Event Coverage memorable road trips

Lets hear about those road trips that you will never forget. HRP

 

Dad...a 94 year old model, checked himself to the hospital Friday. I've been working on getting his dad's '39 Chevy back roadworthy to take him for a ride. It is the car he learned to drive on. He is getting better and so is the '39.

 

Could write about one but the warrants might still be in effect.

 

In 2012 we did the hot power tour. 4000 miles round trip will garage build junkyard parts Pontiac, and no brake downs. The memorial part was sending a week with my 19 year old son, priceless!!!!!!!!

 

Back in the early 60s, our local Miami promoter had the bright idea too do a car show up in Sebring Florida at the same time as the Sebring 12hr Race. After all the town is full of 10000+ car fans right!
I always had been going to see the races anyway,so why not drive my full custom Henry J up from Miami this time.
Now back then,frankly the road US 27 was really bumpy an bearly two lane an not EZ drive in a low custom car.
Turns out Rudy{the promoter} had rented a wearhouse right on the circle mid town to have a car show {set up on thur PM, then fri,sat,sun.} live band etc. Adds on radio an posters an flyers every were.
OK count showed up( 16 nice cars} close to as many as would fit.
But all the car fans are at the races,about 7 miles outside of town,and near no one come to show !
Rudy got no $ to pay for the rent,an dose not want our cars impounded by the local law on sunday.
So, Rudy tells every one to get ready****,We got to make a "Secret " very late night run sat.night ,out of town an clear of county line,before the law catchs up. Well,if we get out of line,,meet up at Palmdale truck stop in next county.
So yes ,we all pick up signs an ropes etc., and ready to roll out the back door when Rudy gives the go!!!
3 showcars normally go in trailers,but they do run,Rudy said not to load up out side,or move those trailers tell we all go by{plan was if any one broke down on run out,the trailers were to pick them up. Don't even start the motors{some make a lot of loud noise , tell he waves go !
About 3;30 am Rudy waves GO GO.
Wow,it was a bit of a high speed run,had too be crazy to see ,if any one saw that hot rod an custom parade flash by!!!!!!!
We all made it to truck stop,with only one over heated custom Olds,but no harm done.

Rudy for his next show in Miami ,Bay Front Park Auditorium talked jokingly about giving the "Great Sebring Escape Crew" all trophy dash plaques ,,LOL,didn't happen ,but he was funny an let those that were part of it, in for free that one show!.


Hope ya enjoyed riding along ! ?

 

2013 to Bonneville. Hooked up with the Rolling Bones group at Erie PA. Spent 4 days with them on the salt. Hooked up with Jerry Dixie (Street Rodder Tour) for the trip back to Detroit. Spent a few days with them on the Woodward Tour. Then home and back to reality. 4650 miles in a flathead powered roadster(see avitar) Trip of a lifetime.

 

You could use the disclaimer that it is a work fiction. HRP

 

Today, 90 miles down to Hope, sit at a car show, 90 miles back in very heavy holiday traffic, only we were going against the grain. 70 plus miles an hour through some of the most gorgeous hiway one will ever get to see. If any of you get to drive a hot rod down the Hope-Princeton, you won't regret it.

 

After driving west all day on Interstate 50, the loneliest highway, I pulled into the McDonalds in Ely Nevada just after dark, in my old class C RV, built on a flat nose Ford van chassis. The main entrance to the drive through had one of those hanging bar and chain warnings for height. The side entrance, which I took, did not. As I pulled forward after ordering we quickly screeched to a stop as we hung up on the light standard above the menu board. Crap. Put it in reverse, hit the gas, nothing. Double crap. In no mood for this after a marathon drive. Put it in drive, floored it, finally it broke loose, but not before tearing the roof vent of the bathroom and the ladder off the back. The ladder, however, was still attached to the back bumper, and also to much of the light standard, which I now drug along with us to the window, where several employees had gathered to see what all the commotion was. I handed them the money, grabbed the bag of food, yelled something about the side entrance and took off down Hwy 50 in the dark, dragging the ladder and the light standards, among a shower of sparks.

 

"Have It Your Way"

Wait, no that's Burger King. Hm.

 

In August 2016 (age 75) decided to drive the 52 Buick from Kansas City to Seattle and back. Wife (Sharon) wasn't thrilled but decided to go anyway. Started north to Fargo, ND and 300 miles into the trip the water pumped failed on a Saturday afternoon while in Blair, NE to have lunch with a friend of Sharons. Found an auto parts store; they didn't have the one I needed but said their store in Fremont, NE did have one. Only trouble it was 20 miles away and I couldn't chance driving that far. I found a Chrysler dealership open and inquired if they could send someone to Fremont to get the water pump and I would pay whatever they needed to do that. The service manager asked where I was from and where I was going in the Buick. After giving him that info he said " just take our van and get the part". I couldn't believe my ears. So I took their van and made the trip for the pump. When I returned the manager said he had a young mechanic who wanted to help me replace it and he would clock off in order to help. Drove the Buick inside to the young fellows stall and got it done. He did most of the work and I gave him a $100 for his trouble. (The engine is a non-HAMB friendly late model)

As we were leaving North Dakota the next day I started smelling hot brakes. I exited off the interstate and found the rear brakes were dragging. I was parked in a gravel lot contemplating what to do when a young man pulls up in a lifted pickup and asked if he could look at the car. I said sure. He asked if I was having a problem and I told him about the brake problem and said I needed to find a 2 or 4 post lift so I could get them fixed. He informed me he had a lift in his garage just a couple of miles away and I was welcome to use it. Proceeded to follow him there and made the repair. He wouldn't accept any money.

These two instances helped restore my faith in the younger generation!

We proceeded to Missoula, MT and then to Lewiston, ID. If you ever made that trip you know it is about 100 miles all down hill and beautiful country. When we arrived in Lewiston I found my 9" Ford rearend was really making noise. Again here I am on late Saturday afternoon. Couldn't find anyone open so I make a call to Peculiar, MO to Jerry Slover at Pete & Jakes to see if he knew anyone to do a rearend repair in the area. He gave me Billy Johnson in Spokane, WA. As I recall that was about 125 miles away. I called Billy and he said if I could make it he would repair it. The next day I drove slowly to Spokane and Billy's shop. We tore into it and found the posi (don't remember the Ford name) plate cracked.

After this repair we continued on to Seattle and then down the coast of California and east to home without any additional problems except dummy me didn't watch the fuel gauge and ran out of gas in western Kansas. All in all a fun trip and I'd like to do it again with more time but I doubt the wife would agree.

 

This was a fun road trip with my kids in 2014.

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/road-trip-oklahoma-to-st-louis-hot-rod-hundred.949123/

 

This story is one that will always stick in my mind. we got up real early, we're going about 100 miles to a show with wife's 51 Buick Roadmaster. The wife is gathering, loading car and I take the dogs out, they run around behind our pole building, they come back sneezing and one is coughing/barking/crying, WTH, As soon they ran to me, PU, sprayed by a skunk, I checked to be sure they did not get bit. Wife checks internet, I run to store to buy what was suggested, she bathes them, I figure the day is over. well the bath worked and she said let's go anyway. Load up including dogs, OK we're off, get out of town on interstate running 65 and out of the blue I say, pull over now or I'm going to pee my pants, first/last time this has happened to me so far. She starts to slow, steps on brake, NO pedal. goes to floor, she does not panic, blinker on we slow down, get on shoulder, slow more and use E Brake to stop. The scary part was the traffic flying by, blowing horn, today nobody slows down Ever. I relieve myself, we limp on shoulder to an exit with a gas station, using E Brake to stop, dianoagus leak and I call flatbed service, home we go, wife, I and 2 small dogs in cab of flatbed truck. This and Several times in my life things have happened where it could have been a disaster, imagine coming off the ramp at 65MPH, 0 brakes. I have talked/joked about my Guardian Angel for many years and have stated, I'm a very Lucky man and Grateful to be here to tell my stories/experiences

 

funny.....drove the 1964 SS 396 4 speed car I put together in the mid-70's all over Texas and through out the states around.....never had any issues with it - unless I was with in blocks of my house........

 

Heading out to the Symco Weekender last year, our club '60 Ranchero managed to shear the tailshaft housing about 2" aft of the flange where it bolts to the transmission. Buddy driving it put 100 miles on it before we figured out it was wasted, and it then spent a week in small town Wisconsin getting fixed.

 

SO! Go alone.
I intend to do about the same in George with the warmed up 263 Straight Eight.

Ben

Ben

 

During the summer of 2015 I drove my avatar roadster on the Pony Express Trail from ST Joseph MO to Carson City Nevada, 90% on dirt roads. It was the same route that Sears used when they introduced the Road Handler Radials in the early seventies.

 

This weekend. My car, my ever so faithful car broke down and nothing I could do to make it mobile for the weekend. It broke down right at the Canada U.S. border crossing so not very convenient !! Anyway I called a friend, not so far from the border and he came and we loaded the car on his trailer and took it back to his place. I borrowed a car and drove home and got my off topic car and with my wife driving his car back we then crossed the border again and arrived at the original destination in my off topic daily driver. The crowd cheered when we stepped out of the car and we had a great weekend despite the troubles we had had. What a great group of people we spent the weekend with. There were even a few Corvette owners among the bunch.

I'll fix the '63 tomorrow.

 

1981 with less than 100 miles on the freshly assembled 48 that I had subframed and installed a 350 and M-21 4 speed we were off to Texas to the in laws house (behind the truck in the photo) for a visit and to attend the Lonestar rod run in Waco and a couple more over a three week period.
Not many issues but the truck didn't drive for squat because of the radials on the front and wide bias tires on the back. That was the year that it was over 100 for something like 55 days straight in Texas and when we drove though Abilene the tar in the asphalt was melting. Wife rode in the camper shell with our then 2 year old and used a wash cloth dipped in the cooler to cool her off.
I worked the two weeks we were in McGregor/Waco for my old boss in his shop for some much needed cash and along with the Lone Star run we hit on in Fort worth, one in Brownwood and one in West Texas.
Hit a piece of scrap iron in the road near Dumas on the way back (wife's great uncle was sheriff there then) and had to buy a rather spendy used tire in Pueblo.
We came home though Yellowstone and lost a fuel pump on the continental divide due to picking up grit from the road construction after forgetting my gas cap on the pump at the Grand Tieton gas station. We were passing cars while coasting down the grade on the west side and coasted into Whitehall where a kid who was going into the Navy the next week was working at a gas station/shop and sold me the fuel pump he had stashed for his 55 Chevy that was going into storage until he got back. Got that fixed and made it on down the road and had the clutch linkage come apart but not fall off in Billings and had to limp to a station where I could borrow a floor jack to raise the truck up and put it back together.

The last road trip with the truck was a solo road trip in 1998 to Bonneville and Pleasanton making a big triangle route over 8 days. Hit Bonneville on Monday missing the weekend festivities but got to watch 3-1/2 days of racing heading to Pleasanton on Thursday after the storm ran us off the salt. Someone did a video of me coming off the salt while running though the puddle formed at he end of the road. I gave a couple of truck drivers at a rest stop some entertainment when I had to bail out of my sleeping bag on the grass when the sprinklers came on. Cruised for a few hours on Friday morning with a red Deuce highboy between Winnemucca and Reno where he pulled off for gas and or food. Saw the car at Pleasanton later. After getting my hot rod and custom overload at the show and seeing several magazine feature cars I headed back north making it back home late Sunday and being at work on Monday. The 250 was pretty well worn out by then and it was stop at a station and add oil and check the gas.

 

That's how you tell they are a keeper, they have the good sense and common decency to breakdown in the driveway, i know they aren't living things being mechanical, though sometimes I wonder.

 

this isn't so much a road trip as just a trip! i had just bought a '62 Lincoln, if i remember right, for the motor to put in my model A i was building. it was going to be sort of a hot rod Lincoln. i also had a '53 chevy 3/4 ton flatbed truck with a bad 6 in it. i had just put a 307/pg in it but you couldn't drive more than 50 mph due to the original dually rear in it. anyway, i get a call from an x girl friend that she wanted to go see some mutual friends about 60 miles away but didn't have a way there. she asked if i would take her, i said, i only had the Lincoln but it seem to run ok so yea. off we go and spent the weekend with them. good times. you need to understand this next part is, they live in the middle of no where. we leave about ten sunday night and get about 25 miles from their house and the motor locks up. i found the temp gauge didn't work so it overheated. now this happened before cell phones, so i had to hoof it off the freeway and find a phone. my friend comes to get us and he has a mini truck and we worked the hell out of that poor thing towing back to his house with a chain. he gives us a ride home and i tell him i will put a 1/2 ton van rear end i have in my truck and come and get the Lincoln the next weekend. now the next part is the fun part. now this truck didn't have a e- brake working so i fixed that when i put in the new rear. so far so good. next weekend off i go and no problems until i go to get off the freeway and no brakes!! i had forgot about the e-brake and the off ramp is down hill and there is an old couple stopped at the bottom. now this ramp has a left and right turn, they here turning right and so was i. since i couldn't stop and wasn't about to run into them i go left. i am doing about 45 and the truck lifted up on two wheels and i ran into the freeway pillar that is holding the freeway up. i got beat to crap banging around in the cab (before seat belts) whiplash and such. now the ridiculous part of this is, there are no ramps on the other side of the freeway, just a mountain. i still can't figure out way the old folks were stopped as it was a yield stop. the next day i have to take out the radiator and hoses and buy some stuff, cut away the fender so it wont rub and get the truck running again. the axle is bent pretty good on the drivers side back toward the driver. it looked pretty weird on the road i can tell you that, from all the people staring at it. made it back home, made all the repairs and went and got the Lincoln and towed it home. i just scrapped it though. oh yea the brakes. when i put the rear in it the exhaust pipe end was about 2 feet from the rubber hose and it burned it away on the drive there. now the really funny thing is , that truck never gave me any trouble for ten years after this. the most dependable thing i ever owned. drove it everywhere.

 

Coming home from the NSRA nationals in Columbus, Ohio we were about 2 hours from home when I switched on the lights and blew a fuse, we stopped at the next exit and I got under the dash and located the bad fuse and replaced it, I turned on the lights and promptly blew it again.

I tried a bigger fuses ( These were glass fuses not the new type) and the same thing happened again. it was about this time a couple of rodders pulled in the station to gas up and I went over to talk to them, they were on their way to Atlanta and one suggested for me to get between them and they would take me as far as the Liberty highway exit, that was just about 15 miles from home and I figured I would get there without lights.

On the way it started raining but with a led car and one behind me I felt pretty good, we got to my exit around 11:30 PM and we parted ways, I soon realized with it raining and no lights I was going to be pushing my luck, I stopped at the station at the top of the exit ramp and no sooner than I had pulled in a County Sheriffs car pulled in beside me and I noticed it was, hang on to your hats, Sheriff Taylor, yeah our Sheriff was a Taylor, Gene Taylor and I knew him personally.

I explained that we we just getting home from Columbus, Ohio and I lost my headlights and tail lights and he graciously offered to guide us home with blue lights flashing, that was the first time I was behind the flashing lights instead of in front of them.

I also have another story about Gene Taylor, a Thunderbird super coupe and a 1939 Ford Convertible for a later time. HRP

 

LONG AGO!

 

More! about our trip to Detroit 1972

 

Try Wisconsin.....it will probably be real unforgettable!

 

I have two memorable trips. I did the 2006 Power Tour with a friend in his 55 Chevy. The second was when I drove my freshly built (In my garage) 4 speed, 56 Chevy from NJ to Myrtle Beach and back. I have since sold the car and my friend that bought it has put many more miles on it driving to shows throughout the country.

The 56 was the first car I ever built. I loved working on that car. I became quite the Tri-5 officianoto over the years I owned her.

 

On the return trip from Knoxville, Tennessee we were in my Model A pickup, probably 1984/85 and the throttle cable broke, we were on I-40 not to far from Henderson, N.C.

There was no way to repair the cable the way it broke, As I scratched my head trying to figure out a temporary fix Brenda made a suggestion that I thought was crazy at first but I quickly realized it was genius,

She had a long shoulder strap on here purse with detachable clips and as she took it of I got out my tools and removed the hood and put it in the bed of the truck, I then opened the windshield enough to run the strap through to the carburetor got back in the truck, turned the ignition and pulled the strap and reved up the engine.

We were good to go and I had a hand throttle that I was able to drive home without and trouble, I kind of felt like I was ridding a horse holding the the strap like it was reins. HRP

 

For me there were two in a stock '55 Chevy pickup and I tried to stick to two-lane blacktop as much as possible. I blogged both on my website.

In 2007 was the Macungie Run. this is the story of a 23 day, 4,783 mile roadtrip in a 52 year old stock truck. Immediately below is the planned trip and waypoints to the left with the actual stops and mileage to the right. The links are to the log entries for that day or days. Following below that are calculations and stats and finally at the bottom are reflections on what I learned. As my friend, Rob English wrote "I suppose there are two things that can happen on a trip like you did; you can say 'never again' or you can say 'I can’t wait for the next one'". Me? I can't wait for the next one.

http://www.laroke.com/larryk4674/2007/trip7summary.htm

In 2008 was the Hutchinson Road trip. Last year, I drove BillyBob on his first long roadtrip, the Macungie Run. He did not let me down and I decided to tempt fate again this year to meet up with many of the same rogues at a truck show in Hutchinson, Kansas. This time, it turned out to be 3,788 mile run in 16 days, and again, BillyBob remained reliable throughout the entire trip. Immediately below is each day's date, day number, destination and mileage. The links are to the log entries for that day. Following below that are calculations and stats and finally at the bottom are reflections on what I learned.

http://www.laroke.com/larryk4674/2008/trip10.htm

I've been on more but these two are the only ones where I recorded the blow-by-blow accounts.

 

I have only started reading your blog and I'm sure I will be enthralled with for a hour or so, I just wanted to thank you for sharing the adventure. HRP

 

Thanx, HRP. It's good to give a little payback for all the good content you come up with over here.