LUG 2026 – Day 6

Posted on October 11, 2026 by Dave

Tuesday, September 29

Chad and I shared a hotel room for LUG. Chad’s not a morning guy. My plan for the drive home was to stop at Hanging Lake for a quick hike. Hanging Lake requires a timed-entry permit, and before I left home, I bought one for 2 pm. Which meant I had to be on the road by 7. And the hotel room is in my name, so an early departure for me means Chad has to get in gear much earlier than he’d like. He seemed barely conscious when we walked out the door twenty minutes before sunrise.

By now, I’d had my share of plain bagels, and I let Chad know that I’d be stopping for food within a couple of hours. I wouldn’t be in his rearview mirror all day.

The rain made my lack of shades a moot point at the track yesterday, but I wasn’t looking forward to driving into the morning sunshine without my sunglasses. I need not have worried. It was overcast most of the time I was driving, except for about half an hour of bright sunshine near Vernal.

On the drive from home to Salt Lake City, I was shocked to see two reservoirs completely empty. Today, I passed by Strawberry Reservoir and Starvation Reservoir in Utah, and Kenney Reservoir in Colorado, all at or near full capacity. I wonder if this is because these reservoirs aren’t part of the system controlled by Denver Water. Due to the extreme drought, Denver Water has reduced flows in the Fraser River and its tributaries to keep enough water going through the Moffat Tunnel. The reduced flow of the Fraser River could very well have severe environmental impacts, because with less water, the river could freeze solid.

I stopped for fuel in Rifle, just before getting onto I-70. At the next pump, a guy got out of his pickup truck, looked at my car, looked at me, and said, “Ah, to be young and rich!” I replied, “Sorry, neither!”

I made it to the Hanging Lake parking lot a bit early. I thought I had the permit in my phone’s wallet, but it wasn’t there. I had a screenshot of it somewhere, but the ranger found my name on his list before I could find the photo. This might be the best time of the year to visit Hanging Lake. When I made the reservation, there were still quite a few permits left, and, judging by the number of spaces available in the parking lot, my Tuesday afternoon time slot wasn’t close to selling out. Bonus points for it still being good aspen viewing season.

I pulled into a parking spot next to a couple in an SUV. He was trying to get a photo of a blue jay while I was changing my shoes. (My driving shoes aren’t at all suitable for hiking.) Usually, I’m the one who wants to engage with strangers. He was drawn to the car, of course. He greeted me and asked if I tracked the car. No doubt he knew the answer before he asked it. They were visiting from Switzerland. He used to have a Radical that he drove often at Spa and at other Belgian, German, and Dutch race tracks. What are the chances that, in two days, I’d meet two people who often did track days at Spa? I met him again at the lake. He’s a trail runner. He ran it in half the time it took me.

It’s only a mile and a half from the parking lot to the lake, with about a third of that on the bike path along the Colorado River. Where the trail leaves the bike path, there are half a dozen informative signs telling the history and geology of Hanging Lake. With the highway right here, it’s noisy, but the sound of the river softens the traffic noise.

From here to the lake, the trail is fairly steep, climbing a thousand feet in a mile. After half a mile, the traffic noise is gone. The trail is very well maintained and features six bridges over Dead Horse Creek, the lake’s outlet stream. Strangely, there’s water flowing at the base of the trail and below the highest three bridges, but no water under the lower three.

I am often prone to exaggeration. I try to avoid it, or admit it when I do it. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that one out of three paces on the trail is on a stone stair. The trail climbs the floor of a narrow, steep-walled canyon. For much of the hike, there are no views, except for the nearly vertical canyon walls. The lake attracts folks who don’t normally hike, and there are many benches along the way for people to rest. The final climb to the lake is up a stone stairway narrow enough to require a railing.

Just before the lake comes into view, there’s a trail junction. To the left, up the trail a short distance, is Spouting Rock Waterfall. I’d like to return here in late May or early June. Today, the flow of water is only a small fraction of what it must be in late spring. It must be spectacular when the stream is running at full flow.

Hanging Lake is small. I’ve been to dozens of bodies of water of this size that are unnamed, unworthy of notice. The surface area is only a quarter of an acre, or the same size as the lot my house sits on. Size is overrated. This place is outstanding. It is key to the ecosystem of this canyon. Birds live in the canyon walls around the lake. The water is so clear, you can see the fish.

On the hike in, at a platform near the top of the final staircase, there’s a view of the canyon. You can see how close the Grizzly Creek Fire came in 2020. This lush little lake and the wonderful spouting rock above it saved this place from the inferno. It’s a special place.

I’ve said before that I don’t have a Top Ten list of lakes, but if I did, Hanging Lake would be on it. I can’t believe I’ve lived in Colorado for more than half a century and have never been here before.

I will definitely make a point of coming back in late spring. I also think I’d like to come here in winter. The ranger told me the trail can be quite treacherous in winter, getting packed into ice by people’s footsteps. I’m willing to give it a shot with microspikes and trekking poles. The only part that seems sketchy to me is the final climb, but there’s a handrail there, so it seems doable to me.

When I got back to the bike trail along the river, there was a small herd of bighorn sheep ewes. I don’t often see bighorn sheep on my hikes. When I do, it’s always ewes, never rams. And I’ve never been this close to them before.

I was back to the car by 3:30, so just under two hours for the pleasant little diversion to Hanging Lake.

I needed a comfort break by the time I reached Georgetown. I stopped at the visitor center, where I spotted a Lamborghini. The driver was standing outside the car, talking on his phone. When I took a couple of photos, he interrupted his conversation to say to me, “Don’t post the pictures.”

I felt he was being a bit of a jerk. Two things came to my mind right away. First, unseriously, why don’t you want a photo posted? Did you steal it? Second, and really, if you don’t want people taking pictures of your car, don’t take it out of your garage. You’re out in public, and everybody carries a camera. People take pictures of my car all the time, and mine is not so exotic (or expensive) as a Lamborghini. Only a small number of people ask before they take a photo. There’s no need to ask; by now it’s pretty much expected.

A moment later, he was done talking on the phone. I showed him pictures of the three wild cars I saw at the track yesterday. He asked if the Aston Martin was my car. I pointed to my car and said, “No, that’s mine.”

My initial thought that he was being a jerk was unwarranted. It turns out that this Lamborghini isn’t yet available in the US. This car had Michigan manufacturer plates. I often see “test mules” in these parts: camouflaged cars full of test equipment. This one was not at all camouflaged, and there didn’t appear to be any equipment on board. I did a quick web search and found a bunch of photos of this car (or one just like it) in the Denver area, so it’s no secret that it exists. So, yeah, I’m posting a photo of it. I never said I wouldn’t, and I don’t think showing it to my seven subscribers will cause any problems.

I do find it hilarious that a guy driving a car that screams to the world, “Look at me!” wants to keep its existence here a secret. My car is not inconspicuous, but this thing demands your attention. In the words of Elmer Fudd, “Shhh! Be qwiet!”

Thus ends my trip to LUG. I experienced despair and elation; I drove my car in the wet on the track, and I topped the week off with a short hike to a lake long on beauty. Sure, if I hadn’t had car problems, I’d have had a better time, but things could have been much worse.

The next LOG (Lotus Owners Gathering) will be in Dayton, Ohio. I think I might consider thinking about going.

LUG 2026 – Day 5

Posted on October 10, 2026 by Dave

Monday, September 28

Sitting in the hotel lobby, munching on my plain Starbucks bagel with plain cream cheese, I reminisced about the LOG in Austin, where an Einstein Bagel was a block away . Ah, how I’d love to have an Asiago cheese bagel with onion and chive schmear. I was brought out of my reverie when, through the atrium roof, I saw what looked suspiciously like a flash of lightning. My suspicions were confirmed a few moments later by another flash. It looks like we’re in for a wet morning.

Chad and I headed off to the track. I don’t know how many names this place has had. It used to be Miller Motorsports Park. When we were here in 2021, it was the Utah Motorsports Campus. Today it’s West Desert. The current name is apt, as the place is in the desert west of SLC.

Not long after getting onto I-80W, we drove through a pretty good shower. It let up, then reintensified, then let up again. By the time we got to the track, we’d passed under a few cells. Things didn’t look good to the west at all.

We got there a few minutes after 8, thinking we were only a few minutes late, but the schedule had changed, and the drivers’ meeting was at 7:30. They were surprisingly casual about us missing it. In lieu of the twenty-minute-plus meeting, we were simply told where to line up to enter the track. We got signed in, had our helmets inspected, put group stickers on our cars, and were good to go.

Usually, I put all my stuff on a tarp wherever I’m parked in the paddock. With it raining, I wanted my stuff inside. I looked around and didn’t see that anybody else had brought anything in. I was told to just put it out of the way in the garage where we’d have lunch. Once I brought my things in, lots of other folks did, too.

We were both in group C, the advanced group. They told us the car count for intermediate, B, and advanced. There were only about 2/3 as many cars in intermediate, and I said I’d like to switch. He kinda brushed me off, said I should stick with C, and I didn’t push too hard. So, C it was.

This is a Hooked On Driving event. About a third of the cars here today are Lotus. I didn’t see any non-Lotus cars that were less than double the horsepower of my car. And, most likely, nobody is on worse tires than me. I have the street wheels, not the track wheels. The tires are hard, and I probably should have replaced the rears before this trip. They’d be okay if it was sunny and warm, but cold and rain will make them entertaining.

This is my first track day in the US where they wanted us to have our windows up and to use turn signals for point-bys. In Europe, it’s windows up and signal the direction you are going; in the US, it has always been windows down, point-by with arm signals. Today, it’s windows up and use the turn signal to indicate where you want the passing car to go. I’m not a fan.

I drove this track five years ago, but back then we did the outer loop. This time, we’re doing the full course. The outer course is three miles long and has fourteen turns. The full course is four-and-a-half miles and twenty-three turns. So, although I’ve been here, I basically need to remember the bits I’ve driven before and learn the equivalent of a whole new track.

For the first session, I left the soft top on and didn’t mount any cameras. All day, we’ll be running twenty-minute sessions. I prefer half-hour ones, but only HPR seems to do them. It’s a long lap, particularly when you’re going slow. I was going slow because if I tried to push, the car would go sideways. I spent a lot of time looking out the side windows of the car. I managed to keep it on the track and never spun it, but I was sideways a lot. In the first session, I got two timed laps, plus an out lap and an in lap. The two timed laps were pretty close to five minutes each. I’m not going to get many laps.

We had a quick meeting after that first session. They said a dark green Lotus’ left turn signal wasn’t working. That’d be me. I had no idea. Everybody passed me every time I signaled, except the guy behind me on the checkered flag lap. I’ll do the rest of the day with windows down and arm signals.

The left turn signal situation is annoying. It worked for a couple of years after I bought the car, then failed. We tried everything. Then, magically, a couple of years later, it started working again. That’s how it’s been – work for a while, then fail for a while. I was pleasantly surprised that when we did the engine swap, it magically started working again. Failing again so quickly is disappointing, but not unexpected.

The rain let up a bit for the second session. I ran without the top and had the cameras going. The slightly drier conditions didn’t help me. I wasn’t any faster, and I was still sideways way too often. Again, just two timed laps. I was getting lost, confusing turns 6 and 9. The place is not quite billiard-table flat, and there are no landmarks. There wasn’t any water running across the track, but there were a few puddles on my line. I’m enjoying the challenge, in a way, but I’d feel more comfortable if there was less traffic.

After the second session, I switched to group B, using my hard, worn tires as the excuse. Yeah, yeah, yeah, “cold tires” is the excuse of the neophyte, and it’s a poor carpenter who blames his tools. It was a good decision, though.

At lunch, somebody asked me if I’d checked out the cars in one of the garages. I hadn’t, but now I was curious. I was not disappointed. The first one I came to was a Lamborghini Huracan STO. They made just under 30,000 Huracans, with in the neighborhood of 10,000 of these selling in the USA. It’s the most popular Lamborghini, and they’ve made more than a dozen variants. The STO (Super Trofeo Omologato) is a track-focused version. I don’t know how many of this version were produced, but you can pick one up for $400,000 or so.

Next was the Aston Martin Valhalla. This is as close as you can get to a Red Bull F1 car for the road. It’s a mid-engine plug-in hybrid that pumps out more than a thousand horsepower. They made 999 of these, and if you look around, you can probably find one for about a million dollars. This one looked to be brand new, still sporting protective wrappings in the interior.

Finally, I came to the McLaren. It’s the sixth edition of the McLaren Ultimate Series, which started with the McLaren F1. This baby is a track-only mid-engine beast with a V-10 based on a Judd engine. It’s not as powerful as the Valhalla, but it’s quite a bit lighter. It’ll make your bank account considerably lighter, as they only produced 25 of these babies, and they’re going for in excess of $3 million.

I don’t know why these cars are here today, but it was pretty cool to see them. I suppose it’s possible I’ll see another Huracan in the wild, but not likely it’ll be this STO version. The other two, though, are unicorns. About the only cars I’ve ever seen that were produced in smaller numbers were concept cars, which are unique.

I went back to the garage where we tended to hang out between sessions and grabbed a sandwich. Chad and I sat next to a guy named John. John served in Germany and often took his car to Spa and the Nürburgring. He’s run over a hundred laps on the Nordschleife and has lapped the Grand Prix course. I told him I had an American coach when I lapped the Nordschleife, a guy born in Missouri. John said, “Was it Nashe? We served together.” He showed me a photo. Small world, eh?

It rained on and off in the afternoon. One session, the track had developed a mostly dry line. In between sessions, I draped the soft top over the cabin and covered the camera with a towel. The rain was never heavy, and if you go fast enough, not much rain comes in the cabin. When I was getting out of the car after a session, a gal walking by told me, “You’re crazy out there!” I immediately wondered what I’d done, but she was still talking: “Driving without a top!”

I ran into a guy I met at the LOG in Austin. I’m so bad with names, I’ve forgotten it. He drives a turquoise Evora, a pretty car. We share some geography. We’ve both lived in Toledo and Ft. Myers. He’s got the track bug at least as bad as I do. He’s been to 34 or 35 tracks and wants to ship his car to Europe to bag a bunch over there. I empathize, brother; I feel your pain. My name is Dave, and I’m an addict.

I cut 36 seconds off my time in the third session, and 18 more in the fourth. I didn’t run Happy Hour because it rained again. I managed to run five laps in each session in the afternoon, for a total of 14 for the day. There are tracks where I get 14 laps in a single session.

It’s the first time I’ve driven on a wet track in the Lotus. I lost traction dozens of times but never put a tire off the track and never spun. I improved every session. I saw some incredible cars and talked to a bunch of people who share one of my passions.

Chad and I finished the day with dinner at Rabbit’s Foot Brewery.

It was a fun day.

LUG 2026 – Day 4

Posted on October 8, 2026 by Dave

Sunday, September 27

Yeah, I had another bagel at Starbucks. This time I charged it.

This morning’s activity was called a “Funkhana”. Yesterday, I chatted with a guy who has done a couple of them. You can’t do it alone; a co-driver is required. One time, he said they blindfolded the driver, and the co-driver had to navigate them through a short course that included parallel parking and backing into a parking spot. Another time, they had to throw Frisbees into baskets.

We did this in the parking lot of the University of Utah football stadium, a few blocks from the hotel. The opening ceremonies for the 2002 Winter Olympics were held here, and they still have the cauldron for the Olympic flame. This cauldron is lit wherever the Winter Olympics are being held, wherever that is. They put it out when the Olympics are done. Today, the cauldron is outside the stadium. It’ll go back in when the 2034 Olympics are held here.

Chad and I teamed up; he was my co-driver, and I was his. First, we had to put dinosaur masks on and drive to three stations. At each, we used grabbers to pick up a small plushy dinosaur. Next, we drove another short course with two stops where we had to toss our dinosaurs through the window and land them in little corrals. We could throw as few or as many as we wanted at each stop.

It was pretty easy to pick up the plushies. I expect everybody got maximum points. For the corralling, Chad said I should pull up as close as possible to the right for one stop and as close as possible to the left for the other. He’d toss his dinos at the first stop, and I’d toss mine at the second. That makes all the tosses as short as possible. So that’s what we did. On my run, I landed 2 in the smaller, higher-scoring corrals. On Chad’s run, I didn’t do so well.

After that, we had a zucchini race. Like Pinewood Derby in Cub Scouts, but with zucchini and squash instead of wood. There were bonus points for the most creatively decorated racer, and each car had to have a dinosaur in the driver’s seat. I’m not very creative, so I didn’t put much effort into it. Instead, I got the bright idea to strap a GoPro onto it. Folks got a kick out of it. On my test run, the camera came off, but another pipe cleaner did the trick.

Our last activity for the whole group was a farewell lunch. Here we thanked all the volunteers who made the event possible. They also gave prizes to the winners of the funkhana. Much to my surprise, I was tied for first. The prize was a larger plush dinosaur. I gave it to Chad. At the end, they gave away some extra T-shirts that were made for the volunteers. They’re a kind of fluorescent green. I snagged one and get more use out of it than I would a blue dinosaur.

For dinner, four of us went to a brewpub to watch the Broncos game. We had tasty wood-fired pizzas and beer. Fun Utah fact: if the beer is more than 5% alcohol, it comes in cans, never on tap. Pretty quickly after finishing, our server wanted us to pay. He wasn’t asking us to leave, but there was a fire a couple of buildings away. They evacuated an apartment complex, and it was possible the restaurant might need to be evacuated as well. That wasn’t necessary. The fire was on the news the next morning.

Somewhere between the restaurant and my hotel room, I managed to lose my sunglasses. I never drive without sunglasses.

LUG 2026 – Day 3

Posted on October 6, 2026 by Dave

Saturday, September 26

Because the deli I found yesterday isn’t open on the weekend, I’m back to the choice between the overpriced bagel at Starbucks and the one that’s a few cents cheaper down the street. Although I should probably take the walk and get a few steps in, I elected for the Starbucks bagel. Bagel (toasted) plus cream cheese plus tax works out to $4.60. I gave the cashier a $5 bill. She rummaged through her change drawer, closely inspected a coin or two, then gave me a nickel and smiled.

“You said it’s $4.60. I gave you a five, but you only gave me a nickel back!”

She fished around in her drawer some more, handed me three more nickels, and said, “We’re out of coins.” Really?

Yesterday, when I told Ryan the symptoms and that we’d done a recent engine swap came up with a few possibilities. One was that maybe we had a poor ground. That would explain why the misfire progressively got worse, and why replacing the plugs and coils didn’t fix it. If that is it, it’ll be an easy fix. Maybe I wouldn’t have to fly home after all.

In early afternoon, I was in the parking lot chatting with a couple who were wondering about all the cars when I spotted Ryan heading my way with Dave, his boss, and the other Lotus USA tech. These are the experts that the dealers go to when they have issues.

Dave is a funny guy. Every time somebody says they’ve modified their cars, Dave asks for their VIN. He takes one look at my car and says, “I see what the problem is. He has an aftermarket diffuser!”

It only took Ryan a few minutes to discover that one of the new ignition coils Michael and I installed a couple of weeks ago is messed up. It’s missing its boot, and it has some witness marks on it. Clearly not a new part. Three came in one kind of box, the fourth in a slightly different one. It must have been the one in the oddball box: a returned item that got shipped out as new. I’m surprised we didn’t spot it when we installed it. I don’t know how we both missed it; the missing boot is pretty obvious.

I called the nearest Advance Auto Parts. The gal I talked to said, “Sorry, but I only have one.” That’s great! I only need one! With a hotel full of Lotus peeps, it only took a few minutes to arrange a lift to the store. John kindly took me there, and after returning to the hotel, it was simple (even for me) to effect the repair.

She fired right up and idled nicely. I cleared the codes and drove a few miles. Music to my ears. I wouldn’t have to fly home, and I’d get to do the track day.

These Utah trips are emotional roller-coasters. Last year, the mysterious oil issue; this year, the misfire. They’re memorable trips, that’s for sure.

Dinner tonight was at the Natural History Museum of Utah. It’s just a couple of blocks up the hill from the hotel. I was a bit surprised that so many people drove. We filled the parking lot, but we could have filled it three times.

We had an hour to explore the exhibits before dinner. It’s not a large museum, maybe only a sixth the size of the Denver museum. It’s mostly dinosaurs. It’s packed with dinosaurs. You walk among them, under them, over them. They menace with open jaws, all pointy teeth and big claws.

I am such a child. There’s a little demonstration of a seismograph. On the floor is a painted box: “Jump!”. On the wall is a display. I jumped, and jumped harder a second time. I “pegged” the needle. A minute later, two people were trying it out, stomping one foot instead of jumping. “No, no, no. Here’s how you do it,” I said, and took a running leap. Pegged it again. I’m such a child.

This place is just a fraction of the size of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, but I really liked the way they did the exhibits. The dioramas in the Denver museum are stodgy – very last century.

Our speaker after dinner was Robin Shute, Tony’s son. Robin is a 4-time Pikes Peak Hill Climb winner. He’s a bit of a unicorn – he didn’t just drive the car; he designed it. Like his father, he’s soft-spoken, and I missed a little of what he said. Quite the accomplished guy.

LUG 2026 – Day 2

Posted on October 3, 2026 by Dave

Friday, September 25

The hotel we’re staying in doesn’t offer a Continental breakfast, but they do have a Starbucks in the lobby. The only thing they offer a non-coffee drinker and someone trying not to eat sugary foods is a couple of bagels: plain or everything. In search of better options, I walked a couple of blocks to the Corner Bakery Cafe. Sadly, the options were the same, unless I wanted a sit-down breakfast. So, yeah, I ended up with an overpriced plain bagel.

Today, the plan is to head to Helper, UT, to have our little car show and lunch. It’s a two-hour drive using the fastest route. That fastest route involves interstate highways, and I’m not alone in my dislike for these roads. Since we’re trying to get something like 160 cars from here to there, there was a choice between several groups taking different routes. I decided to travel with the Lotus Colorado group.

Unfortunately, when I pulled out of the hotel parking lot, my misfire got much worse. I drove down to the main drag and just missed the green light. This was good, as there was no way I’d drive it for the 5+ hour round trip with it running like this. When the light turned green, I made a U-turn and went back to the hotel parking lot. By the time I parked it, the check engine light was flashing. I’ve never seen that before. Not a good sign.

With an undrivable car, I won’t be able to partake in most of the activities that I came here to do. I missed our takeover of the town of Helping. I won’t be able to join any of the organized drives tomorrow, the funkhana on Sunday, or the track day on Monday. And, frankly, I’ll be looking for a way to get the car to the local dealer and book a flight back home.

Long-time readers may think this sounds familiar. I had a check engine light the night before my track day at Laguna Seca and an electrical problem on my first Atlanta trip that caused me to cancel my two-day event at Barber Motorsports Park.

The difference this time is that Lotus Cars USA has their three top experts on my car at the event. One of them is Ryan, who has done a lot of work on my car, including fixing the short that wrecked my Atlanta trip. I am confident that Ryan and his colleagues will be able to diagnose the issue and, if I’m lucky, get it resolved, too.

So, I texted Ryan to see if he went to Helper or if he’s somewhere around the hotel. The answer was neither. He responded a couple of hours later, saying that he and his family had just crossed the border into Utah and would arrive at the hotel a few hours later, but wouldn’t be able to look at the car until sometime tomorrow.

Normally, I’d have a book with me. After I lugged a book around France and didn’t even read it on the plane, I didn’t bother bringing one on this trip. When would I have time to read? Every time I have a problem on one of my trips, I end up adding something to the toolbox. I won’t put it in the toolbox, but I’ll be sure to always be prepared to have time to kill. Ahem.

The hotel is practically on the University of Utah’s campus. Two medical school buildings are next door. Surely there’s a bookstore within walking distance. My Navigator friend suggested the bookstore on campus, showing me a photo of a shelf of books. It’s a 29-minute walk. Part of the walk is along a six-lane road with no sidewalk. But enough people go this way that there’s a trail. When I get to a sidewalk, there’s a crossing button I need to press to light up the sign so drivers won’t kill me in the crosswalk. I push the button three times, but it doesn’t work.

To get to the bookstore, I walk past the library. It’s the J. Willard Marriott Library. I was surprised it was named for somebody I recognized and had no idea he had connections to this area. I have no idea who the Norlin was that the CU library is named for.

Anyway, I arrive at the store. It’s two stories, with the ground floor completely filled with UU merch. Shirts, hats, jerseys, jackets, hoodies. A sign by the stairs says that book packages can be collected upstairs. Naturally, I go upstairs. I’m guessing students order online whatever few books they need dead-tree versions of and pick them up here. So much for buying a book.

For lunch, I had the challenge of locating a deli Google said was nearby. As in, practically across the street in one of the medical office buildings. Google messed with me on this one. In pedestrian mode, mind you, it directed me through the parking lot of the office building and into an entrance. I did spot a sign for the Deli, but it just had an arrow. Google did say that it was on the second floor, so I went up the stairs. This led me into a warren of offices. I was clearly not in a public space. After several turns, I managed to exit from the back, as the building is built on a hill, and the second floor is the ground floor in the back. I’m about to give up when I spot it. Navigator led me on the worst possible path to get a sandwich. What’s it got against me?

I was excited to see they served breakfast, too. A nice breakfast burrito would be a nice step up from a plain bagel. Unfortunately, they’re only open on weekdays. They cater to the office workers in the area, and there’s nothing else to bring traffic here. Oh well. Bagels it is.

I counted six cars in the parking lot when I got back from lunch. The place was deserted. Or, nearly so. I helped a guy get a go-kart from his minivan to the lobby outside the banquet room for display. Across the parking lot, over the lawn, through the double doors, and next to the staircase. It’s a Lotus go-kart. Built in Italy, sold across Europe, but only a handful made it to America.

For dinner, the eternal question: the beef or the chicken? Our speaker was Tony Shute, who led the development of the Elise, Exige, and variants. At our table, we couldn’t see the slideshow, and there was a lot of noise behind us, making him difficult to hear. On top of that, he was a soft-spoken guy. I moved to another part of the room to see the slides, but had just as much noise. So it goes.

To top off the evening, we had the awards presentation from the day in Helper. Lotus Colorado outperformed. We won exactly a third of the awards, but we’re more like a fifth of the cars.

LUG 2026 – Day 1

Posted on October 2, 2026 by Dave

Every year in September, Lotus Ltd., the national club for Lotus owners, holds the Lotus Owners Gathering, or LOG. Historically, Lotus Ltd. has been, shall we say, East Coast-centric. Since I’ve been in the club, I think only four LOGs have been west of the Mississippi. Meanwhile, the Golden Gate Lotus Club and other clubs hold a West Coast Lotus Meet (WCLM), generally every other year, also around this time. As long as I’ve had the Lotus, I’ve had the sense that the two organizations may have had issues other than geographic.

It may be that relations have thawed. The title of this post does not have a typo. This year’s get-together is the Lotus United Gathering, which is what you get when Lotus Ltd. and the Golden Gate Lotus Club work together. This does not mean we won’t have both a LOG and a WCLM in the same year. The United States is a big place, and it takes a special kind of maniac to want to drive these cars three or four thousand miles (or more) in a week.

For LUG 2026, the setting is the same as LOG 40: Salt Lake City. On tap for the trip are a drive to Helper, UT for our concours; a drive to a “ghost” town (which I saw last time, so I’ll replace with an alternate); a “funkhana” (a low-speed, light-hearted obstacle course); a track day; and, on the drive home, a hike to Hanging Lake near Glenwood Springs.

Thursday, September 24

My phone’s navigation app likes to mess with me. In Death Valley, it had me going down a dirt road in the dark. It wants me to take shortcuts to bypass towns, so I miss all the restaurants and gas stations. In Missouri, it flat-out lied to me. It said the nearest gas station was 19 miles away, but at the next stop sign, I spotted one a quarter of a mile down the crossroad. I hate interstates, so I often set it to avoid highways. It directed me to a ferry across the Ohio River that operated twice a day. Once, in Tennessee, when I was on the Interstate, in a Biblical rainstorm, it had me exit the Interstate and drive a seven-mile loop, only to get back on the Interstate at the same exit¹. I don’t know what I did to piss it off.

Today I decided I’d put in the address of the hotel and hit Start, then ignore whatever it said for half the day. I know it’ll want me to take I-25 to I-80, and that’s the last route I want to take. My plan was I-70 to Silverthorne, then CO 9 to US 40. I wondered how long the app would keep telling me to turn around. It gave up around Colfax. In response, it sent me, and, seemingly, dozens of other cars, on a detour around congestion on the Interstate. It took me four cycles to get through one stoplight. I’d have rather stayed on I-70. Yeah, yeah, I should have ignored it like I said I would.

Colorado Highway 9 passes by Green Mountain Reservoir. There isn’t any water in it. I don’t mean it was low. The only water in it was a largish puddle at the dam. After the junction with US 40 in Kremmling, the road passes Wolford Mountain Reservoir. This is also dry. It’s not uncommon over the years to see reservoirs quite low; this was shocking.

By now, I had finally bent the navigation app to my will². Almost. It tried to pull the “shortcut around the town” stunt in Vernal and cheat me out of lunch. This great time-saving manoeuvre was not a time-saver because two oversized loads blocked the intersection for three cycles of the light. When I could finally make a right turn on red to grab a sandwich at Jimmy John’s, I sent the navigator app into a paroxysm of rerouting beeps.

At Duchesne, the unexpected happened. Navigator sent me onto Utah routes to bypass Strawberry and Heber City; backroads to within a few miles of I-80. Utah Route 35 is a lovely road with sweeping turns, almost no traffic, and pleasant mountain scenery. At one point, I came across a herd of sheep on the road, directed by three dogs, but no human I could see. The dogs had their charges across the road in no time.

Back in civilization, in Kamas, I came within a hundred yards of joining a group of Lotus, but my low fuel light came on, and I stopped to refuel. I gassed up in Kremmling, 338 miles earlier. It was only another 38 miles to the hotel. I’d have made it with more than a gallon left in the tank – I got 41.3 miles to the gallon on that tank.

Good fuel economy despite the car not running quite right. In the wake of the engine swap, I was getting occasional check engine lights for misfire codes. Last week, Michael and I replaced the spark plugs and ignition coils. But now the misfires are no longer occasional. The idle is very rough, but it never stalled. And at low RPMs, the misfire was quite noticeable.

I pulled into the hotel parking lot a few minutes after 5, a bit over nine hours of travel time. I got checked in with the hotel and got checked in with LUG, just in time to have dinner and a couple of beers with other Lotus enthusiasts.

In its defense, it was the most intense part of the storm, and I pulled into a parking lot for a few minutes when it started to hail. The Interstate would have been crazy, so the detour was a good thing. ↩︎
Not really. By now, this was the only route option until close to SLC. ↩︎

A Different Shelf Lake

Posted on September 20, 2026 by Dave

I’ve often joked that it’s hard to name lakes. On the East Inlet Trail in Rocky Mountain National Park, you can visit five lakes: Lone Pine Lake, Lake Verna, Spirit Lake, Fourth Lake, and Fifth Lake. It was too hard to name those last two, so they punted. But it’s more than that. Although this is the only Lake Verna in the US, there are 31 Spirit Lakes, a dozen Lone Pine Lakes, a slew of Fourth Lakes, eleven Fifth Lakes (and a Lake Fifth).

In Rocky Mountain National Park alone, there’s a Lake Irene and an Irene Lake. There’s also a Solitude Lake and a Lake Solitude. I’ve hiked to Crater Lake in Indian Peaks Wilderness and Crater Lakes in James Peak Wilderness. Don’t get me started on Bear Lake: there are seven in Colorado and nearly two hundred nationwide.

As to Shelf Lake, there are two in Colorado and eleven total. I’ve been to the Shelf Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park a couple of times. The Shelf Lake that’s the destination for my next hike is in Clear Creek County, on a shelf 900 feet below the summit of Decatur Mountain.

Saturday, September 11

The trailhead is on Upper Geneva Road, off the north side of Guanella Pass. It’s about three and a half miles up a dirt road. The road starts off pretty good, but steadily gets rougher. It doesn’t require 4-wheel-drive, but ground clearance is a must. The parking lot holds a bit more than a dozen vehicles, and there’s room for another dozen in an adjacent overflow area. I arrived at 8:45 and got one of the last spots.

The hike is only three and a half miles, but with the trailhead at 10,000′ and the lake at 12,000′, the air is a bit thin the whole time, and about a third of it is above treeline.

About a mile into the hike is the first steep climb, and this is rewarded with a clear view of the valley below. Along the trail, there is the occasional aspen grove. Today, most of them are still green, or just getting a tinge of yellow. There was only one grove that was fully gold.

The trail leaves the forest and crosses the main stream, revealing the high, broad valley between Decatur and Square Top. Much like the other high valleys in the vicinity, this one is a sea of willow. The trail cuts a few long, narrow paths through the willow, at times nearly head-high. In these sections, the trail is not much more than shoulder-wide, and you hear oncoming hikers before you see them.

After the willow, the trail reaches the base of the shelf that contains the lake for the final steep lift to the lake.

The hike to Shelf Lake isn’t a “conga line” hike, but the only destination for people who parked at the trailhead is this lake, so counting the cars at the trailhead should give you a good idea of how many people you’ll encounter. I stayed at the lake for about an hour, and there were never fewer than half a dozen people there. Just about everybody I came across had either a dog or a fishing pole, and many had both.

Unfortunately, I managed to forget to bring the Insta360, so no timelapse video for this one. So it goes.

It’s a pleasant hike, not too strenuous, not too long. The weather was nice, and it was an enjoyable way to spend the day. I probably won’t return to Shelf Lake, given my compulsion to always hike to lakes I haven’t visited before, but I hope to return to the vicinity again and get a more distant view of it.

During my map study in preparation for this hike, it seemed to me that I might consider hiking over the pass between Square Top and Argentine Peak to reach Murray Reservoir and Silver Dollar Lake. It’s at 13,000′, but that’s only 3,000′ higher than the trailhead. In the final climb to Shelf Lake, I paused several times to look at this ridge. The lower, shallower part of the climb is mostly a matter of navigating the willow. The upper, steeper part is grassy ramps. It looks pretty straightforward. Obviously, it requires two cars, so I can’t do it solo.

An alternative would be to start from the parking lot at the summit of the Guanella Pass. A trail from there goes to the summit of Square Top and crosses the crest of this ridge. This point-to-point hike would be a bit less than seven miles, with about 2,000′ of elevation gain.

National Museum of WWII Aviation

Posted on September 7, 2026 by Dave

Friday, September 4

I’m a sucker for a nice airplane museum.

I’ve been meaning to visit this one for years. I finally found an excuse to do it. I had to go down to Colorado Springs for some Lotus club business, and once that was done, I grabbed some lunch and a beer at Wackadoo Brewing Company (pepperoni pizza and a pint of Pucker Up Sour – a pineapple mango sour), then headed over to the museum.

I took photos of all the planes, but I won’t bore you with them here. If you’re interested in aircraft, particularly American planes that saw service in the Second World War, you should just visit yourself.

What fascinated me most was that all the aircraft in the collection (or almost all of them) are operational. Every one of these planes has an oil pan underneath its engines, collecting any drips. Warbirds of this era are rare. I had the impression that the ones still airworthy had survived not only combat, but the scrapheap. Today, I learned that my impression was incorrect.

I’ve been fascinated by YouTube videos of automobile restorations. I’m also addicted to a YouTube channel that features restorations of World War II tanks. Airplane restorations are a thing, too. But there are a few differences. For cars, unless it’s a very rare car, people can find parts at junkyards or even purchase “new old stock” parts (parts manufactured when the cars were made, but sat in warehouses since then). It’s harder to get parts for your vintage tanks. Who has parts for World War II German tanks? You probably can’t find that Maybach V-12 engine for the Tiger tank, but does it matter if you replace it with a Caterpillar diesel?

But aircraft restorations? Not really the same. First of all, if you’re going to fly your plane, it has to pass FAA inspections. This is a non-trivial thing. And, considering the source material for many of these planes, it borders on miraculous that they get restored.

One of the planes (a Grumman F3F-2) was crashed into a mountain on Maui in June of 1941, recovered from the crash site in the 1980s, and restored to flyable condition. An SB2C Helldiver was recovered from Lake Washington. They have a P-47D that was buried on Papua New Guinea in 1945 and recovered in 1990 that’s slated for restoration soon. Seeing the current state of the P-47, I have a hard time imagining it flying.

The museum doesn’t do their own restoration or service work. In a hangar next door is an outfit called Westpac. They perform restoration work, including some highly specialized tasks. The old propellers are precision devices with moving internal parts. Nobody makes them any longer, and parts can’t be found, so Westpac has their own propeller shop.

Of course, they also do all sorts of metalwork. They can’t just pop down to the Republic dealer and find a new cowling for their P-47 restoration. They need to fabricate all the parts themselves. They have managed to obtain many of the original plans for these craft, and their machine shop has all the equipment: English wheels, brakes, anvils, and so on. And it’s not just any such equipment, but of the same vintage as the planes being restored. They sourced their equipment from the old factories in Southern California.

During these extreme restorations, they often cannot use the original material. But nothing gets wasted here. They have volunteers who work in their “Alchemy Department”. Here, artisans take the scraps not destined for FAA-certified airships and make trinkets that are sold in the gift shop. You can find clocks made with the skin of an old bomber, tables that feature cylinders from old radial airplane engines, and odd devices that dispense potent potables (sorry, I didn’t snap any pics in the gift shop).

Last but not least, they have a number of simulators guests can try out. One of them is a biplane flight simulator. No, you don’t sit down at a desk with a toy joystick; you sit in the cockpit of a biplane and work the real controls. Push the joystick to the left and watch the ailerons on the wings move. Kick the rudder pedals, and the rudder moves. Yes, there are computer monitors as well, and the gauges on screen match the layout of the gauges in the cockpit. You won’t find this simulator anywhere else!

Oil pan under B-25 engine
P-47 D pending restoration
Damaged propellers that aren’t junk!
Wings pending restoration
Original plans, enlarge to actual size
Fuselage under reconstruction
Westpac metal shop

Timber Lake

Posted on September 1, 2026 by Dave

Monday, August 31

For this week’s hike, I managed to overcome my compulsion to visit a lake I’ve never been to before and returned to Timber Lake.

Timber Lake, with a surface area of about seven acres, sits in the morning’s shadow of Mt. Ida at a little over 11,000′ elevation. I was last here back in 2015. I gave a pretty good description of the trail then, so won’t repeat it.

The trail is your basic forest trail. Signs along the trail say the lake is 4.4 miles from the trailhead, but Caltopo maps reckons it at 5 miles. There aren’t any outstanding views on the way to the lake. My wife would probably describe it as “just another trail to just another lake.”

There is one outstanding feature of this trail, though. That’s the landslide area. The landslide happened during the 2013 floods. Locals will recall that just about every road into the mountains between I-70 and the Wyoming border was washed out. At the same time, there was a massive landslide on Twin Sisters.

When I hiked here in 2015, the landslide area was closed off – signs and orange tape directing hikers to detour above the slide. Now, there’s just a warning sign on each side of the slide area. The detour is still obvious on the west side of the slide, but I didn’t spot it on the east side. Judging from the state of the trail (not grown over at all, and with fresh boot prints), I’d guess very few people take the detour. The warning signs urge caution whether you cross the slide area or detour above it.

The slide area isn’t as big as I thought it was when I was here before. I counted 135 paces between the two signs, and only about two-thirds of that distance is the slide itself. The slide on Twin Sisters is an order of magnitude larger.

Erosion isn’t a topic I discuss very often with other folks. I suspect most people think of it as how rivers and streams wear away mountains. That’s true to a point, but it takes the normal flow of water (and wind) a very long time to effect change. That sort of erosion is ubiquitous, inexorable, and slow. Floods, like those in this area in 2013, or those like the failure of the Lawn Lake dam, or the slide in Chaos Canyon that turned the water of Lake Haiyaha turquoise, make the big changes. A flood can move a 50-ton boulder downstream a mile, or shift a mountainside. It is these catastrophic events that change the landscape.

My brother-in-law gave me a little emergency kit ages ago. I’ve carried it with me on day hikes and backpacking trips ever since. I’ve never used it until today. It fits in an Altoids tin. One might ask how much you can get in such a small package. My question is how Greg managed to fit everything into the tin. (It includes bandages, antibiotic ointment, matches, a razor blade, a compass, a length of cord, one of those Mylar thermal blankets, and a bunch more.)

I met a couple of hikers at the landslide area. One had slipped and bloodied a finger. He asked if I had a Band-Aid. As a matter of fact, I do! I dug to the bottom of my pack, retrieved the Altoids tin, and opened it. Naturally, the Band-Aids were at the bottom, so I had to take everything out to get to them. And, naturally, I was unable to repack the tin. It was like the tin was Dr. Who’s TARDIS – bigger inside than outside – until I tried to refill it. Evidently, Greg found the only way to pack this real-life 3-D Tetris game.

It took me a bit less than three hours to reach the lake. The weather was cool – I wore my jacket nearly all day – and the forecast was for rain starting mid-afternoon. In the end, it never did rain, and it warmed up enough in the afternoon for me to finally pack my jacket.

The two hikers I met in the landslide never did make it to the lake. I met another pair of hikers before I reached the lake. They asked if I’d seen any moose. They said they encountered a cow and calf on their hike in. I had seen the tracks, but not the animals that made them. I saw no big game all day.

One other hiker did arrive at the lake while I was there, and the only other hikers I ran into were on their way to check out the landslide area. I didn’t realize it was well enough known to be an attraction on its own.

Kawuneeche Valley mists
Mt Nimbus
“Active Landslide Area”
The center of the landslide area
Today’s Beer
North Timber Pond
South Timber Pond
What is it with rodents and my beer?
Timber Lake

A few yards Southwest of Timber Lake are two unnamed ponds, which I’m calling North Timber Pond and South Timber Pond. They’re scenic in their own right, and if you’ve made the effort to visit Timber Lake, they’re worth the extra few minutes. I suspect they don’t see very many visitors, as I didn’t spot any social trails leading to them.

On the hike out, I made a stop at one of the campsites on the trail. There are four. From closest to the trailhead to closest to the lake, they are Timber Creek, Jackstraw, Rockslide, and Snowbird. I checked out Rockslide. It’s a very nice camp. It’s only about a ten-minute hike to the lake, and ten or twelve minutes the other way there’s a privy (close to Jackstraw campsite). If I were ever to want to camp in the area, I’d stay here.

Timber Lake is worth a visit. It’s not a difficult hike, it affords some solitude, and the landslide area may be of interest.

Location	Time
Trailhead	8:54 am
Timber Creek campsite	10:36 am
Jackstraw campsite	11:15 am
Rockslide campsite	11:30 am
Snowbird campsite	11:35 am
Timber Lake	11:41 am

Back On The Streets

Posted on August 27, 2026 by Dave

The Elise has been out of commission since October, but as of a few weeks ago, thanks to Michael, with an assist from Dan, we are up and running.

It’s throwing occasional misfire codes. We have a new set of plugs but haven’t put them in yet. Perhaps it’s as simple as that. We’ll probably change the coil packs, too. In any event, it throws a misfire code periodically. I’ve driven it around town and on round trips to Grand Lake, Estes Park, and Livermore. I’ve gone through a couple of tanks of fuel.

I’m due for new license plates, and I had to get an emissions test. I went early, and there wasn’t a line. The last several times I’ve done this, they don’t have me get out of the car. They have me plug the OBD cable in, and I drive the car through the garage. This time, though, the guy told me to go to the waiting booth. I started to tell him how to start the car, but halfway through, I said, “Normally, you guys let me plug it in.” He said, “Oh, okay,” and that was that.

Until I went to pay. I didn’t have to pay because I got an “Incomplete”. I didn’t fail, I didn’t pass. “The vehicle’s OBD system has one or more supported readiness monitors in a ‘Not Ready’ status.” I didn’t realize that after you clear your misfire code, you have to run the car for ten minutes at a constant speed to reset the OBD status for that code. Once I figured that out, I drove the car up and down I-70 for a few minutes and went back and retook the test. I passed.

That was on the 17th. On the 25th, I took a drive with the club. We had lunch at the Three Rivers Smokehouse in Almont. That wasn’t the original plan, but an improvisation that improved on the plan. The original plan was to cross Cottonwood Pass westbound and Monarch Pass eastbound. Instead, we went both ways over Cottonwood. Monarch Pass is three lanes wide, which means it’s not as twisty. Not as fun. This was fun. One of the guys, Chris, made a nice video of it here.

On the way back, I stopped at the summit again. It was a beautiful day, so I took the top off. That was the last time I was out of the car until I stopped in Fairplay. Cottonwood Pass is old-school – still two lanes, with several hairpin turns. The speed limit is sometimes 35, sometimes 30. It’s a twisty road.

I made a potty stop in Fairplay. When I got out of the car, I immediately saw a metal bracket sitting on the rear clam. I didn’t know where it came from or how it was still on the car. It wasn’t there at the summit of Cottonwood. When could it have come off? Certainly not on Cottonwood. Not on Trout Creek Pass. And South Park is a series of fast straights. Frankly, I was surprised it didn’t fly off when I pulled into the gas station.

I eventually found where the bracket belongs. I found it on the driver’s side, but it came from the passenger side. It seems to serve no purpose. I suspect it’s leftover from the quick clam removal kit conversion.

As for the misfire, I get codes, but I never notice any misfires. But on the run up Crow Hill, a steep uphill pull at full throttle, I felt it misfire.

I’ll change the oil and swap the plugs before I head to Utah in late September.

It is great to be back on the road again!