There is nothing finer than a cool, overcast, foggy morning 
for firing up 20+ steam cars.

~ Read the report below ~

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Hot Fog Tour Report

By Pat Farrell

The Hot Fog 2002 tour is now history. There were 22 Steam cars lined up Sunday night to start the week out right. I am sure that we had the largest line up of Locomobiles in this century. Does anyone know if we beat the largest gathering of Locomobiles in the last century? The 1999 Mt. Washington Centennial only had 7 Loco type steamers listed for their display. We had a total of 8 Locomobiles in the line up at one time. One was the Likeamobile licensed as a Locomobile, as was also the Grasshopper, which is also licensed as a Locomobile. We had 5 Locomobiles running at once. The heavy fog that we receive every fall morning didn’t disappoint us. It was a white out when the steamers left on tour every morning. As the news reporter said, “…ghosts from a century ago once again rule the road.” 

Sunday we started the Tour with its “Firing-Up Buffet”. 

Monday, we toured to the Remlinger Farm, the Snoqualmie Falls and the Snoqualmie Rail Road Museum. At the Falls, the SACA West Likeamobile, after an impressive fire with no permanent fire damage, returned home on a tow truck. Everyone else pretty well finished the day’s tour. That evening, Dave Cameron presented an Index history lesson, followed by an ice cream social. 

Tuesday, after a visit to the Wallace River Salmon Hatchery, every one was delighted on the scenic tour through the tall trees to the old mining town of Index. The Locomobiles stayed home that day. That evening, after another one of Dave’s lessons on Monte Cristo, we had another Ice cream social. 

Wednesday we toured to Granite Falls Museum, and on up the old railroad grade to the Big Four Ice caves. Vern Wellburn, Allen Blazick, and Jon Gurney were more adventuresome than the rest of the steamers and continued on up the canyon to the mining town of Monte Cristo. Only its locked gate kept them from proceeding any farther. A large portion of the travelers walked the easy one mile walk up to the ice caves. Due to last years extremely heavy snow fall, the largest Ice caves’ doors (12 ft. high ceilings) were still snowed shut, but the smaller caves were still open for our curiosity seekers. A buffet lunch was served by the Mountain View Inn for our hungry travelers. 

That evening, those that didn’t stay at the hotel for the jewelry craft lesson, drove up to Sedro Woolley, to Pat and Merrily’s Unique Museum. They looked over the 3 Stanley projects and the other interesting collectibles displayed there. 

Thursday, the shortest day with only 32 road miles, found the Locomobiles out on the road again. In the parking lot, Les Schubert started by showing his agility by doing a summer salt over the dash of his Locomobile. Les Schubert learned that when he park against the stop block in his trailer with the steam still turned on, the car can easily slip into reverse.  Then, starting from the driver’s seat, that can leave you looking up from the ground as to "what happened". Everyone had a great foot race to catch the runaway Locomobile, and the Locomobile won. Running in circles and finally throwing it’s drive chain, it stood still racing it's engine. It was as though the Loco was laughing at all the slow footed track stars. Les is even more determined now to get the Loco more reliable and to show the world that he is not going to let that happen again.

 Most of our group visited the Maltby Café and then we toured on to visit our morning’s coffee stop at Howard and Candy Musolf’s home and Collection. The rest of the steamers either got lost or found their own roads to Snohomish. Many “curiosity purchases” were made in Snohomish by our travelers. By 2 P.M., our travelers were headed on the back roads, back to the hotel. 

Our “Blow Down” banquet was delicious prime rib and salmon. 

• Chris Roberts was a shoe-in for the Hard Luck trophy with his broken crank in his 1922 Stanley Brougham. 

• Sue Davis received the Long Distance award with the Stanley Museum's Al Martin 1909 Stanley Model R. Sue drove from Kingfield, Maine, picking up the Stanley in Estes Park.

• The President's choice went to the Richard Roberts/Neal Brady-Browne 1907 Stanley EX which was also in second place for people’s choice. 

• The Williams 1909 White model M won people’s choice trophy. 

• The door prize went to Vern and Pat Wellburn. 

• Our past president, Rob Williams, announced that our next Western National Steam Car Tour will be in two years, ...in Idaho.