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Portola’s Railroad Days

• CATEGORIES: Event, Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

IMG_5307 (Small)Steve Elkins filed this report from Portola’s Railroad Days.

Portola, California, is rich with railroad history, as the town grew up around the WP Railroad yard. It’s the home of the Western Pacific RR active from 1903 until 1983 when WP merged with Union Pacific. WP was the last major railroad completed into California, eventually running from Salt Lake City, Utah to Oakland, CA. The significance of this location is that their tracks cross the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range at the lowest point, near Beckwourth Pass (5,200′). There’s less climbing for the trains, and there’s less snow to hinder the railroad in Winter; unlike the Southern Pacific RR route, crossing the mountains further South near Lake Tahoe (7,100′). Western Pacific is known as the “Feather River” Route, following the Feather River West of Portola into the Sacramento Valley, then turns toward the San Francisco Bay Area.

In celebration of the railroad town’s heritage, Portola held their annual Railroad Days last weekend. There were three days of activities, including a car show and shine, and a parade. Here are photos of the three Willys that participated, two traveling from Nevada.

Mellouise owns that nice M-38. She and her husband enjoys visiting the e-Willys website and driving the M-38 as her summer car around town for general transportation. “Mel” and two of her friends joined the parade in her well kept Jeep.

Mel is looking for a rear seat for her M-38. If you know of one, contact me at willys57@sbcglobal.net and I will pass the information on to her.

That’s one nice early 1950 Sedan Delivery, my favorite kind of Willys (I just bought another Parkway last week.) And that’s a beautiful pickup, apparently owned by the same family. I didn’t get a chance to meet them. I know that’s unlike me, but I had trains on the brain, spending most of the weekend at the RR Museum; a live museum with lots of action this weekend. I had just enough time to enjoy talking with Mel about her Jeep, then take a few snapshots and run off to the activities.

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Photos from the 2015 Midwest FC Gathering

• CATEGORIES: Event, FC150-FC170-M677, Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

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Roger shared these photos from his Midwest FC Gathering. He reported that the weather was great. He had more than 30 people and 9 FCs at the event. He also wanted to acknowledge & thank everyone for all the spontaneous help with food.

-Linda & George “The Grill Master” McGuire
-Sharon & Walter “The Grill Master” Calhoun
-Dan Laity, Dutch Oven “Chef”
-Everyone who set up canopy’s, tables, chairs, and helped clean-up.

He’s already looking forward to next year!

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FC150, Greg Houk (OH), Houk’s Jeep Parts,Fayetteville,OH

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170DRW, Ronnie & Susie Talkington (WV)

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George McGuire (PA), Dan Laity (OH), Wayne & Sally Trent (FL)

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Fifth Annual Willys At Whitewater Ranch July 18th, 2015

• CATEGORIES: Event, Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

This year the Annual “Willys at Whitewater Ranch” near Eugene, Oregon, has been moved up a month to July 18th (in the past it has been held in August).  You can learn more about the ranch at http://www.whitewaterranch.com. Host Jim Russell is hoping to get some RSVPs ASAP. You can call him at 415-516-4778.

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5th Annual Willys At Whitewater Ranch July 18th, 2015
I can’t believe this is the 5th year of the event but here we go!

Once a year we open Whitewater Ranch for a weekend of Willys fun. The main event starts about 10:30am on Saturday July 18th. We meet at the Whitewater Ranch barn for some Willys talk and catching up. About 12:00 I will fire up the BBQ and serve lunch. After lunch we will go for a drive through the forest and use the Willys as they were intended to be used. We can then go over to the house, have a frosty one, and relax before we have dinner along the beautiful McKenzie River.

For those of you who arrive early, we have a casual BBQ Friday night and you are welcome to stay through Sunday morning.

In the past many guests have enjoyed camping at Whitewater Ranch. If you would like something a little more comfortable I can recommend the Wayfarer Resort which is both spouse and dog friendly. Here is the link but book early as they are a popular resort, http://www.wayfarerresort.com/. As you can see, if you arrive Friday and leave Sunday you can create a great Willys weekend.

I hope you guys can make it! Please RSVP to me by email or call, 415-516-4778
See you at the ranch!

Sincerely,

Jim Russell

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Whitewater Ranch is a working timber, Christmas tree and organic blueberry ranch located 25 miles east of Eugene, Oregon.

Directions to Whitewater Ranch
90255 Fish Hatchery Road, Leaburg Oregon:

(Do not use mapquest, google maps, yahoo maps or your GPS, etc. or you will get lost.)

Whitewater Ranch is located about 25 miles east of Eugene, Oregon off Interstate 5 on Highway 126 in Leaburg Oregon.

From I-5:
Take exit 194A (Hwy 126 East) toward Springfield. 6.6 miles
Turn left onto Main St/McKenzie HWY 126 East. 17.7 miles
Just past mile marker 23 (actually mile 23.5) turn right onto Leaburg Dam Road. .2miles
Turn right onto Fish Hatchery Road.
Drive through the trout hatchery, fo

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Italy to Toledo in 2013 — Now the Turin Museum in 2015

• CATEGORIES: Event, Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

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UPDATE: You might remember the 2013 adventure of a pair of Italians who bravely drove their MB from Italy to Toledo. Ann and I nearly met them along their trip to the east coast, but our timing was a little off. Well, the pair received a post-trip honor. I’ll let Gregory explain:

A couple of years ago you were kind enough to publicize a trip undertaken by two half-witted Italians to drive back to Toledo an original Willys to MB so that it could celebrate its 70th birthday in its hometown.

Some in the Ewillys community might like to know that the adventure has found a degree of official recognition by being included in the “Modus Vivendi” (Way of Life”) exhibition which runs until 27 September at the Turin Auto Museum, in company of vehicles which have raced the Panamericana, re-enacted the Beijing-Paris race or crossed Africa from Algiers to Cape Town. Our New York to Toledo drive was among the shortest, but also the one performed by the oldest car and the only one by enthusiasts with no sponsorship.

I am attaching a couple of pictures of the display and a description of the exhibition. Sadly the Museum website is rather thin on details, but more information about the trip, car and crew can be found on our “A Jeep Comes Home” blog and the similarly-titled Facebook page.

Thanks for your excellent website and the services it provides to the Jeep community worldwide.  –Gregory Alegi

As you can see in the photo, the jeep shows pretty well against the backdrop of some fancier vehicles (Note to Ann — Honey, if this isn’t a good reason to go to Italy, I can’t think of another ….)

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Grand Mesa Jeep Club Swap Meet Grand Junction, CO

• CATEGORIES: Event, Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

I ran across the ad on Craiglist. Learn more here.

“Grand Mesa Jeep Club is putting on the biggest off road show and swap meet in Western Colorado, this weekend.
Date : Saturday, June 6th, 2015
Time : 9AM – 4PM
Location: Mesa County Fairgrounds, 2785 US Hwy 50, Grand Junction, CO 81503
Admission: Free”

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