SRDart

So I got the motel in Tennessee and camped out for the night. I thought for sure I could get an early start and make some good progress the next day. Not so...

About an hour out of the town I stayed in, just past the "Bucksnort Rd." exit I heard a noise from behind me and looked in the rear view mirror to see the tow dolly tire was smoking. Nice! I pulled right over but before I could get to the side of the road the tire came totally unglued! It was my first blowout ever. It also blew the light off the fender in the process.



I called Uhaul and they put me on a three way call with the closest Uhaul account service station, which was 45 minutes away. He was a nice gentleman but I had to laugh to myself as he sounded like he was probably wearing overalls and a straw hat waiting to get home to that fresh batch of white lightning he brewed the night before, lol! It was also funny when he said to the uhaul rep after she asked him to send help to me, "well that's a long way, so as long as it's ok with Uhaul we'll run a tire out there." I'm thinking, uh yeah, I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere with a blown tire, sending someone out would be a good thing. It was Sunday, so they had to call in one of their employees in to bring the tire, so 1 1/2 hours later the guy pulled up in the service truck. He did a great job getting me back together fairly quickly and said the tire on the other side was low on air and that's probably what caused the blowout. They didn't look all that low to me but what do I know. I had to sign the bill, the service call not including the tire was $250. Glad I wasn't paying for it. The Uhaul rep that helped me on the phone stayed in touch the whole time with phone calls and texts until I was back on the road. I've heard a lot of bad about Uhaul, but I'd have to say overall they all did a good job.

So now I'm back on the road and finally get to Memphis. Anyone ever traveled through there? Their idea of road signs, or lack of them, wasn't funny. I got all turned around and ended up lost downtown somehow. While getting gas I was a little concerned about the tire that was still rubbing sometimes on the driver's side so I pulled the wheel and got the hammer out to beat the inner wheel well on that side too. Glad I did, that west Memphis and into Arkansas has the worst roads I've been on for a long time. Another funny thing about Memphis is apparently they don't believe in making left hand turns at intersections. I found myself going into parking lots to turn around so I could get on the roads I needed to. What a pain that was.

Needless to say when I saw that welcome to Arkansas sign I was relieved to put the two day nightmare of Tennessee behind me. Here's a shot at a rest stop in Oklahoma I think. you can see how low it was without the bags working...

SRDart

I stopped at a rest stop somewhere in Texas. I liked this shot shot, this building was cool built into the hill with a huge star in the wall.



Another cool stop was a gas station IIRC near the New Mexico/ Arizona border. Inside the gas station was a huge car collection area. Neat stuff in there, cars and paraphernalia. They even had several large screen TVs playing old automotive based TV commercials. Really neat place, free to browse around and a nice break from driving. One of the few places along the way that reminded me I was traveling route 66.

This was my favorite of the items on display. Looks like an old Chevelle magazine ad. It says it all.



This was my favorite car on display. I really like the lines of the early 50s Chevys, and this shade of green was awesome. Dual carbs on the 6 banger and a BEAUTIFUL white interior. Super nice.



Some more cool stuff...

SRDart

When I hit Winslow AZ the highway was shut down because of 60 mph winds blowing across it and low visibility from all the dust. I was excited to see the town of Winslow because it's mentioned in the route 66 song. Unfortunately outside of a small downtown main street stretch, the town is run down and looks somewhat vacant. Too bad, I bet at one time it was a thriving little stop along the way. Well our option was to wait out the wind as many people chose to do, lined up parked along side both sides of the road. Another option was a detour south, go through the national park, and then back north to Flagstaff. I was already behind schedule so I chose the detour. I filled up on gas just in case and headed out. Fighting a 60 mph headwind wasn't fun, and I just watched my gas gauge drop as I rolled along at about 40 mph. Finally after what seemed an eternity I was headed up into the mountains and above the wind. Then it was a good long uphill climb. I started getting nervous on the way back down the other side as I got lower and lower on gas and not knowing how much further I had to go. I literally was on the bottom side of E when I got back to civilization and found a gas station. Glad I followed my gut feeling to fill up before I left on the detour. Once I hit Flagstaff it was a pretty smooth sail on through Vegas and up into St. George Utah.

All things into account, I'm glad to say my car served me well. I ran between 70 and 80 mph most of the trip. It never ran hot, had plenty of power to haul the load, braked fine even with about 3500 lbs behind me, and handled the drive fantastic. After about a 2100 mile trip twice within about 6 months plus daily driving in between, I say not bad for a car that was thrown together in 2 months of spare time from the point of an empty shell barely put back on the frame.

I used to really like daily driving my drag prepped Nova, but the pro-touring build philosophy is so much better, my Nova wouldn't have gotten far before I needed gas again and again, and it would've run a little hot along the way. No wonder the plans for that car are now my second pro-tour build... clickey for Trogdor build thread

TipsyMcStagger

iTrader: (1)

Any updates?

Tipsy