with the wife down the Shenandoah Valley,the Blue Ridge Parkway then over the Great Smokey Mountains and back in a 94 Z/28... one of the best times in our lives
Posted on 09/23/2017 5:16:04 PM PDT by Army Air Corps
This is a continuation of last night's thread on your favourite car for road trips. Tonight. I ask y'all to share stories of your most memorable road trips. These trips could be memorable for all the best reasons, for all the wrong reasons, or for the most amusing reasons.
Motoring Ping.
those evap coolers worked great.....until dad turned a corner too fast and sloshed water all over the back seat passengers....red
When I got out of the Navy in 1988, I drove my Mustang GT from Seattle to Florida with my Himalayan cat. On the second night, he walked around the hotel room to each wall, looked up the ceiling and meowed loudly one time for each wall. He did that in the room I was sleeping in every night for the rest of his life until he died in 2000.
3. Three Time Zones in 30 Hours ... Morristown, NJ to Alamosa, CO. Damn near non-stop on that one. Two drivers, with alternating sleep schedule. You ain't had a real road trip until you've rolled into the Iowa 80 truck stop at 4:00 AM and been jolted out of your sleep by the sound of a rooster crowing in a cage packed in the bed of the pickup truck next to you.
2. Election Season 2016 in Trump Country ... Dallas, TX to Topeka, KS to Raleigh, NC over five days. Less than 25 miles of this trip was taken on any interstate highways. All U.S. highways and back roads. If I told you that the ratio of Trump to Clinton signs was 500 to 1 I'm probably underestimating the Trump count.
1. Driving the Trans-Canada Highway ... titled after the National Geographic book published in the early 1990s on this subject. Montreal, Quebec to Kamloops, British Columbia over the course of two weeks. Some of the best people you'll ever meet, some of the most remote stretches of road in North America, and some of the most spectacular scenery you'll ever see.
Ten years ago my daughter found out her pen pal and best friend she never met died at age 16. Flu was going through the family and when her appendix burst they though she was just sick. We lived in Michigan and the pen pal was in Georgia.
When I got home from work I asked my daughter if she wanted to attend the funeral. “I think so” she sobbed. (I had already rented a high mileage car). We deadheaded to Georgia, I taught her the fine art of sleeping in a test area.
At the funeral, we waited in a receiving line to meet her parents. I was worried that they might not know who she was. She stepped up to meet her dad and introduced herself. He stopped, sucked in his breath and wrapped his arms aroaunt my daughter. “I can’t believe you came.” Everyone in the church actually seemed to know who my daughter was.
It wasn’t a particularly fun road trip but it was deeply meaningful. My daughter is still in contact with her pen pal’s family.
I have wanted to visit Canada for quite a while, and that route sounds ideal. Thank you for sharing these road trips!
Camp Lejeune, NC to Anchorage, Alaska in the summer of 1975. My first time on the Alaska Highway, as we normally would fly to and from the Lower 48. I was transferred from Camp Lejeune to MCAS El Toro and made a detour to go back home. I was driving a 1974 Chevy Vega.
I have many road trip fave’s. But two that stand out, moving to California from Kansas in 1961 on Route 66. I don’t remember everything, I was still a youngster, but I have very clear memories of certain parts of the trip which my dad confirms. Then a few years later, we returned to Kansas to visit family. The thing that sticks out in my mind, is that even though it was probably still mid-late 60’s, as a kid, I recognized many of the places in Kansas as “Americana.”
Your “three time zones in 30 hours” reminded me of a return trip from CA. I had planned to stop in Amarillo but all the hotels/motels were full of oil field workers (fracking had just begun). No vacancies until I reached Oklahoma City but by then I decided why stop now. Drove 998 solo miles that day from Kingman, AZ, to Joplin, MO.
A few years ago I moved from Michigan to Maryland. For about 15 years before that I was a volunteer bus driver to run kids from Detroit to a Christian camp in the Upper Peninsula, about 465 miles north. I continued to make at least one trip a year after I left.
Thursday-600 miles from MD to MI.
Saturday at midnight- Drive bus to UP and back (multiple drivers) 1000 miles
Return Saturday night, jump in car and drive 600 miles home.
2200 miles, 32 hours seat time.
Well long story made short Back in the late 70s my twin Angie was moving to Phoenix Arizona from Los Angeles with her new a hole husband i drove the rental truck it was cheaper to drive the truck back to L.A. well on the way back the rental caught fire near Blythe well i started walking two semis pulled over they picked me up the lady trucker no it was not that kinda story they took me all the way home fed me let me get some sleep in the sleeper treated me like a king had a great time bs ing about life i knew nothing i was 19 we stayed friends for about 20 years when they were in town we always had dinner Sure had many other road trips but this one was one of my favorites
Summer 2010, 24’ box truck, Brooklyn, NY to Bemidji, MN, and onto Columbus, OH with an undesirable young male who was put on our crew at the behest of an influential adult male client that had a wildly inappropriate relationship with said undesirable (and who held lucrative upcoming projects for our operation in the balance). This wannabe Eminem-type began the trip freaking out over a potential unwanted pregnancy on his hands, with hours of panicked phone calls, who during lighter moments kept calling me “dad” in public, who let the truck run out of diesel on a side street in South Bend, who was caught smoking “K2” and thusly relieved of driving responsibilities, and who was ultimately given the GTFO treatment at a Greyhound station in Columbus, OH. I later quit, yet the undesirable was eventually and begrudgingly hired back by my ex-boss because our influential client demanded it. I don’t miss that job. But we built some pretty cool stuff.
A Ford Econoline van from 1974 to present.
with the wife down the Shenandoah Valley,the Blue Ridge Parkway then over the Great Smokey Mountains and back in a 94 Z/28... one of the best times in our lives
We went from Atlanta to Minneapolis and back in the late 80s. Highlights included breaking down after midnight on an isolated, hilly road (with my cousin in the back seat carolling “Nobody think about Deliverance!”) and wobbling into St. Louis after our one capable driver had been fourteen hours on the road. Would have been OK if the Cardinals hadn’t been playing the World Series at home that year...
We eventually found a hotel, after looking for an hour and a half. Trouble is, it was the Bates Motel. Literally. Nobody slept real well.
The next upcoming one...
This is actually a pair of road trip tails that wrap around themselves. They are, however, true.
OK, so it is January 1987, I’ve been moved by my employer to Lumberton, NC where everybody tells me it never snows. My 11 year old daughter and I drive over from Tennessee in my old Isuzu Diesel 4x4 Pup. The wife and 4 month old son will fly over the next day and we will pick them up from the airport. Stage set!
The wife gets up the next morning ... 6” of snow on the ground, more coming down. Has brother drive her to the airport sliding off the road half way there, between two massive Oak trees, across three yards and back on the road. Not a good start! At the airport is told, “Not a Problem, everything East of here is open”, gets on plane and heads for Fayetteville, NC. On approach to the runway, over the numbers ... wheels up, throttle in, head for the sky ... airport closed. Head for Charleston, WV nearest open airport. Lather, rinse, repeat ... head for Atlanta. Land there after 8 hours with an unhappy 4 month old, and having had 2 drinks spilled on her by the drunk in the next seat ... no hotel rooms! Raise enough HELL and they find a room ... no key ... out of formula ... out of diapers. Bellhop (Lord, Bless him forever) walks to all night grocer for diapers and formula.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, daughter & I wake up to beautiful snow fluries ... don’t worry, it NEVER snows in Lumberton. Drop daughter off at Bosses house and head for Fayetteville ... flurries getting heavier. Arrive at airport, snow is at 6” and growing ... wave at wife & son as they fly over heading somewhere else. Get back to house flurries have become a blizzard! Spend 3 hours on the phone trying to track down missing wife and son ... locate them in Atlanta ... room phone doesn’t work. Get her to front desk phone ... plan to fly to Savanna next day, it’s 200 miles south, just how bad can it be? We’ll pick you up there.
Next morning, 15” on the ground, I-95 is a parking lot. Use little 4x4 to take daughter back to bosses house so I can go get wife ... Oh No, says the Boss, I’ll drive you in the Company Car ... ‘86 Buick LeSaber (remember this) ... only a 3 hour trip ... that way daughter can go too. Three hours later we reach the NC/SC border (17 miles done, 183 miles to go). Freeway may not be the best place to be lets take the back roads! Three hours later we reach Orangeburg, SC ... Wife and son arrive at Savanna airport. Another hour we and finally get a call through, tell her to get a hotel room ... three hours later we arrive. Get a room, we’ll drive back tomorrow, the snow will be gone ... IT NEVER SNOWS in Lumberton.
Get up next morning, Boss not there, had medical emergency during the night and went to the hospital. Shows up 3 hours later on heavy pain meds for an absessed tooth and we head north. South Carolina is a God-Fearing country, God put the snow there and He’ll take it away (that and they own three snow plows for the entire State). Imagine, if you will, baseball sized lumps of compacted snow covering the freeway ... driving over a boulder field in BAJA Mexico comes to mind! Three hours later, we have come a whoppin’ 60 miles, hungry 4 month old, cold formula ... wait, I’m an Engineer, we’ll put a can on the intake manifold and it will heat up ... OK, maybe a sealed can of formula on a hot engine is not such a good idea, little water, little soap, it’ll come clean. How about putting one in front of the heater vent ... it is 20 degrees outside so formula gets up to, maybe, 60 degrees ... OK, hungry babies will eat anything!
Two hours later we reach Orangeburg, SC. Did I mention that we were in an ‘86 Buick LeSaber? That automobile was infamous for dropping engines and transmissions ... 5 hours of boulder field driving ... you guessed it! Keep in mind that it is now late on a Saturday afternoon ... in Orangeburg, SC. There is EXACTLY one, count em, ONE rental car available ... at the local dealership ... 20 miles away ... they close at 5:00 and, NO, they will not wait for us. Flatbed gets to the freeway, loads the car on the bed, puts the wife, daughter, and son in the truck cab leaving me and the Boss in the car, no heat, 20 degrees outside. Get to dealership with 3 minutes to spare, wife gets out of truck cab, steaming, truck driver figured baby should be kept warm so set heater at MAX for the 30 minute ride. Temp in cab is 109, temp in car is 19. Rental car is ... think GEO Metro ... shoehorn 3 adults (Boss is a large person) and 2 kids in with Diaper bag & leave everything else in Bosses car. Three hours later get home, fix LARGE drink, go to bed ... baby wants to play! I swear I will NEVER own a Buick, wife swears she will NEVER set foot on a plane again!
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