National Car Museum - Reno

1921 Model T Camper

 Tuesday was a pretty quiet travel day. We went from Salt Lake City to Winnemucca, Nevada along I-80. The grand sight of the day, was seeing Salt Lake itself, followed by miles of salt flats. This has to be some of the most desolate parts of the country there is.

We made it to Reno, Nevada at about noon, Wednesday. We’re in the Sparks Marina RV and it is a beautiful campground. We spent the afternoon at the National Car Museum (Harrah collection). We lucked out and made a guided tour when we arrived. The car collection emphasized the early years of automobiles, the 1890s to 1930s. We learned a lot of interesting factoids during the tour. For example, before the 1914 invention of anti-freeze, water cooled engines had to be drained each night if the temperature was going to go below freezing, so there was an advantage to air-cooled engines. Even after the invention of anti-freeze, it originally would only last for a month before it needed to be replaced. Or the fact that while London cabs had windshield wipers they didn’t appear on cars until the 1910s, and then they were hand cranked. That race cars had a mechanic on board, not to keep the car running, but to keep the oil and water pressures adjusted. We saw one of the original Stanley Steamers which took people from the train station in Loveland to the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. The highlight of the day, however, was the 1907 Thomas Flyer which won the 1908 New York to Paris race, immortalized in the movie “The Great Race”. 

The Tomas Flyer