NCDBS 2009 Fall Tour Event

Fall Tour

NCDBS Northern California Dodge Brothers and Sisters is a group of people who love and own vintage Dodge Brothers and Graham Brothers vehicles. Our group is located in Northern California. We promote Dodge Brothers vehicles and Grahman Brothers trucks in our everday life.

The "DRIVE AROUND MOUNT DIABL0" tour was held the weekend of August 22 and 23. Joining in the tour were the following participants: Jim and Delores Hebb in their 12 volt 1926 sedan, Herman and Barbara Boone in their 1933 sedan, Mike and Suzette Sordello (and daughters) in their 1922 Touring car, Bob and Timber Vincent in their 1936 KC pickup, Tom and Elaine Gong in their 1935 Coupe and Travis and Jennifer Barham in Tom and Sharon's 1926 sedan. Tom Barham drove a trouble trailer and Roger and Leah Gong followed in modern iron. We all gathered in the morning at Gene and Vicki Stadelhofer's as the kick-off point and conducted the drivers and navigators meeting. The we were off through the city streets of Alamo and Pleasan Hills and Walnut Creek and stopped at the Shadelands Ranch Museum. The Colonial Revival home was completed in 1903 by Hiram Penniman. The house as it exists today is furnished with man of the original furnishings and treatments. It is a two storied house with each room filled with Victorian era furniture clothing and other period items. A rather fascinating place to visit and explore. From the Museum we continued our travel onwards and around Mount Diablo and finally wound up between Brentwood and Antioch. A stop for lunch and we were off again to the Atlas Mine. This mine is a limestone formation mine and the limestone was mined, crushed for the pure type of sand that was produced. A docent led exploration of the mine was conducted by most members of the tour. A filled in mine shaft which was used to extract coal was also noted. This mine shaft was the last remaining coal mine of the area and was a vertical shaft of some 702 feet in depth. It was in operation until early in 1903 when it was no longer profitable to extract the coal as oil became the source of power. Once the mine tour was completed, we headed out to our destination motel. After many miles on back roads and finally on Califormia J4, we arrived in the city of Tracy. After a bit of freshening up the group headed off to Kinders Meats. This is a delicatessen and meat market that serves food The food was excellent and everyone had a great time. Joining us were Jim and Francine Reid of Galt and Jack and Jacquie Gilliland (1926 DB Roadster) who wanted to meet the NCDBS Group. They have a restored and running roadster, but do not have a trailer so they could not join us at the start of the tour in Alamo. We first met Jack and Jacquie at Galt some three years or so ago. We also conducted the usual "White Elephant" auction and raised enough funds to cover the required $100 for our insurance policy for all NCDBS tours and activities.

Day two was more traveling and the group left from Tracy over Patterson Pass Road and wandered into the city of Livermore. There was a visit to t he El Portal Garage, which was built on the Lincoln Highway and operated as a service station for many years. After the garage, there was a lunch before launching back to home base. Herman and Barbara Boone, Jim and Delores Hebb and Tom and Elaine Gong decided to forego lunch and head back to the Stadelhofers. They continued on the back roads until they reached Alamo. Along the way, there was a slight glitch in the Hebb's 1926 sedan. It would operated normally and suddenly die. The carburetor was empty so there was no gas being fed to the cylinders. Jim decided that the problem was essentially "icing" as the gasoline was in the carburetor it was vaporizing (causing ice to form like the expansion of any gas - i.e., freon 14) and causing the needle valve in the float to freeze in place. By opening the exhaust oven there was sufficient heat to the carb and gasoline to prevent this problem. There was no long any problems after this fix was put into place. The three musketeers finally wound their way back to Alamo for the usual goodbyes at the end of a great tour.