Dauphine Destiny  ( 10,000 miles in a 51 year old Renault)

It started simply, a call from the reknowned Jonathan Burnette outlined a trip for Austin Texas to Anchorage Alaska in a 1959 Renault Dauphine. I (Brett Weiner) volunteered for the trip as co-pilot as well as my father, Mark Weiner, President of Concours Cars. Here I sit in Salina Utah. I will updated this blog as often as I can. There is a link to the Facebook page called Dauphine Destiny as well as some video's. Stay tuned!http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/?ref=home

We made it from Silina Utah to Baker City Oregon in one day. The little Ren is doing great, besides the high beam switch. The car creates quite a stir with the natives and we are always answering questions. Stayed tuned. 

Jonathan and I are in Seattle staying with some of his friends. We are having a great time!! Steven, one of Jonathan's friends, spent 7 hours cleaning and detailing the Blue Hornet. Jonathan also replaced the valve spring on the exhaust side to keep the valve from becoming too tight, we hope. I met Moe,a fellow Renault owner and Jonathan got a valve from him, just in case. Stay tuned.

We are now in Canada. Only a few looks from the border police. We went through Vancouver onto Whistler Mountain. The vistas were stunning. The water braking at the foot of mountains with glaciers on them. Each corner reviled more lakes and mountains. We stayed in Williams Lake in a motel room overlooking the lake. The next night we stayed in a campground in Lake Charlie surrounded buy the woods and moose. Now we are in Waston Lake, detecting a pattern arising? When we entered the Yukon a moose crossed right in front of us! We pulled over to fill up the Blue Hornet on the side of the road and a bear was studying us from the top of the hill. We began again and a momma bear and her two cubs were next to the road. There's an amazing amount of wildlife up here. I was talking to a few locals and the AVERAGE temp in the winter is -23F!!! That might even be to cold for me! I will try and keep this updated but we don't have wireless very often. We should be in Alaska tomorrow. Stay tuned.

We made it to Anchorage!! People are going crazy for this little car up here. Within five minutes we had a lady offer to buy the car. I told Jonathan that we should take the money and fly home first class. Needless to say, we are still driving the Renault. I'm enjoying the seafood here, something I don't get fresh in Colorado. When we were at the Alaska sign, there was couple from Austin Texas and they read about the trip in the Austin Statesmen newspaper and they were following our blogs and ran into us in Alaska!! Every where we go people comment on the car and they all love it. Mark Weiner, President of Concours Cars, arrives on Friday night. After that we will be going down to Seward. Stay tuned.

Our only issue!

We are sitting in a beautiful sunroom in Seward Alaska in the rain with Glacier a 160 lb. St. Bernard. We had a great time in Anchorage. Saw an incredible collection of photos of the Aurora Borealis at the center for the performing Arts by a local artist who has made his lifes work photographing the Aurora. We saw a movie/documentary about the Iditarod. It started as a run to bring medicine to Nome in the 1920's.

I, Mark Weiner, arrived in Anchorage Friday night to Join the intrepid adventurers. What an adventure. Mostly raining with intermittent glimpses of the mountains and the ocean. The Renault certainly attracts lots of attention. "Is that a Fiat?" "That belongs in a museum." "Nice car bro." Looking forward to more swing axle excitement!

While in Anchorage we stopped at a local muffler shop hoping for some 26 inch wheels, alas all they had for the Renault was a bling tailpipe extension. But we decided we are all secure enough in our manhood to keep the stock one.

Trying to get used to continuous fog & overcast is difficult coming from Colorado. We spent yesterday hiking to Exit Glacier-it was spectacular. The Sealife center in Seward was a lot of fun and very educational. We spent last night & today roughing it at The Alyeska Resort. One of Alaska's biggest ski, downhill mountain biking areas. Stunning place breathtaking scenery. Back to Anchorage today to take Brett to the airport.

Yesterday, Jonathan, Brett & I hiked to the top of Aleyska mountain. When we could see through the fog & clouds the view was magnificent! At the top there was a "museum" called the round house. In it was ski clothes & equipment from the 60's and a snow board from 1980. My leather lace up snow board boots looked much older-maybe I should donate them! Today it's off to Canada!

When we saw the Yukon sign we knew we were out of Alaska. Little did I know what "larger than life" meant. Jonathan having been down this road before had an inkling of what was to come. When we got to Haines Junction for the night we found our room taken by a "bad man." Fortunately we were able to find other accomodations.

The Alaska Highway Lodge was what we thought was a mirage in the night. It is in the middle of nowhere and is the largest log structure on the AlCan Highway. We were tired and cranky men and were overjoyed to find a room after dodging potholes, bison, moose, deer & bears. The Blue Hornet continues to just hum along and amazes us with it's mechanical prowess.

This is for Frank, Terry and Alan. We saw this Range Rover Towing a "109" and thought of you guys and were VERY glad that we were not getting towed. Towing a Land Rover down the Alcan is a MOST arduos task & one that we would not undertake and we salute them for their efforts. I hope they complete their journey without undue hardship.

We we saw this sign we were flabbergasted! The concept & visual was most entertaining. Picturing a herd of Buffalos jumping off a cliff and smashing their heads in sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit. While in Cardston, Alberta we came across a denture clinic that sold vintage & classic cars. For sale were 3 totally shot British cars that looked like they hadn't moved prior to the Reagan Administration.

This is taken at Muncho lake where the Northen Rockies Lodge (previously misnamed the Alaska Highway Lodge) was located. It is an incredibly beautiful place. The lake surrounded by the mountains was breathtaking. They base float plane trips out of the hotel for hunting, fishing, glacier treking & sightseeing. All their supplies for the hotel are trucked in and it costs them an average of 60% more for everything! Imagine a 800 kilometer round trip for groceries! The average price of fuel in the Yukon & British Columbia was $4.35 a gallon. We have been averaging 35 miles per gallon.

 Arrived In Glacier National Park, back in the USA! Ice tea (unsweetened) again available!

The Going to the Sun road was incredible. It reminded me a little of Independence Pass in Colorado. Waterfalls were present everywhere along the cliff walls of the road. One wall is even called "the weeping wall" because of the volume of water that literally seeps through the rock and makes it look like the cliff wall is weeping.

he Ren wanted to share some info: Jonathan achieved the top speed of the trip so far of an astounding 83MPH out of 956CC! Unbelievable! (Smaller than most of the motorcycle engines we've seen on the trip). The Ren is amazed at our 2 different driving styles. Jonathan equates it to the tortoise & the hare. Jonathan being steadfast cruises at a constant 65 MPH, Mark, on the other hand averages 68-75 MPH but only averages about 1 mile an hour faster on average. The red tour buses were built in 1936-1939 and lasted 60 years before being refurbished by Ford at a cost of $250,000 each! Jonathan & I figured we could have done the job for far less. They rebuilt about 30 of them. That is about $7.5 million dollars!

Jonathan & I spent the day in Glacier hiking and canoeing. We started to go for a hike yesterday but got lightening stormed out. It also hailed and snowed on us on the Going to the Sun road! The hike to Two Medicine Lake & Paradise Point was stunning! Next we hiked to these falls and were overwhelmed by natures majesty. We rented an aluminum canoe and spent an hour paddling about on Two Medicine Lake. It reminded me of my youth when Barbara (my wife of 35 years) and I had a canoe and used to go paddling every day after work in Lake Tiorati, N.Y.