A charity tour for orphan children
Trudy and Dirk Regter from the Netherlands go on a world tour in a 1915 Ford Model T, covering all continents of the world. They are making this trip with the aim of raising money for orphans worldwide.
To date, they have driven 64,000 miles across 31 countries and have raised more than $45,000 spent on children's projects in Colombia and Bolivia.
An earlier trip by Dirk in 2007 from Beijing to Paris in the Model T raised more than $140,000, of which 2 children's projects were built in Mongolia.
The last part of their world tour,about 10,500 miles, takes them back home to the Netherlands via Asia.
If you support the purpose of this journey, you can take ownership of some of these 10,500 miles of this final leg.
Buy your miles and thus contribute to a better future for orphans.
As already expressed in the daily summaries the Model-T team received a great welcome in the United States.
Some of the enthusiast responsible for this also prominently featured Dirk & Trudy in a their newsletter. Read about it in the June 2013 Newsletter and a flyer for the Cypress Historical Society Old Fashioned Picnic.
Thanks to Stan Hoekstra for providing the newsletter.
This morning Frank and Dirk were working together in the garage to mount the plaque of the Southern Nevada Model T Club on the Model T.
T-Brothers
We have an invitation to visit The Auto Collections of Rob and John Williams to visits their beautiful car collection. Frank Ross guides us through Las Vegas en we arrive in an enormous parking garage.
parking garage
John Williams is waiting for us and opened the gate on the 4th floor and we park the Model T inside between lots of old-timers.
We enter The World Largest Classic Cars Showroom.
John shows us his favourite car, a Pierce Arrow Model 66 A4 Tourer 1919.
Dirk took place behind the steering wheel.
Dirk in the Pierce
There are also a lot of Rolls Royce’s. Dirk likes the red one the most and there is even one with a toilet inside.
Rolls Royce
After the tour through the museum we say goodbye to John and say thanks for the invitation.
John with Dirk
We have a lunch at the Bonito Michoucan, a Mexican restaurant and Violeta, the owner wants to take a picture with the Model T.
Violeta
In the evening John en Shoralyn Craft, of the local Model T club, come to look at our Model T and have a lot of story’s about their Model T.
visit
Today we visited the shop of the Southern Nevada Model T Club in Las Vegas . We go there with the Model T with Frank Ross, the president of the Club, as co-driver.
samen naar de shop
In the shop there are a lot of special Model T tools and machines and also a lot of spare parts, to keep the cars going.
zoveel spullen
extra bouten en moeren
We see a lot of cars of the members. They can work on their cars here or just store it.
One of the members is Gary Cooper and he is already in the T business since he was 13 years old.
mooi oudje
Of course they talk a lot of Model T’s
overleg
de mannen
After visiting the shop we make a ride along the Strip.
welkom las vegas
After lunch we visit the Red Rock Canyon.
red mountain
During this trip we see a family of wild donkeys and beautiful Joshua trees.
wilde ezels
trudy bij Joshua tree
It is wonderful to be at the house of Frank en Sukhi Ross in Las Vegas.
Henk and Guus are writing the reports for the website for the last time .
voor het huis
Frank brings all of us to their Hotel, with casino of course, and we say goodbye to Henk and Guus and wish them a good flight back to Holland. We thank them a lot for their support during the first 3 weeks in the States.
afscheid
A friend of Frank, Steve Collett, has a garage full of Model T’s and Model A’s
Dirk find a Ford pick-up from 1936. This can be a nice car to continue his World tour.
de garage
Dirk pick-up
Dirk receives a licence plate from Steve as a souvenir.
nummerplaat
On our way back we drive along the Strip.
casino
skyline
At sunrise Dirk and Trudy made a walk through the park and they saw the clay mountains nearby.
gorge with dirk
We avoided the Interstate and took a short cut through Nevada, the 317 a very nice road where we even drove through water!! Later there was an unpaved road and it was difficult to find some shade.
road 317
shade
With the map and the Garmin we managed it to find the home of Frank and Suhki Ross. Frank gave us a warm welcome.
landrover
frank
With Frank we eat in a Mexican restaurant and did sightseeing on the Strip and Downtown.
vegas
Some figures: In 19 days we drove 2422 miles, an average of 127 miles a day.
Via the roads 12, 89, 14 and 56 we drove out of Utah. Near a petrol station we took a photo of some wildlife.
wildlife
Road 14 is a beautiful one. It shows us a chancing landscape and brings us up to 9900 ft. We pass the black lava fields and cool down the model T with some snow.
lava
snow
on the road
Further on, we drive on an endless, very straight and dull and boring
In Modena we didn’t take this hotel.
hotel old
Arrival in the State: Nevada.
nevada
We arrived on the earlier selected campground in the Cathedral Gorge State Park. A long narrow valley where erosion has carved dramatic and unique patterns in the soft bentonite clay.
First we take the traditional beer.
traditional beer
After a Dutch dinner we made a walk in the Park
cathedral gorge
Today we try to get to Bryce canyon. We have already annual passes for all the National parks.
First we met Allen and his wife. They invited Trudy and Dirk to come in Yellowstone and Thailand, where they have guesthouses.
Then we spot a hummingbird, no picture.
We stopped at the Utah border.
utah
By the town Hatch we spoke a cook that lives there for 52 years and was a Dutchman.
hatch
Then we drove further, through the Red Canyon and Bryce Canyon.
red canyon
bryce 1
bryce
The campgrounds in the Park had no vacancy.
So Guus and Henk hired a tipi out off the park and we make a simple meal on the fire.
guus by fire
The first part off the day we pasted Grand Canyon National Park on the 64. It’s incredible and breath-taking. I presume that more photos will follow in two weeks.
Model T Canyon
colorado river
navajo hgw 63
After lunch: amazing nature like in the Wild West movies.
landrover
model T
near canyon
At the end off the day we camped in Jacob Lake and had a good meal in the nearby motel.
camping jacob lake
A day off, a non driving day.
Henk and Guus used the opportunity to visit Grand Canyon National Park.
It was a wonderful day with amazing views.
grand canyon
canyon 2
Trudy and Dirk stayed on the camping and made friends, they invited us for a party.
friend on camping
When we came back, we saw in Tusayan the Model T and Trudy and Dirk starring at a enormous pizza. Fortunately we could help them to make the pizza’s to disapear.
pizza
In the evening we had the party with locale beer and the explication off the word serendipity.
See: htpp://arnoldserendipity.blogspot.com.
We managed it to visit Russ Firstnow in Flagstaff. He showed us his collection model T’s and Mustangs. He also has a wonderful garage, little factory and boys room
Russ and Dirk made a drive in a 1912 fire brigade red Model T
Russ and Dirk
With the home made cookies by Kathy we went on to the Grand Canyon.
depart Russ and Kathy
We saw a few cows and stopped near a corral.
no cows
The Park ranger of camping Ten-X give us the best place to stay and didn’t charged us, because this world trip. This is the cheapest camping so far. We decided to take a day off.
ten x
