Belated Introductions

It occurs to us we’ve gotten this far without proper introductions.

Our group of tourists consists of two fathers, four brothers, four sons, a grandfather, two grandsons, two nephews and an uncle. All packed into just two cars, a red 1910 Ford and a blue 1911 Ford.

AND, on the first day of touring we even threw in another brother, another uncle and two more nephews!

Here’s a picture of the entire group, taken on that first day:

Okay, so maybe we made those introductions a little more complicated than necessary, but it’s true nonetheless.

Here’s a better view of the cars:

That’s the 1911 in front, with the 1910 behind it (and another ’11 behind that)*. This picture was taken on a different tour in Vermont and you see those brass cylinders standing upright on the running boards? Those are acetylene gas generators, the same kind of gas used by welders today, but also by coal miners way back when so they could see in the dark with their head lamps. Calcium carbide was placed in the lower section of the generator and water in the upper section. By dripping the water onto the calcium carbide through an adjustable valve, acetylene gas was produced and routed through rubber tubes up to the headlights. Then all the driver had to do is get out and light the headlights with a flame. (The side and tail lights are kerosene lamps). But we’ve removed those for this trip and installed safer, more reliable electric headlights which also freed up space on the running board for some of our gear.

* The ’11 in the background is owned by the father/grandfather on our trip. Of the approximately 15 million Model Ts built over a 20 year period, that car was built just 3 days after the blue ’11 owned by the father/son/brother!