YES! I was soo ready for another road trip! 
CK5
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The Story Of A Cummins Suburban (Lots Of Pics)
- Thread starter mosesburb
- Start date
I `m in on your trip! 
I wish I had the time to do a massive pic dump, but all of this takes a bunch of time and unfortunately I don't have a bunch of that to spare lately.
Cool!! There is much more to come.
YES! I was soo ready for another road trip!
Me too!!
I `m in on your trip!
Hope you enjoy the ride
.
How far north you going?
I can't say yet. We left town with three destinations on the itinerary--after that, it would be the usual seat-of-the-pants navigation. Will we make all three?? Will the seat-of-the-pants navigation lead us astray?? Will our hooptie hold together?? You'll have to stay tuned and find out (just like we did)
. It should be a fun ride though.
We got up the next morning and after the required Starbucks stop (not for me), we were on the road. Utah has a different law regarding maximum speed than does Arizona.
I had no idea how common of a sight this would become over the next several days:
Now, normally, I tend to run between 70-75mph as a top speed, but with all of my steering repairs and modifications the truck was handling this new found speed very well. So far, so good.
We headed north with a destination of Sandy UT for the day. I friend of mine that retired last year moved up to Sandy and offered us a place to stay. It was a very nice offer so that, coupled with the fact that he and his wife are great people made us decide that a short travel day, stopping in Sandy, was the best plan.
Now I've heard of beaver oil, but never beaver water. I bet it is good though....
There is some nice scenery along the way:
So we stopped in Sandy and met up with my buddy and his wife. We went out to dinner, came back to their place and my boy and our hosts played several sporting games on their xbox. I find it is more fun to watch other people doing the funny things it makes you do than actually participating in the activity (looked a lot like exercise to me??). I found out my buddy is a bowling shark on xbox. Never would have guessed it.
So we got a good night's sleep that night. In the morning they would not let us get out of town without going and getting a great breakfast. On the way up into SLC, we passed some neat signs. I like old signs that have character--not so much the sanitized plastic blob-like signs of today.
Arby's. I remember these signs many years ago. Obviously they still exist, but I haven't seen one in a long time.
A bowling alley. The AMF and Brunswick signs have no class compared to this classic:
So we had a great breakfast that couldn't be beat and hit the road. The only drawback was we got on the road a fair bit later than we had wanted to, making our final destination for the day look a little less feasible. We'll see how it works out.
To get there we have to keep going. Soon enough we found ourselves in:
I had traveled through Western Idaho many years ago while transporting a Z28 back to AZ for my Grandma. I had forgotten how beautiful the state is. Rolling hills. Bright greens. Good stuff.
On thing I was not expecting as I came over a rise in the road was fiding something like this on the interstate:
First time for everything I guess.
Soon after we found a sign that said this:
With weather like this in our future, arrival at our intended destination is looking a bit less likely.
We did catch up to that weather. It was rain. It was getting late and with the weather and the late start we got, we decided to shut it down in Rocker for the evening. Rocker, what a bad-ass name for a town.
I had no idea how common of a sight this would become over the next several days:
Now, normally, I tend to run between 70-75mph as a top speed, but with all of my steering repairs and modifications the truck was handling this new found speed very well. So far, so good.
We headed north with a destination of Sandy UT for the day. I friend of mine that retired last year moved up to Sandy and offered us a place to stay. It was a very nice offer so that, coupled with the fact that he and his wife are great people made us decide that a short travel day, stopping in Sandy, was the best plan.
Now I've heard of beaver oil, but never beaver water. I bet it is good though....
There is some nice scenery along the way:
So we stopped in Sandy and met up with my buddy and his wife. We went out to dinner, came back to their place and my boy and our hosts played several sporting games on their xbox. I find it is more fun to watch other people doing the funny things it makes you do than actually participating in the activity (looked a lot like exercise to me??). I found out my buddy is a bowling shark on xbox. Never would have guessed it.
So we got a good night's sleep that night. In the morning they would not let us get out of town without going and getting a great breakfast. On the way up into SLC, we passed some neat signs. I like old signs that have character--not so much the sanitized plastic blob-like signs of today.
Arby's. I remember these signs many years ago. Obviously they still exist, but I haven't seen one in a long time.
A bowling alley. The AMF and Brunswick signs have no class compared to this classic:
So we had a great breakfast that couldn't be beat and hit the road. The only drawback was we got on the road a fair bit later than we had wanted to, making our final destination for the day look a little less feasible. We'll see how it works out.
To get there we have to keep going. Soon enough we found ourselves in:
I had traveled through Western Idaho many years ago while transporting a Z28 back to AZ for my Grandma. I had forgotten how beautiful the state is. Rolling hills. Bright greens. Good stuff.
On thing I was not expecting as I came over a rise in the road was fiding something like this on the interstate:
First time for everything I guess.
Soon after we found a sign that said this:
With weather like this in our future, arrival at our intended destination is looking a bit less likely.
We did catch up to that weather. It was rain. It was getting late and with the weather and the late start we got, we decided to shut it down in Rocker for the evening. Rocker, what a bad-ass name for a town.
y5mgisi
1 ton status
80mph in a big old burb! Good stuff!
It's illegal to drive ag equipment on the interstate in Nebraska, I always assumed that that applied to the entire United States.
Martin
Martin
Not in Idaho
That seems odd and dangerous.
Martin
Martin
If it's the only access to the field, what are you going to do? Just trying to think of reasons. I'm not saying it's right.
It handled it great. All of the steering work was paying off at this point, but not as much as it was going to in the near future.
I thought so too??
I found that out first hand. I would have thought there would be a sign or two giving notice that you may encounter SMV's on the highway. It's a fast road and the rise I came over gave little warning that the baler was on the road. It wasn't a pucker moment being a bright sunny day, but change the weather to overcast and rainy or change the time of day to dusk/sunset and it could have been a different story.
I agree. I sure wouldn't want to be the operator of the equipment on the interstate. I don't know what it would look like to get kiestered in a tractor or combine by a vehicle traveling 60mph faster, but it can't end well for anybody involved.
Plausible theory, but this area was all farmland long before the Interstate Highway Act was passed so roads to fields had to exist already. The area that I grew up in was rural farmland and an interstate highway bisected many fields/properties and entrances to fields were changed accordingly.
lectric80
3/4 ton status
That bowling alley is quite old, and still in operation last I checked. It used to house a dance club on the weekends and I spent many a night in my youth there. I wish we had a heads up you were heading this way, would loved to have gotten a chance to see the burb in person.
same here, I'd have loved to get a look at one of my favorite rigs.
I wish I would have know too.
same here, I'd have loved to get a look at one of my favorite rigs.
One of our downfalls (if you want to call it that) is we usually don't plan too much in advance as to where we are going. We left the house with three destinations on the itinerary/schedule. Our plans didn't even make it to our departure as we left later in the day rather than first thing in the am. That jacked the whole plan up for the next few days. After that we usually just decide where we are going the next day sitting around a campfire or in a hotel room. Ideas get thrown around, plans are laid, amended, thrown out, revised until we finally settle on a good idea for the next installment of our adventure. In doing this we don't know when we are going to be somewhere until a day ahead of time (or usually the night before) and I will often think that I have an "imaginary friend" (my description of friends known only through the internet) in this or that area. Upon returning home (or surfing the internet the next night) I will recall who it was and lament the fact that I was in their area and didn't know it.
Now, with that being said, now that I know you guys are up there somewhere, if it looks like we will make it back to that area, I will definitely contact you ahead of time so I can call from the road and see if we can set something up.
On the same subject, last year I was spotted by a guy on another board driving through Durango. He heard the Cummins, turned around and was looking for a Dodge. He saw the Suburban and it clicked who/what it was, he ran outside, but I was too far down the street to catch up to. Sucks, because I wanted to meet him too and see his project in person. I did finally get to meet him when he came down here to visit some family he has here (but I couldn't check out his truck from here).
lectric80
3/4 ton status
No worries, as I get older I realize that I am far better off not planning ahead since it always seems to work against me.
If you get back up into the SLC area let us know, I'm sure there are more around that would love to get a chance to check out the Burb in person. I really enjoy seeing your travels with it, especially now that I don't have a K truck and really can't afford to do anything.
If you get back up into the SLC area let us know, I'm sure there are more around that would love to get a chance to check out the Burb in person. I really enjoy seeing your travels with it, especially now that I don't have a K truck and really can't afford to do anything.
It's funny that you mention that. I work out in the Sandy area and I thought I recalled seeing a burb that looked like yours awhile back. Of course my memory isn't what it used to be so I could just as easily imagined the whole thing.
No worries, as I get older I realize that I am far better off not planning ahead since it always seems to work against me.
That is the reason we usually don't plan too much either.
I will. You can let me know of other people I am forgetting that live in the area too.
It's funny that you mention that. I work out in the Sandy area and I thought I recalled seeing a burb that looked like yours awhile back. Of course my memory isn't what it used to be so I could just as easily imagined the whole thing.
Could have been me I guess. It would have been on Sunday 23/Monday 24 June.
So we stopped in Rocker for the night. We do our load-in to the hotel room in the rain. Not much in Rocker but the hotel and a couple truck stops each with their respective fast food eateries. Neither Subway or McDonalds(??) sounded very appealing so we decided to head over the hill (literally) into Butte. Butte Montana eh?? Really didn't expect much when we crested the hill, but I don't think I could have been more wrong in an assumption of what was in store. What a cool town!! We hit some random choke-n-puke for dinner and when we left I didn't state my plans, but rolled past the entrance to the freeway we came in on to do a little wandering around town. For those of you who have never been to Butte MT before, to say it is a mining town would be like saying the Pope is kind of Catholic. The mine at the north end of town is massive. Enormous. Huge. At this point I *think* I recall reading something about the mine being shut down, but with everything that is visible from the lower (elevation) of town, I want to check it out.
So we roll north just following the road we are on until I find something that goes in the direction of the mine. We take a turn here and a turn there and end up finding a little visitors center for the mine. Hmm, this could be cool. We go into the little shack/gift shop thing and find out that there is an overlook that you can pay a few dollars to go view. Sounds good. I pay the girl the few dollars and we go through a tunnel out onto a viewing platform overlooking the pit.
We get out to the platform and we find ourselves overlooking the Berkeley Pit. The Berkeley Pit is more like the Berkeley Lake or the Berkley Toxic Reservoir. It looks neat, but you sure wouldn't want to go swimming in it. It is 900' deep and contains 41.2 billion gallons of water:
The pit originally was a tunnel and shaft mining operation, but with falling copper prices after WWII and the reduction in ore quality it was decided to switch to an open pit operation. In 1955 the operation began as an open pit. In 1982, the Atlantic Richfield Company (Yep, the same ARCO) stopped active mining in the Berkeley Pit due to falling copper prices. The pumps that dewatered the original Kelly shaft operation at the 3800 foot level, and later the open pit operation, were shut down. The pit started filling with water from surrounding aquifers. Filling to the tune of one foot per month. The water is very acidic and this dissolve minerals out of the host rock that makes up the pit area. Arsenic, cadmium, zinc (the typical offenders in old mining runoff) and sulfuric acid laden the water in the pit. Ironically, the water also dissolves copper left in the host rock leaving the water with a copper content of approximately 187PPM. There is a small mining operation going on in the adjoining Continental Pit and while they do mine the rock, they also mine the water from the pit removing the copper from it. The remaining water in the pit is a very serious issue and has earned Superfund status as the critical level of the water (when the level of the water in the pit reaches the natural water table elevation) is only about 150' above where it is today. The mining operations and the water treatment plant on site actually keep the water level fairly even, but if copper prices fall and the mine shuts down a serious problem is going to appear very quickly. The State and Federal Governments along with MDEQ and the EPA have contingency plans in place to hopefully keep this from happening because it would flow into the groundwater reservoirs and then into Silver Bow Creek which becomes the Clark Fork River. Not a good situation. The nice thing is, if the mining operation shut down now, the critical level is estimated to occur in 2020, giving the agencies time to figure out their Plan B. Hopefully it never comes to that.
Another angle of the pit. The buildings in the pic are the water treatment plant that opened in 2003.
This is the small mining operation going on in the adjoining Continental Pit:
Some cool looking rocks decorating the opening of the tunnel leading to and from the pit:
As a history buff, a geology buff and a generally curious individual, this was well worth the price of admission. There is a lot of neat history right here and even more that we'll be seeing in our next installment. Stay tuned!!
So we roll north just following the road we are on until I find something that goes in the direction of the mine. We take a turn here and a turn there and end up finding a little visitors center for the mine. Hmm, this could be cool. We go into the little shack/gift shop thing and find out that there is an overlook that you can pay a few dollars to go view. Sounds good. I pay the girl the few dollars and we go through a tunnel out onto a viewing platform overlooking the pit.
We get out to the platform and we find ourselves overlooking the Berkeley Pit. The Berkeley Pit is more like the Berkeley Lake or the Berkley Toxic Reservoir. It looks neat, but you sure wouldn't want to go swimming in it. It is 900' deep and contains 41.2 billion gallons of water:
The pit originally was a tunnel and shaft mining operation, but with falling copper prices after WWII and the reduction in ore quality it was decided to switch to an open pit operation. In 1955 the operation began as an open pit. In 1982, the Atlantic Richfield Company (Yep, the same ARCO) stopped active mining in the Berkeley Pit due to falling copper prices. The pumps that dewatered the original Kelly shaft operation at the 3800 foot level, and later the open pit operation, were shut down. The pit started filling with water from surrounding aquifers. Filling to the tune of one foot per month. The water is very acidic and this dissolve minerals out of the host rock that makes up the pit area. Arsenic, cadmium, zinc (the typical offenders in old mining runoff) and sulfuric acid laden the water in the pit. Ironically, the water also dissolves copper left in the host rock leaving the water with a copper content of approximately 187PPM. There is a small mining operation going on in the adjoining Continental Pit and while they do mine the rock, they also mine the water from the pit removing the copper from it. The remaining water in the pit is a very serious issue and has earned Superfund status as the critical level of the water (when the level of the water in the pit reaches the natural water table elevation) is only about 150' above where it is today. The mining operations and the water treatment plant on site actually keep the water level fairly even, but if copper prices fall and the mine shuts down a serious problem is going to appear very quickly. The State and Federal Governments along with MDEQ and the EPA have contingency plans in place to hopefully keep this from happening because it would flow into the groundwater reservoirs and then into Silver Bow Creek which becomes the Clark Fork River. Not a good situation. The nice thing is, if the mining operation shut down now, the critical level is estimated to occur in 2020, giving the agencies time to figure out their Plan B. Hopefully it never comes to that.
Another angle of the pit. The buildings in the pic are the water treatment plant that opened in 2003.
This is the small mining operation going on in the adjoining Continental Pit:
Some cool looking rocks decorating the opening of the tunnel leading to and from the pit:
As a history buff, a geology buff and a generally curious individual, this was well worth the price of admission. There is a lot of neat history right here and even more that we'll be seeing in our next installment. Stay tuned!!
So we left the Berkeley Pit and I noticed an old Great Northern Railroad roundhouse across the road. It has been converted to a normal building and all evidence of its railroad heritage ahs been removed. No turntable, but it was still cool.
Roundhouse with a gratuitous truck pic:
There are many headframes remaing around the area. Just up the road we came upon this nice setup:
The red building is the winch house. The flat, narrow window toward the upper back of the building is where the hoist cable would enter/exit the building. The cable would run out over the two sheave towers on its way up to the top of the headframe. It would go over a sheave and proceed downward from there where it would be used to raise/lower men and material and ore buckets--big ones. Once the ore buckets cleared the top of the shaft, the bucket would catch on a stop/hook mechanism, the cable would be slacked and the ore bucket would tip to one side (typically toward the vertical side of the headframe) and dump its contents into a hopper where it would remain until a transport vehicle (a ore car on a train or a conveyor belt) was available to accept the ore and transport it to its first destination which is the mill building.
We went under the shelter structure and found ourselves on the north end of the old downtown area. There are tons and tons of cool old buildings in this area. On the side of one building we found a sculpture of a hard rock miner made of old mining equipment parts. This thing is way cool. I spent a fair bit of time checking it out/admiring it. Obviously a lot of work went into this:
The facial detail was amazing:
Another gratuitous truck shot by the building with the sculpture on it:
One of the many cool old buildings down town:
I really like the old sign work painted on old buildings. Not a whole lot of this remains in AZ as the sun is so brutal to coatings here, but several remain on buildings here: This place has booths for ladies. High class establishment.
Now anyone who has been riding along on our adventures here may recall that my favorite town in AZ is Jerome. Jerome was a mining town. It really came to be when a senator from Montana came to town and got things moving in a big-time fashion. That senator was William Clark. He came from Butte. In our wanderings we came across this:
Kind of ironic that I end up wandering around a town in Montana where the fortunes were made that allowed Jerome to be fully developed in to the mining power-house that it was.
We kept wandering and came across another headframe and winch house. This one was set up with walking paths so you could navigate your way around the different places. We checked out the headframe and wandered up by the winch house. The doors were locked and the windows were so high up that we couldn't get a good look inside. My boy noticed some of the windows to th basement were broken out. I stuck my arm in with the camera and popped several shot off in each broken window to see what was in there. One area was a locker room, complete with lockers and an old pair of Levis on the ground. Another was just miscellaneous junk. Another window held the electrical distribution equipment. This was really neat. I wish I would have ahd a real flashlight with me, but the camera got some good pics.
We left there in the truck and continued wandering. We made lots and lots of turns, just seeing what was over here or up there. It was getting later and the sun was going down. The road we were on was getting narrower and narrower and we were very much in an old residential area. The road got narrower and we came to an intersection. What to do?? We are lost at this point. No idea where we are. No idea how to get back to where we were. I had taken the navigation computer up to the room when we did our load-in. We decided we needed to turn around and try to get back into town where I could figure out how to get back to where we need to be. Where are we going?? No idea as I have no idea where we are. I got us turned around and navigated old-school by pulling up to an intersection and looking at the road to see which direction has more use and then turning that way. It took a half-dozen intersections to get to a sign that had a road I recognized on it. We made it!! In 20/20 hindsighht, both my wife and I had phones with nav programs in them that could have been used to lead us out of the situation, but, meh, we did it without them.
On our way back through town we came upon this sight way up on top of the mountain overlooking the Continental Pit: The bright white thing is a statue of Jesus overlooking the mines:
Pretty amazing sight with clouds everywhere except right there.
We made our way back to the room for hopefully a good night of sleep.
Roundhouse with a gratuitous truck pic:
There are many headframes remaing around the area. Just up the road we came upon this nice setup:
The red building is the winch house. The flat, narrow window toward the upper back of the building is where the hoist cable would enter/exit the building. The cable would run out over the two sheave towers on its way up to the top of the headframe. It would go over a sheave and proceed downward from there where it would be used to raise/lower men and material and ore buckets--big ones. Once the ore buckets cleared the top of the shaft, the bucket would catch on a stop/hook mechanism, the cable would be slacked and the ore bucket would tip to one side (typically toward the vertical side of the headframe) and dump its contents into a hopper where it would remain until a transport vehicle (a ore car on a train or a conveyor belt) was available to accept the ore and transport it to its first destination which is the mill building.
We went under the shelter structure and found ourselves on the north end of the old downtown area. There are tons and tons of cool old buildings in this area. On the side of one building we found a sculpture of a hard rock miner made of old mining equipment parts. This thing is way cool. I spent a fair bit of time checking it out/admiring it. Obviously a lot of work went into this:
The facial detail was amazing:
Another gratuitous truck shot by the building with the sculpture on it:
One of the many cool old buildings down town:
I really like the old sign work painted on old buildings. Not a whole lot of this remains in AZ as the sun is so brutal to coatings here, but several remain on buildings here: This place has booths for ladies. High class establishment.
Now anyone who has been riding along on our adventures here may recall that my favorite town in AZ is Jerome. Jerome was a mining town. It really came to be when a senator from Montana came to town and got things moving in a big-time fashion. That senator was William Clark. He came from Butte. In our wanderings we came across this:
Kind of ironic that I end up wandering around a town in Montana where the fortunes were made that allowed Jerome to be fully developed in to the mining power-house that it was.
We kept wandering and came across another headframe and winch house. This one was set up with walking paths so you could navigate your way around the different places. We checked out the headframe and wandered up by the winch house. The doors were locked and the windows were so high up that we couldn't get a good look inside. My boy noticed some of the windows to th basement were broken out. I stuck my arm in with the camera and popped several shot off in each broken window to see what was in there. One area was a locker room, complete with lockers and an old pair of Levis on the ground. Another was just miscellaneous junk. Another window held the electrical distribution equipment. This was really neat. I wish I would have ahd a real flashlight with me, but the camera got some good pics.
We left there in the truck and continued wandering. We made lots and lots of turns, just seeing what was over here or up there. It was getting later and the sun was going down. The road we were on was getting narrower and narrower and we were very much in an old residential area. The road got narrower and we came to an intersection. What to do?? We are lost at this point. No idea where we are. No idea how to get back to where we were. I had taken the navigation computer up to the room when we did our load-in. We decided we needed to turn around and try to get back into town where I could figure out how to get back to where we need to be. Where are we going?? No idea as I have no idea where we are. I got us turned around and navigated old-school by pulling up to an intersection and looking at the road to see which direction has more use and then turning that way. It took a half-dozen intersections to get to a sign that had a road I recognized on it. We made it!! In 20/20 hindsighht, both my wife and I had phones with nav programs in them that could have been used to lead us out of the situation, but, meh, we did it without them.
On our way back through town we came upon this sight way up on top of the mountain overlooking the Continental Pit: The bright white thing is a statue of Jesus overlooking the mines:
Pretty amazing sight with clouds everywhere except right there.
We made our way back to the room for hopefully a good night of sleep.
