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| Route taken across the USA from Atlanta GA to Sacramento CA, approximately 2,600 miles (4,200 Km's) |
DAY ONE : Atlanta GA to Flintstone GA |
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| After checking out the Thunderbird, Chuck (glasses) took me to meet Ken (cap) who did the work on the the Car... |
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| There were some nice examples of Ken's restoration work outside... |
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| As well as plenty of pending projects outside... |
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| and inside too... |
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| Someone paid good money to restore this Land Cruiser, that Ken described as a total rust bucket when it first turned up... |
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| Not sure why, but I was hungry for Guacamole when I took this picture... |
DAY TWO : Flintstone GA to Little Rock AR
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After leaving Atlanta & Spending the night with relatives Ellie & Skyler in Flintstone GA, I hit the Highway at Chattanooga TN,
on the second day into this traffic jam... |
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| Caused by this... |
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| A Truck hauling Evian Water overturned, just goes to prove that bottled water isn't that good for you... |
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| Officially in Tennessee, at the Visitor Center... |
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| Across The Tennessee River, sorry about the strained look of concentration, it's my first selfy attempt... |
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| A little bit Country or a little bit Rock 'n' Roll... (West is Best) |
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| You never know what you're going to see, I saw a lot of these Windmill blades, took me a second to realize what they were as they flashed by... |
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| & Everything was going well till... |
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| A major Blowout at 70mph, only to find the Lug Wrench was too small for the Lug Nuts, Stranded for 2 hours till a State Trooper came by and lent me his 4-way lug wrench... |
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| At the local Tire Shop they didn't have anything to fit, but helped me with a badly adjusted & sticky Voltage Regulator That all but fried the Generator, I was greeted with, "Ooh wee that is sure a purdee automobile" |
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Off to Lexington TN, to find some Tyres, which required some back tracking, in total all this running around cost over 5 hours
by the time I got back on the road in the right direction... |
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Made it to Memphis TN by dusk, the car was running really rough at idle so I tried to adjust the carb to no avail, turned out the floats had be adjusted way too high and was dripping raw fuel into the secondaries, which it could burn on the freeway speeds, but was flooding the engine at low speed... |
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| To cross the Mississippi River, and the first major westward hurdle crossed... |
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| & into Arkansas, where I would find a place to stay and hope tomorrow goes better than today... |
DAY THREE : Little Rock AR to Amarillo TX |
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| More Shakin' going on, pulled over to discover both front tyres now starting to separate, farrrk... |
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| Ozark AR, Jerry's Tire Shop, took 2 guys to get the old tires off the rims they where so hard & dry, at this point I had been told multiple times by several different people, that I was Braver (read crazier) than anyone they knew for attempting to drive a car this old across the country... |
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| Just a bit discouraged, hungry & tired, I stopped at a Diner and contemplated if I'd be more likely to complete the journey in one of those peddle cars... |
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| Anyway decided to push-on through Oklahoma... |
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| Tempting as it sounds, no time, must push on... But it reminded me of Legendary New Zealand town of Waikikamukau (pronounced Why kick a moo-cow) |
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Into Texas with fading headlights, where I was greeted with a spectacular Lightning Storm, (short video here)
unaware I was driving toward a Tornado, getting caught in the middle of it ended up being one of the most anxious 45 minutes of the trip, before arriving in Amarillo TX and managing to find to last room available in town around 12:30am... |
DAY FOUR : Amarillo TX to Flagstaff AZ |
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| Next day on the way out of Amarillo, we dropped by the Cadillac Ranch |
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| The most sort after '59 Cadi. |
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| Painters adding yeat another layer of colour... |
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| A '58 |
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| Cadillacs between '49 & '63 all had fins, all the different finned body styles are represented chronologically in this installation... |
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| Off to New Mexico, the crazy drivers in that little overloaded car just did a u-turn off the side of the freeway, I think they came up the off ramp by mistake... probably bloody Kiwi backpackers forgetting which side of the road they're supposed to be on (easy enough to do) |
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| New Mexico, not a lot to see even at 75 mph... |
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| About as exciting as it gets unless you head north into the hills... |
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| Or you're really into Billboards... |
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| The Continental Divide, another major hurdle crossed heading west. |
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| Into Arizona, now we start to get some scenery as we climb... |
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| Tee Pee Trading Post, Lupton AZ... |
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| A 100 mile dash climbing up to Flagstaff before it gets dark, as the charge warning light reminds me I'll be stranded in the High Desert with a dead battery if I have to use the headlights for any length of time... |
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| As we climbed we struck with wave... |
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| after wave of extreme winds, appearing like curtains of water and knocking the speed back each time one hit us, the trucks were affected worse dropping to a crawl and being pushed all over the road. |
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As I anxiously watch the sun dip toward the horizon...
But we made it into Flagstaff just after dark, after driving for at least half an hour on the freeway with no headlights, the car conked out when I finally hit the brakes pulling into the motel parking lot, good thing they had 1 room left... |
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| That night I had a my first Good Dinner of the trip, then bought a Battery Charger & smuggled the Battery into my Motel room to charge over night, only 51% after 2 hours of charging at 15 Amps and the Battery was toasty, started out at 38% 11.2V, anyway
100% by morning I was relieved... |
DAY FIVE : Flagstaff AZ to Sacramento CA |
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| Well I was going to split up the next leg of the trip over 2 days, 1st Day take a leisurely drive up to Las Vegas, 2nd Day push on to Sacramento, but friends I would have visited in Vegas called and said they were about to leave town as it was too bloody hot, so with no reason to go there I decided I would get up as early as possible, pack a ton of water and head straight to California as nowhere was going to be safe in the desert... |
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| So we headed off through north west Arizona toward California which has some of the best High Desert Scenery... |
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| with Corners to break the monotony... |
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| & Shrubbery... |
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| & Big Rock Formations... |
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| That look like all those old Westerns we grew up watching... |
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| Not even mid-day and it's hotter than Hades... |
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| If only those clouds would release some cooling rain... |
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| There are few settlements in in the desert... |
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| and what there is tends to be pretty basic... |
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Into California, still far from Home, but on the last leg at least...
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| The Desert keeps coming & so does the Heat, as we head through the mountains of the Mojave Desert... |
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| then Mile after... |
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| Mile of the desert plains... |
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| With patches of Joshua Trees to break up the monotony... |
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| That make you wonder how they survive in such a harsh environment... |
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Getting close to the end on the desert, passing Edwards AFB and onto the Mothball Fleet outside of the town of Mojave means some relief from the Desert heat |
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| There it is the Mothball Fleet, means just a few miles from Tehachapi Pass and some cooler temperatures and corners... |
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As the Cooling System & Driver could use a break...
In conclusion, We made it home still driving through record temperatures in the Central Valley, the Battery had held enough Charge,
so with plenty of daylight left to get home without using the Headlights, I treated myself to using the A/C for the last 100 miles...
That last day we did 770 miles in record heat, with virtually no charging system, 12 hours door to door & with only brief stops for Gas
we averaged 64 mph...
This old T-Bird can Sing & Her name is Cilla. |
ALOT OF DAYS LATER : Masterton, New Zealand,
In conclusion, Cilla made her way to her new home in New Zealand at Mike & Donna's... |
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Where Cilla gets to go for runs alongside her stable mate Mike's '70 Holden Bathurst GTS
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| She's getting special attention from Gateway Auto Body and her Paint and Chrome have been spruced up |
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| Gateway are legit, they made new door skins among other things from scratch for this '59 Cadillac Hearse which reached New Zealand as a bit of a rusted bucket form all accounts, as you can tell they're American Car Nuts and go as far as flying the Stars and Stripes (Hand on Heart). |
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| She's seen a lot since coming out of her early retirement to a Barn on a Georgia Peach Orchid. |
& now She's starting to look good as new... |
ALSO VISIT: HOME PAGE - CANADA WEST 2013 - MEXICO 2014 - INDIA |
