Wednesday July 27, I left Wilmington NC and drove to Denver Co and picked up my wife on Saturday July 30. We then drove to Thermopolis, Wy, Cody, Wyoming, Yellowstone Park, Jackson Hole, Rock Springs, and back to Denver on Sunday Aug 7 to drop her off at the airport. She only took off a week from work and I'm retired. I then drove to Sturgis, Deadwood, and Mt. rushmore spending a couple of days there before coming home today. I drove my old 2002 F150 and it performed flawlessly with a couple of slight issues. My 5 yr. old, 45k miles Michelins should have been balanced before leaving. I had a slight vibration around 78 to 80 mph. It went away at 85 mph on those roads that had 80 mph speed limits. And, my OE rear brake rotors had a little warpage when I left that got a little worse so now I plan to replace the rotors and pads. I kept looking at the volt meter since it is still running the OE alternator but it worked fine for the whole trip. I could have driven my car but the truck came in handy when we went off road. At Rock Springs, we drove up about 4k feet on a steep gravel road to the top of a mountain. Coming down I put it in 4x4 low range and shifted to 1st or 2nd gear depending on how steep the road was to keep me from burning up my brakes. I'm really pleased with the way my old truck with 142k plus miles performed.
My son who is a music recording engineer and lives in NYC was working in Los Angeles for a few weeks and had driven his new 2016 GT Mustang to LA was driving back so he detoured and met me in Sturgis for the couple of days I was there. Boy, those new GT Mustangs are really impressive, so much more solid, quiet, and powerful than the older Mustangs! They are world class sports cars now.

 

Sounds like a great trip. Those old trucks just keep on truckin!

 

You put more miles on your truck in two weeks than I have put on my '05 F-150 and my '08 Mustang combined in all the years I have owned them......

FWIW -- it must be a real treat to have enough time to make a trip like that and not have to hustle back to keep the boss happy......

 

Yeah, it was amazing how many freaking motorcycles were in Sturgis!. My son read that last year 740k showed up! I had never been there before. Too bad I didn't have one of my motorcycles with me. Walking around Sturgis and Deadwood, you breath a lot of unburned gasoline! Several motorcyles had 502 or 572 chevy big blocks mounted in them with NOS. One had 1100hp written on the valve cover. No way I believe you could go full throttle with that combination!

You could spend many days in Cody. We went to a buffet and saw some western singers/ guitar players, the "Cowboy Music Review". And went to a rodeo, my first which was much fun. They have the "Cody Firearms Experience" where you get to see and fire all the guns that won the west including a gattling gun. We didn't go there but it would have been fun I'm sure.

 

Sounds like a fun trip Roadie. With low gasoline prices now's the time for a road trip. Glad the '02 ran great and it's good to get these older vehicles on the road every now and then.

 

Thanks!
Speaking of gasoline, in Colorado and Wyoming they sold 85 octane. I don't know what uses that octane. I asked one guy in Sturgis and he said any vehicle will run on 85.

Sturgis was tame compared to the videos I've seen. Maybe they were taken in the big campground. There were a few scantilly dressed young ladies to ogle. Some of those had been painted up top and only wore shorts! Hey, if yah got it, flaunt it!

 

Gasoline in high altitude counties is lower octane than at sea level. An engine that runs on 87 at sea level will run fine on 85 at high altitude. It will also get better gas mileage at high altitude as long as it's computer controlled.

 

Thanks. Makes sense. I did notice the drop in hp and gas mileage in the higher elevations with the hills. When I got back home to 20' above sea level, my truck was much stronger.