Awesome!! Did you take the dogs with you.
I've done quite a few road trips with no more planning than what I just said, mostly on a motorcycle, it really is quite a country. I never made route 66. What kind of car did you get?
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Awesome!! Did you take the dogs with you.
I've done quite a few road trips with no more planning than what I just said, mostly on a motorcycle, it really is quite a country. I never made route 66. What kind of car did you get?
This is your mind on drugs!
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No dogs but the car was a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible, Greenbrier Firemist with a white top. Bought it, sunk a bunch of money into making it reliable for a cross-country trip and took off.
Speedometer cables broke around Amarillo, so I replaced them myself by having parts shipped to me in Flagstaff. The catalytic converter, original to the car, clogged up and was burning a hole in my carpet on the passenger side. It was white hot after going up the mountains outside of Mesa Verde, so I had a shop put on a straight pipe until I could get it replaced in CA. The increased pressure blew a hole in the muffler so that needed to be replaced on the trip as well but I had a real muscle car sound when that went. Everyone knew when I left the motel each morning! LOL!! Air conditioning compressor went outside of Flagstaff so I pulled into Needles CA with 109 degrees running nothing but 2/60 AC (two windows and 60 mph). The next day, I went across the Mojave with no AC (got an early start and missed the heat). Hey, people did it back in the day with no AC so I figured I could also.
Toured CA for a week or so, then back up over the mountains on Route 80 to Route 90 and home. The straight-as-an-arrow stretch outside Wendover going over the salt flats was unbelievable. There was snow still in the passes over the Sierras. There were lots of signs that indicated that Route 80 in Wyoming sees hellacious winter storms. Grapes, soybeans, vegetables on one side of the Sierras, beef cattle, corn, hay, wheat, dairy on the other - the agriculture changed with the land and you could see it all as you went across the country. Our country is so beautiful, so special.
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...............
“You can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out.” — Too fundamental to have an attribution
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You've left Joe speechless!
I'll bet that thing sounded hellacious when you had the hole in the muffler. Kind of like at the quarter mile track with nothing but headers. What engine was in the 1976 455 cubic in?
This is your mind on drugs!
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500 cubic inches of the best cast iron engine Detroit ever made. The thing is a work of engineering art. I'm working on making it the fastest luxury land yacht in town - aiming at 500 hp and 575 lbs. of torque. It can be done, all it takes is money.
Saving now for a new set of headers.
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1967 Triumph Spitfire. My ex had taken my pickup in the divorce and left me with a Honda 350 motorcycle and the parts to the Triumph in a box in my garage.
I put the car together and started driving it around always with tools and spare parts in the trunk.
I met my new wife in Dallas at an art show and we started touring Texas in that fun car. I would borrow my ex's truck and go on canoe trips on all the major rivers in South and Central Texas.
We drove on just about every back road and farm road in Texas stopping at every historical marker.
On the first weekend of September 1980 we struck out to spend the weekend on Padre Island. The first problem came on I35 somewhere between Dallas and Hillsborough when the head gasket blew. I replaced it on the side of the highway and on we went. The news started warning of tar balls on the beach and then of a hurricane warning causing us to change our destination from Padre to Matagorda. We arrived and set up our tent and turned in for the night. The tropical storm changed course and we were just about blown away out on the beach so moved the tent up into the dunes where we rode out the storm.
The next morning we found a laundromat and dried all our gear and headed to Padre Island. The whole place was deserted and we had the run of the beach to ourselves. Apparently, the storm had covered all the tar and the beach was almost pristine.
Later we started touring the West in our Jeep CJ5 and I believe we drove on every backroad and forest trail in the Great Basin.
My wife gave me William Least Heat-Moon's book Blue Highways and it really set our path on exploration.
We spent 4 weeks every year on those blue highways and found many memories and wondrous things.On the old highway maps of America, the main routes were red and the back roads blue. Now even the colors are changing. But in those brevities just before dawn and a little after dusk – times neither day nor night – the old roads return to the sky some of its color. Then, in truth, they carry a mysterious cast of blue, and it’s that time when the pull of the blue highways is strongest when the open roads is a beckoning, a strangeness,a place where a man can lose himself.
William Least Heat-Moon
Blue Highways
Remember it is not the destination but the journey that becomes fond memories. The real diamonds to be found are on those blue roads on the map. The Interstates are for getting places, the backroads for finding treasures.
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6.95 on Amazon, ordered it today. Looking to do more Charles Kuralt traveling.
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Sounds like a heck of a great trip......ya should have left her straight piped, giver her personality and loud pipes save lives
West of Laramie on 80 can be hall in the winter...to Rawlins is the worst, west of Rawlins not nearly as bad....80 was shut down between Cheyenne and Laramie the other day for 14-8 hours, 2 crashes, semis are problems....
Originally Posted by Kevin
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And to think I"m pushing 485 hp & 475 foot pounds of Torque stock........
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Transmission is gone in my truck but my 83 Goldwing is my baby a dream come true anyway. It's a striped model has a after market wind shield and saddlebags, did I mention it's sweet! Sometime between three, four, five months ago and when I got out of the hospital which I think was the end of the year before last. I could probably find some paper work some where with a date but it's at another place so close enough on the dates. But anyway, no home no where to go I took off on the bike headed south. I bounced off the Atlantic and the Gulf a couple of times. I was sitting on a dock I found just looking, didn't look like it had been used in years and a guy pulled up in his truck with a little 14' aluminum boat asked me if I wanted to go out fishing with him, hell yea!! I caught a fish, he threw it back. On the way back I hit my first rain in Savanah. I stayed under that bridge for two cops and one air-stream which got me something to eat. I then took off again and there is no reason I should even be here. I never lost the rain I did loose four disks and three inches in height but I made it and I must have had a place to stay because I remember wanting nothing but a shower and some pills, god I hurt!!!!! I'm going to do it again this year, I've got a baby sitting job making a hundred a week. The tires are still fairly new so I figure I'm good to go. I'm not able to do any work so no side work, I can fix old hungry lady's and mens toilets and stuff, a lot of ripping off of old people down here. I won't take but a twenty if I think they have it. I don't remember a lot of details but I remember enough. It doesn't take much to ride a bike, just watch everybody else!! One thing I am going to do is find myself some descent rain gear and water proof boots!!
Last edited by mgrist; 03-19-2018 at 04:09 AM.
This is your mind on drugs!
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You sound like you are by yourself driving that Wing. Is that legal? I never see a single Wing on they road - always in a group or at least two at a time. Thought it was a law or something...
Drove a Valk (same engine) for years. Smoothest ride I ever had. Thirsty girl, though. Might have been the way I drove it, or so my wife would tell me when she was on the back...
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What are you driving?
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Now that has to be one of the greatest hijack post of all time.
OPINION....a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.
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The Valkyrie!! I remember when you sold that. Yea I ride by myself mostly, nobody else can keep up.I'm terrible but it's hard to keep her under 90. I get 30 to 35 MPG for the most part, if I were sane I'd probably get 40. I bought my son a Harley three? years ago, a new one, been in the shop three times and he said he'll never take it on another trip. It is one sexy machine though. (35 MPG) I let my son ride my 34 year old wing that hasn't been in the shop since I got it six? years ago and he was amazed at the ride, that big old flat four can't be beat. I went and sat on a 3 year old wing a couple of months ago, I think it was an 1800 I could barely get it off the stand. These new ones have reverse, ABS, cruise, CB's and on and on. You can't buy them like mine any more. Mine came from the factory naked, first year they made the 1200 the 83's were 1100's I can ride the bike farther than I could drive the truck when it ran before I have to stop because of my back.
Welcome back my friend I've missed you!
This is your mind on drugs!
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