Event Coverage B-bop's Laid off, make the most of it Solo road trip

Love your story and adventures

 

Awesome.

 

Good story , and you are special. lol

 

Great story! I love hot rod road trips and your pix of the desert brought back memories. On my first hot rod road trip (see avatar) 1996 VA to CA I almost ran out of gas between Needles and Barstow. Thats a whole lot of desert to have to walk in but it sure is purty.
Looking forward to the rest of the story!

 

Well you must be out playing. To pass some time waiting for a repair part for my welder I totally cleaned up my little Shop so that I can get back to work on the RPU soon.
Should be able to get the welder back in service tomorrow.
Still patiently waiting.
By the way 3 window Larry can't complain about me using his line, after all I'm a Larry too

 

OK Dudes, sorry for slacking off and leaving you hanging. Let's get back to the road. By the way thanks for all the comments. Helps me keep going knowing someone is reading this stuff.

 

A funny story but I have no pics to back it up. I made it up and over the San Jacinto mountains on Hwy74 , down along Hwy 371 through Anza and Aguanga, hung a right and headed for Temecula on Hwy 79. Spent a couple hours wandering the streets of Temecula. I picked up some cat eye sunglasses for daughter number 2 who just started pinup modeling for fun. I looked for options to get to Del Mar, and my GPS gave me few options, so I hopped on the I 15 for a short stretch. I have the window down, my CD player is cranking out ZZ top, doing about 70 in the middle lane and all of a sudden there is a Chippy yacking at me no more than a foot off my drivers door. He tells me I can't drive in that lane. I play stupid and ask him why? He tells me I am pulling a trailer and I need to move to the outside lane and slow it down to 55. At any time I could have reached out and wacked his handlebar and put him into a tank slapper of a speed wobble, but being a law abiding citizen, I nodded my head and said "OK Boss" and started moving over lanes to the right.

When I moved over and slowed down to about 60. I was being passed by semi's like I was a senior pushing a walker at Walmart. I saw him pull off at the next exit, so I got her back up to ZZ cruising speed and away we went. I just found it kinda funny that you can be driving down a freeway at 70 mph and having a casual conversation out the window with one of California's finest. And by the way, I still think California's 55mph max speed limit, for auto's with trailers does not apply to yellow hot rods towing teardrops.

 

I got into the Del Mar area around noon, so went looking for a place to park, look at the ocean and have some lunch. I found this spot on N Torrey Pines Rd, almost at the corner of Carmel Valley Rd. Ahhhhh, you can almost smell the fresh ocean breeze. I sent this pic to my wife, just to rub it in a little. I popped the back of the trailer, made a couple ham and cheese sandwiches, cut up some strawberries and just took in the view.

 

Thursday was a poker run and personal shop tour hosted by Charlie Buel up in Vista CA. He was incredibly hospitable. Served us lunch, burgers and dogs and all the trimmings. Then for dessert, they had made all of these different cobblers in cast iron pots. Cherry, peach, chocolate, strawberry, and others I can't remember. Absolutely delicious. With the amount of times some participants reloaded, you understand why they look like "Street Rodders" After lunch he opened his shop and let us all in for a look. Lots of really cool stuff. I will let the pics do the talking.

On the tour, going north on I-15

Parking on the grass.

 

So good!!!

 

Same place, more stuff.
Project car sitting outside

Cool, hand pedal railroad car.

He likes his Cushmans




Ya start feeling old, when some guys antique collection is housing stuff you worked on when you started your career. Such is the case with this cord board for me.

Soapbox derby, the start of many a race drivers dreams.

Motor boatin'


More cushmans. One of these would look good attached to the teardrop.

 

Great story! I noticed in one picture that your windshield has a problem similar to mine. Traveling 70 in a 55, some d1@k head had to pass me and threw a rock up into my windshield!!!! Also, I realized, again, that I should have chopped the top on my sedan before I converted it into a delivery. Love the look of a small chop on the Tudor. Keith

 

The next two days were spent at the show wandering around, looking at cars and watching the Autocross. The Autocross has kind of lost me lately. I remember one of the first that I saw when Autocross was just starting. All kinds of stuff was out there. Now it seems that it is mostly track prepared muscle cars. I should have gone out there with the trailer in tow, just to liven things up a bit. I took a ton of pics, so I will just show you some of my favorites here.

Nice, clean and simple. And those wheels

Pedal powered dragster. New NHRA class when all the tree huggers get done with it.


Antennae on a Merc, very cosmic.


I had seen a ton of pictures of this car, but I tell ya, if you get a chance to see it in person, it is amazing. I bet I wandered around it from every possible angle for about 45 minutes.


Love that old school look.


Oh Yeah........




Best intake at the show. Probably the way a lot of wives feel about hubbies new motor.


I am a sucker for a 59 dash. Picked one up and don't know if it will go in my Suburban or COE.


Multi carbs make me happy



Way cooler.....(pun not intended ), than a lame rent a scooter.



Cool pedal car made out of Ford 8n tractor and other assorted parts. $1250.......yea, a little too much maybe.


Great tribute board trackers.


Could never get a good pic of this Buick due to the amount of people surrounding it.



Lots of cool details on this track T





Mmmmmmm, 'Burb.


Cool little midget. Gotta get one for the boys one day.

 

Yeah Keith, I try to avoid the rock chips and cracks when taking photo's, but there is getting to be too many of them. Not many rocks just deflect off of a Model A windshield, they just kinda ricochet after leaving some cracks and gouges. I too love the look of a chopped A, but there are days when I sure wish I had a little more view, such as the upcoming canyon tours.

 

When we were on the poker run, we had come down HWY 101 through Cardiff, I noticed a road that sat above the highway. I thought it would be a good sunset watching spot. So I went back Saturday night and enjoyed my dinner out of the back of the trailer while watching the sunset. The road is San Elijo Ave. GPS 33.014627, -117.278746 if you want to go check it out.

Crusin' down Hwy 101





There was another guy taking in the sunset, he figured there should be a picture of me as well as the car.


The view out the back window. Don't get these views at home.

 

Another little side story. I am standing talking to a guy when this almost stock convertible comes rolling up between my car and the car next to me with none other than Chip Foose behind the wheel. I quickly go to my car and grab a picture that I took at the SEMA show in about 1986 when Chip was almost an unknown. I happened to also have a felt pen, so I walked up to him, told him I hated to bug him, but I had been carrying this pic around for about 30 years and needed it signed. He looked at it and said "Wow, this is from a long time ago." He signed it and then tried to make his way through an already quickly gathering crowd.

He did a quick interview in the G-guys Gazette and he said the one thing he wished he had not done in his career was TV because he cannot take his son to a car show and enjoy it the way he and his dad did when he was young. You can sure see that when you see him in person. If he is not in a very fast walking mode, he is mobbed by people.

 

Oh yeah, forgot one other thing that happened at G-guys in Del Mar. I was the only double award winner. Yeah, that's right, the beat up Model A from Canada got more awards than the zillion dollar coach built beauty queens....Bhaaa ha ha.

Funny story about the long distance award. It is kind of a goofy way of doing this award. When you register your car there is a board to enter long distance. Because I was the second guy on the board, everyone below me knew how many miles I had driven. So my cell rings at 4:30 Saturday afternoon, and the guy identifies himself as the rep doing the Long Distance award. He tells me that another guy beat me by 7 miles, hahahahaha, no kidding. But when they went to talk to him, he admitted he had trailered his car. So they asked me if I drove, I said hell yeah, come on over and I'll show you some pictures of what I drove through. When he got there and saw the pics of the Utah blizzard, he said I win hands down.

I had planned on leaving early Sunday, but now I had to sick around and get my piece of louvered aluminum.

Probably be the only G-guys award I will ever win with this road weary traveling piece of tin. Because I travel alone, there was nobody to take my picture getting the awards with my goofy ear to ear grin. Its nice to be recognized, but the real award for me is meeting all the great people along the way and seeing these great countries that we live in. If you have any pictures of me in the awards circle, let me know.

 

That is so Kool. I had the good fortune of being a double award winner with my T modified years ago. I felt like you did, a semi low buck car built in my own garage.

 

Congrats! Thanks for taking us along . B-BOP , what's with us and those 59 dashes . LOL will see Daddio in Utah tomorrow. Blue

 

Really enjoying your trip log.
"Golly what a day!"

 

You spin a terrific yarn sir. Keep it coming.

 

What a great trip! Thanks so much for taking the time to take us along!

 

B-bop, I ENVY you. You not only get to do the trip, you are a pro at telling a story. Granpa would be envious.
Really, he trailered it and tried to get the long distance award? For shame. Good for you on doing this trip.
And, yes, we do live in GOOD countries.

Ben

 

Sorry to keep you hanging guys, got distracted doing my "Honey Do" list. I also went and bought another motorcycle on Monday. I needed another like a hole in the head but ya gotta buy em when the right deal comes along. So lets get back to the story.
PS thanks for all the nice comments

The new bike, just in case you were wondering, why I got lost for 4 days.

 

Leaving Del Mar, I looked for some more good secondary roads to take me back up and over the mountains to Arizona. My plans were to do all of the famous canyons, Zion, Bryce, Grand and Red. I was in no big rush to get home so it did not matter if the roads zig zagged a bit. I took HWY 67 up to Ramona, then jumped on Hwy 78 east through Ballena, Santa Ysabel, Wynona, and Julian. I wish I had left earlier in the day as some of these little towns looked like great places to stop. But it was Sunday and lots of the sidewalks were rolled up by the time I rolled through town. East of Julian, the road gets to be lots of fun. You get a warning somewhere along the road that no vehicles longer than 40 feet are allowed. To me that just says, "Fun times ahead".

The sun was rapidly fading away and so I started looked for a place to snuggle my pillow somewhere between Scissors Crossing and Ocotillo Wells. Everywhere that I pulled off, the ground was very loose and sandy and my Model A started to sink. Rather than be stuck in the middle of nowhere, I kept on truckin' down the highway.

Now it was O-dark-thirty, and I finally found a pullout of sorts, but I could not get very far off the highway which I don't really like, because of the traffic noise. Because it was dark, I got out of the car and did a short scouting trip with a flashlight and found that there really wasn't going to be a better place to park, because of all the loose sandy soil. So I called it a night and hoped there would not be much traffic. Being only 30 yards or so off the highway was going to make it a short night.

At about 2 in the morning, my teardrop lit up like it was daylight outside. Scared the crap out of me. I figured I was about to get carjacked by some of Trump's not so favorite people. I cracked the curtains a bit and could not see anything due to the bright, and I am talking high noon sun bright light, being shone directly at me. Then the menacing beam of light slowly went up to my car. There was enough reflection off the side of my car and trailer that I could now see where the light was coming from. I immediately saw the words and logo that every not so legal Mexican hates to see. "Border Patrol" in nice green letters on a white truck kinda stand out.

Whoever was in the truck checked out my car for about 10-15 seconds. That's a long time when your heart is pounding because you thought you were going to die. Then he shuts off the light, and heads back down the highway. I tried to sleep but every vehicle I heard coming down the highway gave me the heebee-geebee's.

So not being able to sleep, I thought, screw it. Might as well make some miles.

 

I had planned on stopping at the Salton Sea and Slab City, but seeings how it was pitch black out, I figured I might as well make some miles. I continues on Hwy 78 Eastbound, through Bawley which smells like shit. OK maybe not the town itself, and sorry if you are from there. But I know what feed lots smell like, and even though I could not see anything in the dark, they were out there somewhere.

The sun was just starting to come up as I was crossing the Glamis dunes or Imperial Dunes, (whatever you guys call them) and I came upon a view point for the dunes. After having a really crappy night, I was rewarded to a very awesome sunrise.

Sorry if you are sick of looking at pics of my car, but I was the only thing for miles around. Well, that and a whole lot of sand.

The ole cell phone does not really capture the color of the morning sky, but trust me, it was awesome.


The sun does not shine out of my ass, but it does shine out of my trusty Model A.

 

I had breakfast at the viewpoint and stayed there for about an hour and a half just taking in the silence and spectacular scenery. The dunes are kinda like a giant etch-a-sketch. Tracks are left by humans and other critters, then the wind blows and it all disappears til the next thing comes along to leave its mark for a very short time. One day I will get back here and take a ride in a sand rail.




Big critter tracks.


Little critter tracks.

 

From the dunes I headed north to my next planned stop in Quartzsite AZ. I had been there 9 years prior on another road trip and wanted to spend some time checking out the town. If you have never been there in the dead of winter it is kind of a crazy place. All of the snowbirds from the north flock down and try to get away from winter for a while. There are a couple of areas set aside in the desert called LTVA-Long Term Vehicle Areas. The BLM manages these areas and you can stay from September 15th through April 15th each season. The cost is $180.00 and is valid for up to 7 months. That is cheap camping. More info here if you need it. http://www.blm.gov/az/st/en/prog/recreation/camping/LTVA/laposa.html

They have a bunch of rock and gem shows, which I had planned on taking in, but duh, didn't think to check a calendar, and they were all over by the time I rolled into town.

So I headed over to McDonald's to grab a cold drink and some free WI-FI. I noticed a bunch of younger guys out milling around my car so went out to see what was happening. The were 4 guys, engineers from the Volvo factory in Sweden. The had two 2017 SUV's that they were driving around testing hot driving conditions. One of the guys was a hot rodder. He had a 59 Buick....if I remember that correctly and a Desoto. Again, my memory is slipping. Who knows, they just may read this post and correct me. We had a great chat of course about cars and travel and then they were on their way after uploading new software, I presume for fuel management into the SUV. If I had been driving a generic car, I never would have met these guys. That is the bonus of driving a Hot Rod.

Wish I would have taken pictures of more of the people that I met on this journey.

 

This....

 

"I also went and bought another motorcycle on Monday. I needed another like a hole in the head..."





Days off and motorcycles; impossible to have too many of either.