A duo from Iowa driving a pair of classic trucks made a pit stop in the Energy City this week, as part of a long journey they’re making from their home state to Alaska.
Brian McNamara, a part-time United Methodist pastor, and his pal Lee Kilmer, a professor emeritus of animal science at Iowa State University, are making the 3,000-plus mile trip for some simple reasons.
“We’re doing it because we can, because we’ve never done it and for the adventure,” said McNamara, after they’d set up camp at Woodlawn Regional Park Tuesday afternoon.
The pair is taking on the adventure in a couple Model T Ford pickup trucks, aiming at covering 150 miles each day to maintain the 23-day schedule it set out for itself.
Having left Story City, Iowa on June 1, they expect to arrive in Fairbanks, Alaska on the 23rd, with McNamara driving a 1926 model and Kilmer behind the wheel of a ’27, which was made in the last week of production for the Model T, McNamara said.
It should also be noted Kilmer is towing a 1926 Zagekmeyer pop-up camper behind his truck, which the two believe might be the last in existence.
Their better halves, however, are taking a quicker method of travel and will meet them at the Fairbanks airport on June 25.
“Our wives will fly up and join us and we’ll spend a week being tourists in Fairbanks,” said McNamara. “We don’t have any high expectation or plans. When the girls get there, life will . . . ”
He stopped himself short before saying something that might land him in hot water with the missus so Kilmer chimed in, ending his answer with the safe line of, “When the wives get there we will get very adept at saying ‘yes, dear.’”
They both laughed, obviously enjoying the first leg of their journey, and McNamara explained the timeline for planning the trip, which started about a decade ago.
The Preacher and the Prof as they refer to themselves on the Facebook page set up to journal the trek, began kicking the idea about roughly 10 years ago, but really only started talking about it in the last five.
“Then last year we kind of got serious; we’ve maintained all along if we were going to do the trip we’d have to have the same kind of vehicle,” said McNamara.
“I finally got a Model T pick-up about five years ago and got it running and rebuilt so the trip became more of a possibility. When we decided we were going to do it this summer we got serious about overhauling the rear end and getting Lee’s engine rebuilt and his car’s rear end done.”
As a point of caution they made sure they both had the exact same tires on each truck, as well as on the Zagelmeyer, so with the four spares they’re hauling, flat tires should be easy to remedy.
This caused McNamara the need to pick up tires with wire spokes, because the ones that came with his truck were of the old wood spoke variety, which might not fair well with dry climates and bumpy roads.
After the two meet their wives in Alaska the group plans to take in some sights north of the Arctic Circle and through Denali National Park, before putting the ladies back on the plane, packing up, and hitting the road back to Iowa in the Model Ts.
Anyone interested in following the adventures of the Preacher and the Prof can simply type “Iowa to Alaska in a Model T”, and click the Facebook link that pops up at the top of the page.
