Day 285 Monday 15th Aug Hotel to Land Cruiser Museum, Lunch Restaurant, Hotel, Dinner Hotel 142km

Last night we had dinner at Tex’s daughter and her family, she has two toddlers. This is the elder daughter,  ( on the last leg we met the youngest daughter, the wine maker, in Napa Valley.)  Her husband is a super cool guy, we all drooled over his garage, (several toys we also love and bicycles, even a Vespa Scooter.)

This morning it was off to the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum. All three the Land Cruisers I own (Prado, 200 Series and FJ45) were on display amongst the many different vehicles and models. The collection is overwhelming and I saw so many models I did not know, (they were never released for sale in RSA.) Like this FJ55:

The collection starts with the oldest Land Cruiser Jeep, they were forced to change the name when Jeep in the USA registered it as a Trade Mark:

The latest Vehicle on show is one like my Mufasa, a 200 Series Land Cruiser, (only the new 300 Series was not part of the collection. Here are some vehicles that were on Display:

The dark green one below is the same as my beloved Sky Canary, a FJ 45 Long Wheel Base Pick-up. But I would love to rather have the FJ40, like the green one above. It is a Short Wheel Base Station Wagon, but they are very difficult to find in South Africa as they were never released there and only a few Left Hand Drive’s were imported from the USA. They are worth their weight in Gold in RSA.

There were a few Custom Built Vehicles, my favorite :

The vehicles of “Expedition 7” were on display, (they traveled on 7 Continents, but not through them like us, just drove around on those continents.)

This one below was used on Antarctica on the ice, note the tyre inflators\deflators that could drop the pressure on the wheels or pump the wheels on the go. Also note the long “Nose Bar” that is suppose to hook on the other side of a crevasse when the front wheels fall into a crevasse.

Part of the collection on display include Land Cruiser Toys that were sold over the years:

The Gift Shop also had this Collection Shirts, only 100 were made, and Andy Boy had to have one.

Then Pie and I jumped on the bikes and drove around to a few KTM Dealers to look for a few things we needed for our bikes, (I need a new Rear Brake Reservoir and Pie’s chain had all of a sudden reached the end of its life, and after what a broken chain put Peens through, we are all having sleepless nights worrying about the state of our chains. I gave up after the 2nd shop, 30km out of Salt Lake City, but Pie pushed on for another 66km to another shop that said they could help.

I joined the others for lunch (they went for a drive up the mountain and went to look at the Mormon Temple. Half of Salt Lake City’s inhabitants (there are 1,2M inhabitants,) are Mormons. Most people believe the Mormon church stands for Phlegmy (more than one wife.) But the official stand they take is that it is not allowed, (because it is not legal under USA State Law.) But the big thing for them is about having more than one wife in the after-life, and that seems to be a burning issue. But such marriages might not be legal, but I guess they are done under the church’s authority and not to be Legal under the Countries Law.

The Temple, (sommer from the Internet.)

Lunch was at The Garage On Becks Road, in an industrial area, lots of character. Only two young ladies ran the entire operation, (Barkeeping and Waitressing,) and one person in the kitchen. But I suspect the pay for the two girls is very low as their shorts were torn and ripped and they could only afford the very small sizes, I think their bums must be so cold in the winter, shame.

Tomorrow we are going in search for some Fossils in Vernal, about 430km away.

Cheers

Fleisch