hail and High Water

Still on the road - lots of great posts starting tomorrow!

The Thing – One More for the Road

By Bennett Owen

Credit: A.C. Huestis

You’ll start seeing the billboards as soon as you cross from California into Arizona, or heading west from the New Mexico border.

Credit: ShadyL

And you’ll keep seeing them, the deeper you drive into the desert – ‘Mystery of the Desert’ – ‘The Thing’ - 247 road signs in all, captivating the kids’ imaginations and enticing the weary traveler to go even further out of their way to stop at a curio shop that’s as close to the middle of nowhere as it’s humanly possible to get.

Credit: Snap Man

And people stop here in droves, putting down good money for the sucker punch of the century…the desperate need to find out what “The Thing” really is.

Credit: Bill on Capitol Hill

No, we’re NOT going to tell you, although most visitors say it’s worth every cent of the 1 Dollar entry fee. Talk about damning with faint praise!

Credit: Eccentric Roadside

Although if you really want to spoil the surprise, my favorite website, Roadside America, does a hilarious inventory.

The owner…Bob Hope…says the original shop started up in 1950 and has been in the same ‘central’ location since 1965. That’s some true staying power.

Credit: LatFJCCT

And, over the years ‘The Thing’ has gained enough of a reputation that it’s marketing its anachronistic quirkiness.  Hence the Thing caps, shot glasses, t-shirts, beer mugs, and bumper stickers .. there’s even thing-branded bottled water.

Credit: Eccentric Roadside

Credit: Roadside America

In all, it’s an utterly ridiculous collection of crap that’s is far too good, far too entertaining to pass by.

PS: The My-West staff would like to give a hail and hearty hat tip to the intrepid RJ Burns for tipping us off to The Thing!

Utah’s Son of Speed – Racing on a Ribbon of Salt

By Bennett Owen

Used by permission, Utah Historical Society. All rights reserved.

This is the “Mormon Meteor,” one of the world’s most valuable cars…a custom Dusenberg built with only one goal in mind ... breaking speed records. The 1939 version generated 750hp with a top speed of 275 MPH. 

Used by permission, Utah Historical Society. All rights reserved.

And this is the man who piloted the 22-hundred pound beast ... adventurer ... pioneer ... visionary ... David Abbot Jenkins.

Credit: Deseret News

When fate knocked at the door of  “Ab” Jenkins, he was a simple family man eking out a living wage as a painter, carpenter and fix-it man in Salt Lake City, Utah.  The year was 1925 and a friend asked him to race a car against a freight train on a newly laid stretch of highway slicing through the salt flats west of town.  Jenkins beat the train by five minutes and in doing so found his calling. 

Credit: Deseret News

Credit: Deseret News

By the time he passed away 30 years later he was a legend in the automotive world, having set far more endurance and land speed records than any other person on the planet before or since, and single-handedly turning a remote, sweltering 100 square mile slab of Utah desert into a motorized Mecca of high performance, high tech and of course high speed.  The Bonneville Salt Flats.

Credit: Deseret News

Credit: Desert News

His was an extraordinary era of innovation and raw adventure and rare camaraderie and the quest for excellence.   “Ab” Jenkins’ story is far too fascinating and complex for a few glib Blog lines. Luckily, it has been captured on film in a riveting documentary, Boys of Bonneville – Racing on a Ribbon of Salt.

The film is obviously a labor of love, commissioned by the John Price Museum of Speed in Salt Lake. It’s touring the festival circuit now and officially premiers in Salt Lake August 24^th. Here’s a preview to get your engine started:

Boys of Bonneville Movie Trailer from Price Museum of Speed on Vimeo.

In 1932, Jenkins’ facilities at the Salt Flat consisted of an old sheepherder’s wagon and some tents for the help who kept time with simple stopwatches.

Credit: Deseret News

In his first major endurance feat, he vowed to skeptical experts that he would drive a Pierce-Arrow 24-hundred miles in 24 hours and his only protection was a thick layer of grease smeared on his face to shield the sun. When it was over, he had driven 27-hundred miles and was stone deaf from the roar of the engine.

Credit: Deseret News

A year later, he bettered his speed, shaving his face on the last lap at a speed of 125 MPH and no windshield. He wanted to look presentable when the time trial was over.

Credit: Deseret News

But Jenkins truly came into his own with the legendary “Mormon Meteor,” breaking 21 records in 1939 alone including an average of nearly 162 MPH for a 24-hour run…a record that stood for 50 years, only to be broken in 1990 by a team of EIGHT drivers.

Credit: Deseret News

The Mormon Meteor is the centerpiece of the John Price Museum of Speed in Salt Lake.  Comedian Jay Leno is a well-known car fanatic and not surprisingly, he worships the memory of Ab Jenkins. He sums it up in Popular Mechanics: 

"Ab raced for the love of the sport--he did it all himself. Not only was he the driver, but he had to be the engineer, the R&D guy--and he had to build the car too. He knew when it broke, knew when it was running perfectly, and he could drive it for 24 hours straight at 160 mph. Ab had that great all-American-boy stuff of the 1930s."

Credit: Deseret News

Credit: Deseret News

Today’s technology is light years ahead ... and still many of Jenkins’ records stand for he was first and foremost a man of endurance ... a devout and humble Mormon, a 'gentleman racer’ with a fanatical need for speed.

Used by permission, Utah Historical Society. All rights reserved.

Big Medicine in a Small Package

By Bennett Owen

Credit: Fox Dallas Fort Worth

This is no bull…but then again it is.  A rare white buffalo calf has been born on a ranch in north Texas…owned by a Native American descendent of Chief Sitting Bull.  As we all know from my post several days ago on “Big Medicine” a white buffalo is a portent for many plains tribes…and therefore tribal leaders from around the country will be gathering soon to have a look at the newborn critter.  The rancher, Arby Little Soldier, wants to call him “Lightning Medicine Cloud” but the Chiefs will have the final say.  By the way, albinos don’t count. There’s a spec list for the real thing that is long and complicated…

Sacred White Buffalo Born in Texas: MyFoxDFW.com

Odds of a white bison birth are about five million to one. That’s about the equivalent of you walking down the street and finding a winning Powerball ticket lying on the sidewalk.  Now add to that the fact that this one was born most likely as I was preparing the post about his stuffed Uncle…that’s really big medicine…