more shots from the trip.
The stop at Virginia Dale. Interesting history here:
The Virginia Dale stage station was established in 1862 by
Jack Slade, former station manager at
Julesburg, Colorado where he famously got into a dispute with Jules Beni. Beni had previously shot Slade five times but Slade survived and exacted his revenge by ambushing Beni, tying him to a fencepost and shooting off his fingers before delivering a coup de grace to the head. Slade kept Beni's ears as trophies. While station master in Julesburg, Slade met and breakfasted with Samuel Clemens, "
Mark Twain" and made quite an impression upon Twain. Twain wrote about his encounter with Slade in his 1872 publication "
Roughing It".
When
Ben Holladay took over the Overland Stage in 1862, he changed the route, taking it south from Julesberg along the
South Platte River to
Greeley and then up the old
Cherokee Trail through Latham, LaPorte, Virginia Dale, Colorado, and into Wyoming.
Virginia Dale was a "home station" on the
Overland Trail, meaning that passengers could disembark, get a meal, and stay overnight in a hotel if the stage was delayed by weather or nightfall. Thirty to fifty horses were kept at the station which was located in a pleasant, grassy
glade (or "dale") along a clear bubbling stream, later named Dale Creek. Slade probably named the post after his wife Virginia, whose maiden name might have been "Dale". Slade was an excellent stage manager as long as he stayed sober. Many stories credit him with outrageous actions from shooting up a saloon in
LaPorte for serving his stage drivers whiskey, or for having "a fondness of shooting canned goods off grocery store shelves"
[5] to robbing the stage of $60,000 in gold, which later disappeared. Slade was fired as stage manager in November, 1862 after a drunken shooting spree at nearby
Fort Halleckand left with his wife for
Virginia City, Montana where he was hanged in early 1864 by angry miners.
A little stop at the end for a beverage and fill up that Pig with some Ethanol Free. I used a little over a quarter tank on the trip. It was starting to get hot out so good time to end the trip.
The next morning picking weeds with the dog. He wasn't much help but he was a great listener.
I need a bigger exhaust, it's holding it more heat that it should and in turn holding back that turbo. Plenty of room to add more fuel, pump settings with upgrading that exhaust. From there I'll see about which intercooler I want to put on.
The seats are...well factory seats that are 30 plus years old. If I want to do some longer trips, I will definitely need some better seats. Not sure I'm going to drop Scheel Mann money(I want to), but there are lot and lots of threads on seats.
This rig drives/rides really good. Just chugs away, easy to drive. The whole trip we pretty much hovered around 65~72ish mph. I'm pretty happy with how solid it is and how good it rides. There are always upgrades to be done, but it's really hard to find any big complaints with the rig at all.
Interesting watching the boost gauge show a -1 psi at altitude and idle. Altitude definitely takes it's toll, especially on NA vehicles. The slightly larger/wider tires were no issues at all. Smooth and gave it just a bit more legs for RPMs. 2300rpm at 65mph.