Washington to Florida in Hrly Erl

B

Bernard

Guest
The trip went smoothly from Pensacola to San Juan, CA, where the Alaskan Airlines plane which was to take us to Seattle broke down. We got into Seattle at 0230 local time on Sunday, 20th, instead of 1930, 21st.

The printed computer page of Orbitz reservations with the motel information didn't make the trip. We were in the Seattle/Tacoma airport at 0230 with no information about our accomodations at all. Eventually it occurred to me to try to get an Orbitz number from information, which turned out to be possible despite my cheery pessimism, and they did have the information, and the motel was still holding the room.

The Schultz's picked us up later that morning and took us to their beautiful 1904 Craftsman home in Stanwood, were we met the Buick for the first time. It is all it was supposed to be: a really good ten-footer with only minor cosmetic blemishes here and there. It started and purred like a kitten.

Mrs. Schultz fed us a good meal, and then we were off. We got two miles.

Kids flagged us down and told us we'd lost a hubcap at the turn back there; by the time we got back to the turn, the hubcap was nowhere to be found. I left the car idling with the headlights on (it was gloomy that day, with a light drizzle falling). The car stalled. No more than 15 minutes later I realzied the headlights were on, and dim. The car wouldn't start. A fellow in a truck stopped, listened to my explanation, and produced a multimeter. Two volts. We called the Schultzs, and they came and towed us back to their home. The battery charged all night while we slept in their third-story bedroom, and in the morning the car started quickly and Mrs. Schultz led us to a battery supplier in the next little town and paid for a new 6-volt battery ($101). And then we were off.

But not for long.

We got about an hour down I-5 and the car quit running, just as we were cresting a hill. I didn't know that Mr. Schultz had filled the tank for us, so I suspected the gas gauge and thought we'd run out of gas. We were able to get out of the center lane and onto the shoulder, and just barely coast over the crest of the hill, to see an exit ramp! Wonderful! But alas, there was a truck crawling down the shoulder of the exit ramp while a man sprayed weed killer at the shoulder, and traffic was streaking by on the ramp . . we were blocked! What are the odds of having the exit ramp at exactly the right place, and having it blocked by a maintenance truck killing weeds?

I tried a restart, and it worked. We drove around the truck, to the bottom of the ramp,and turned left into the underpass beneath I-5. And stalled again, but again with enough momentum to just get out of trouble. The underpass had no shoulders and vertical concrete walls, but we rolled just out of it onto a shoulder.

I called AAA; gas was brought and taken on board; the car started; it drove 500 feet, stalled again, and would not restart. Luckily the flatbed wrecker which had brought the gas was still behind us, and we were shortly on it and on our way to the nearest Buick dealer, Valley Pontiac GMC in a small Washington town whose name I don't recall at the moment.

There were employed Andrew and Bob, two old-timers, who traced the problem to a loose low-voltage hot wire connection at the coil, and who also found burned points as a result of the poor connection. They cleaned up the points, tightened the connection, and the car purred more smoothly than before. It was determined that all the transmission fluid on the flatbed had spilled out when the car was being loaded or unloaded, and was at an impossibly steep angle. That, thank goodness, proved out true in the coming days. Bob also found that the rear transmission mount is broken, with the transmission resting on the frame. That will be one of the first repairs.

We were off again, and had no more trouble that day or the next.

Driving impressions: Remarkably smooth; far less body lean than I'd anticipated, and better road-holding. The steering will do wonders for my trapezoids and pecs.

People impressions: The people of Washington and Oregon are far more polite than they are down my way, both on their feet and behind their wheels, and the south is supposed to be so hosiptable . . . .

Coming soon: the fuel pump wire, the fuel pump, and a mysterious starting problem.
 
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My compliments, unknown friend. I own a resplendent '49 Super Sedanette, ex-Texan car, absolutely original and perfect.
Don't blame in excess the troubled journey -think 'bout that you have stories for the next years- ;) .
An' just by the way: What's the average speed you use to cruise down in USA? We have strong problems with 'em average fliers down here. None o'em goes less than 100 mph. Tnaks God by the trucks.
Thank you by your experiences.
.
 
39 -- most of the shaking came from out-of-round, out-of-balance (but new) WWW bias-ply tires . . .

Quijote--We don't blame the troubled journey. Our rule was "If it doesn't cause physical pain or flowing blood, it's fun." That rule held well. We were limited to about 70 mph buy the unbalanced tires, and typically ran 65 to 70 on the highway--16 mpg average!
 
I've got Dee's notes now. We broke down Monday in Tutwilla (Tutwila?), WA, and were hauled to Valley Buick Pontiac GMC in Auburn, WA, where we were treated royally. The two mechanics involved are Bob and Jerry. I wish I had their last names to share, but they're lost in the notes somewhere. If you're ever up that way, stop in and tell them how grateful the couple with the maroon 49 Super still is for their knowledge and special interest.

Almost next door to the dealership is a Teriaki restaurant in a strip mall (not the Oriental soup restaurant). The food is inexpensive, very good, and the servings are huge. Yes, it's worth the special mention.

Anyway, by Monday night, the end of our first full day on the road, we'd made it to Portland and holed up at a moderately inexpensive motel. Our taste in motels, when all we're going to do is shower, brush out teeth, and sleep, is Concrete Tents of America. The Aladden Motel was a cut or two above that, but not expensive. A day in a 49 Buick, a tow truck, and a dealership customer lounge makes for a comfortable bed.

We had managed a whopping 208 miles, but got 18.5 mpg, incluing the cheat mileage on the flatbed trailer. Okay, okay -- we won't count that tank . . . .

From Dee's log: "Different kind of fir and spruce trees"; [at the breakdown at Tutwilla] "Gas? Bernard gone to get gas, help, see where we are!!" (I had to walk some distance to an intersection and step out into traffic to read the street sign identifying the street we were on).

From my notes: "Everybody is friendly up here--"SNIKI TIKI," a 50's Ford coupe w/Chev 350, pulled over, along with a 64.5 Mustang, 6 guys got out . . . " I remember thinking that only one looked like a menacing 50s greaser, and the rest looked like the northeast's equivalent of southern good ole boys . . .the driver had cherry red cheeks and a goofy smile beneath a bristly moustache. They were satisfied when we told them AAA was on the way. Before we were carried away, SNIKI TIKI, with its irridescent lime green paint and bamboo-motief lettering, passed us again, going in the same direction.

I checked the engine oil and transmission fluid before getting out on the road again Tuesday. We needed transmission fluid--but what kind? An origial shop manual came with the car (and, encouragingly, was free of greasy fingerprints), but it did not include anything about the Dynaflow transmission. The original owner's manual, which we also got, helpfully specified "General Motors Special Transmission Fluid." We were directed to Pacific Car Care, a modern-looking, clean auto parts store. A man old enough to have grandchildren called his father on the phone to find out what kind of fluid we should use . . . "Dad, we have this 49 Buick down here with an automatic. What kind of transmission fluid does it use? Dextron? Okay . . okay. . . yeah. . .thanks, Dad." Neither my notes nor my memory explain why we went from there to an auto parts store for the fluid, but we did. At Baxter Auto Parts a woman who divided her attention between me and a telephone conversation told me where to find transmission fluid. Uh-oh. No plain Dextron. there was Dextron II and Dextron III and Dextron with dimetholetholphenobarbital. Which to use? I again got half the woman's attention--Dextron III, she said. Apparently Dextron III covers Dextron and Dextron II, except in some models of Honda, which specify Dextron II. With some anxiety I bought four quarts of Dextron III and poured one in.

So far, so good, over 3,000 miles later. Y'all tell me if I'm causing a slowly-developing disaster, please!

We also got four quarts of Havoline motor oil and two bottles of lead substitute. I'm not a particular fan of Havoline, but I do believe in not switching brands of oil or even viscosities, and seller Don told me Havoline was what was in it.

It was 9:30 a.m. before we got back on I-5--again, not an industriously early start, but we were looking forward to a good solid day on the road.

From Dee's notes: "Lots of log trucks. Trees (logs) are much bigger than in Escambia County [Florida]. Normal to see trucks with two or three trailers. Scenery in Washington and Oregon spectacular." Up there they are still cutting virgin timber, apparently. Down south we cut genetically-fiddled Southern yellow pine "super trees," which grow very fast, are a harvest-size six inches in diamater in just a few years, and have so little resin in them that they're only 2/3 as strong as nature's model and about half as resistant to wood rot. And that, Boyz and Girlz, is what we have to build houses with nowadays . . .

From my notes: "No fruther mechanical problems. 55 mph indicated = 61 +/- actual. Car is a handfull--bias ply tires"

It seemed to me we had been traveling rather briskly for the speedometer reading. I clocked a mile by mile posts in 59 seconds at an indicated 55 mph. Later, I would record 4 minutes, 10 seconds over a 5 miles at an indicated 60 mph, confirming that we were going 1.2 times the indicated speed. An odometer check across one of Oregaon's odometer check sections showed we were traveling 1.15 times the odometer-recorded distance.

Ach! Time to keep a dentist appointment . . . more later.
 
it is Tukwila, approx 8 miles NE of Sea-Tac airport south of Seattle. Glad your experience in the land of fire and ice was enjoyable even if the start home was a little rough. You are partially right about the timber. It is not as much virgin as you think. Weyerhauser has been replanting up here for nearly 75 years. They are on their 3rd and 4th go around. Timber here is larger spuce, pine etc. That is why it is called the Evergreen State. Stanwood is only about 15 miles north of me and it is pretty much all rural out there. Cattle ranches, Poultry farms etc. What did you think of the mountains?. I find it amazing when friends of mine come out from the south and east coast and realize what they have been looking at and calling mountains are not mountains at all but actually hills. Glad to hear the overall trip to this point in the journey has gone well.
 
Tukwila it was, then . . .

I was thrilled by the mountains, and disappointed we couldn't go over the Sierras. We wanted to go east from Washington to Virginia to attend an event my daughter was hosting there, but the night before we would have set out east a lot of snow fell in Montana, and I was loath to drive "the four-wheeled blimp" with no power brakes or steering and with recirculating ball steering and bias ply tires through 11,000-foot passes with snow and ice . . . so we headed south instead. My son and I once did every mile of the Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway on motorcycles . . the vistas we did get going down I-5 were often as dramatic.
 
Harley Earle (Dee so named it; I was inclined toward "Molasses" because of its deep maroon color and another obvious reason) did well climing the I-5 grades that Tuesday. I'd run at the bottom of the long upward grades at 70 (indicated 58) when I could; I don't think we ever dropped below an indicated 45. Still I'm thankful we didn't have to stop and restart on one of the climbs. We'd probably still be strugging to get up to speed.

And by Tuesday afternoon my teenage-era driving responses were coming back--not better reaction times, but improving instinct at "reading" the road feel and twitching the wheel the right way the right amount in anticipation of Harley's next lurch. I began to relax somewhat. Life became better.

My notes: "Temp needle staying at the bottom of normal range on upgrades; oil pressure gauge three needle-widths past vertical [normal]; light charging."

Dee's notes: "Colors are much jore brilliant than in the south. Flowers, trees, and shrubs, daffodils, johquils growing wild along interstate. Lots of sheep in Oregon. The young lambs are precious, some frisky, others content to stay by mother's side."

You can see we have different perspectives . . . there were lambs?

Dee's note: "They pump your gas in Oregon."

From my mechanical log: [Tigard, OR] 135 miles driven, 10.6 gallons, 12.7 mpg (by odometer--14.6 actual) .5 quart low This was the poorest gas mileage we recorded the whole trip.

And here I see in Dee's notes that (per my figures from the 5-mile odometer test range in Oregon) that actual mileage is 1.27 the odometer's reading, not the 1.2 I posted earlier. Based on that, our 12.7 mpg was 16.1 actual. Now I'm suspicious. I'll have to pay attention to other recorded data later in the trip.

At 3:25 p.m. Tuesday we crested the highest point on I-5, 4310 feet, about 280 or so miles north of Sacramento, California (no notes about Oregon cities in Dee's notes here). It was drizzling and misty; traffic was heavy; I almost didn't see the sign and surely didn't see much of view from the crest, which was buried in a cut in the mountains, if my memory is correct. One of these trips I'm going to have to go as a passanager (of a very competant driver).

Not long after the crest we pulled off at an observation point, with Mt. Shasta in the far distance. It's 14,162-foot-high peak was shrouded in a cloud and veiled by a rainstorm just on our side of it, but it was still impressive. Unfortunately, I don't think it photographed well. I did get some decent shots of Harley Earle and a goodly share of road grime.

We got a few flakes of snow at 4:42. It had been 43 years since I'd driven in snow, and I wasn't sure it was snow. Dee, raised in Michigan, excitedly pronounced it so. By 4:48, her notes say, we were "back to rain."

We had planned to detour eastward from I-5 to see Crater Lake and then visit a friend in Klamath Falls. But the friend called and warned us off, saying snow was forecast for the pass on Oregon 58, and more snow was due the next day. "Stay on I-5 and go as fast as you can," he said. "You need to be out of the mountains before the snow falls." He also said, with ominous voice, that Oregon requires cars to carry snow chains. I think there are some qualifications to that, but for sure we didn't have any, or studs, or even all-weather tires. We went as fast as we could straigt down I-5. We stopped for gas at Roseburg, OR (15.1 mpg by odometer, 18.75 if the 1.27 correction is correct) and Redding, California (12.9 by odo, 16.4 corrected, and a quart of oil for 575 miles/quart).

We made 479 miles that day, and had no mechanical problems except for two momentary power losses--a mystery to unfold. A good day indeed.

Coming: "disjointed chicken," the cause of the power losses, and stunningly beautiful Bakersfield, CA . . . .
 
Tuesday night, at Dunnigan, California, we ate at a glorified truck stop restaurant across from the Best Value Inn. The menu was limited. One choice was Southern fried chicken, aka "Disjointed Chicken." That amused Dee. I told the waitress I'd have the dismembered chicken. She didn't even blink. I don't think she comprehended the subtle differences between "disjointed" and "dismembered." But as a native of Mobile, Alabama, and a life-long resident of The South, I can tell you their dismembered chicken was a far cry from "southern fried"--a far, pitiful, mournful cry.

Some time on Tuesday, I think it was, I noticed something about the way other drivers related to Harley Earle. They were very considerate. If I used the blinker to indicate a lane change, the car behind me in the lane I wanted to use would immediatley slow. We were never tailgaited until we got onto I-10 and amidst Dixie morons, but they're off in the future at this point. I have to assume the courtesy shown old Harley is the equivalent of holding restaurant and store doors open for suffling old people and smiling benignly at them as they crawl past. I'm not sure how to regard that.

Don and Mary told us to count the thumbs-up we'd get. We did. We collected ten raised thumbs, plus a bunch of enthusiastic waves--and this doesn't count the people who walked up for a look-see or to deliver a compliment every time we stopped for gas and at most restaurants.

We identified three types of rubber-neckers. First we experienced the gregarious, openly enthusiastic type. They'd honk and raise a thumb, and go buy grinning like idiots. Then we became aware of the subtle rubber-neckers. They'd overtake from behind, hang in the blind spot for a half-mile, then slowly pass, looking at us as they did but not smiling, waving, or even nodding. And then there were the stealth rubberneckes. They'd pull up behind us in the other line and hang back like the Subtles, then pull by staring straight ahead as though we didn't exist. I liked the honking, grinnig, thumb-pumping kind best, of course--they gave me the opportunity to honk back. I do love the alto musical tone of those horns---so mellow!

We got away from the motel at 8:53, again at least an hour behind daily pre-planning, and headed south toward a rendesvous with an intenet frined in Sacramento. The morning's travels were mechanically uneventful. Dee's notes don't record any random enchantments with wildflowers, colors, trees, or vistas.

We were to meet our friend at the Burger King at the intersection of I-5 and I-80. As we glided into the parking lot, the engine died again, and woudl not restart. We rolled gently into a parking place as though it was planned.

This time I immediatley knew the cause of the stall: there was no ticking from the electic fuel pump. That was easily traced to a bad connection at the coil, from whence the hot wire lead. Apparently a wrench had chewed it up a little when the coil wire was tightened down, and a few hundred miles of vigration gradully did the rest.

That was the cause of the mysterious little power loss back in the mountains!

There is a truck stop across the side street from Burger King, and there I purchased a small needle-nozed vicegrip and a blisterpack of wire terminals, and within five minutes fixed the problem. Stripping the insulation from the wire was the first use I'd made of the Leatherman tool Dee gave me for Christmas three years ago. It made me feel like a reformed sinner.

The car again ran like a staight-eight needle sewing machine as we headed south from Burger King, full of cholesteral (my favorite food group) and good memories of our visit with our friend.

Dee's notes: "375 miles to LA. Flock of whooping cranes! [How does she know? Has she ever seen a whooping crane before?] Seeing large palm trees (dates?)" Whooping cranes AND date palms? I suspect wishful thinking.

At 1:30, at the Wesley/Modesto exit, we pulled in to a filling station/convenience store to empty one set of tanks and fill another. 216 miles by the odometer, 16.7 gallons, 12.9 mpg indicated, and 16.4 actual. Not too shabby. The oil was down, but not by a full quart. Gas was expensive--$2.49.9

At 2:12 we pulled off and climbed a very steep ramp to a vista point overlooking the San Juaquin Valley and the California Aquaduct. I took more pictures of Dee and Harley. I also tinkled behind a wood fence, repaying the rent on a bottle of that new alleged energy drink by Coca Cola, protected from view from valley farms only by distance. Why in the hell aren't there portapotties, at least, where the State of California tempts travelers to get out of their cars and subject their bladders to the ful effect of gravity? Arnold, are you listening?

At 4:30 we left I-5, turning off onto the exit ramp for State Highway 58, headed for Barstow.

Barstow! An old wild west name for sure, with the name itself sounding exciting. We'd given up Billings and Butte; Barstow and Needles and Las Cruces would replace them as spurs for our imaginatins.

But before we got to Barstow, we had to pass through Bakersfield. My very dear friend who lives there as a professor of religious studies at the University of California told me long ago it was an ugly city. Stafford is always a supurbly well-bread gentleman, and he gave Bakersfield the full credible license of charity in calling it "ugly." If it may be judged by comparison of what is along its highway compared to what is along I-5 anywhere else, it is one gawd-aweful ugly place. I'm not hampered by Stafford's degree of good breeding. Surely the Bakersfield Beautification Society could at least plant a lot of mesquite trees along the rights-of-way, or something . . . .

We made Bartow at 9:30 p.m.. We'd been on the road, with two signficant stops, for twelve-and-a-half hours, and had covered 408 miles. <sigh> We'll have to do better tomorrow.

A quart of oil went in at a fuel stop just before Barstow--487 miles to a quart. Harley doesn't smoke in the least, but there was a lot of still-yellow oil on the valve cover below and behind the breahter cap. Will some of you engine gurus comment?

Next: The Mojave Desert, "Death Valley" for the fuel pump, the only rude @#@@$^#$ we met on the whole trip--and snow.
 
Bernard, I can relate to the people in CA. Sept 2003 I drove my 66 442 from Seattle to Barstow on route out the southern states to eventually VA, PA and NJ. I experienced all 3 you describe. The worst were the ones that hung off my left rear qtr. I would be coming up on a tractor trailer rig and found myself stuck for up to 15 minutes due to one or two of these lookie loo's. They would hold up a train of people then would accelerate past me with all those they held up in tow. I finally decided enough was enough and each time I could see a rig ahead and cars slowing to stare at the 442 I did in my case what a 442 was designed to do, stomp on it and get around the rigs before I was stuck again.
 
Atta boy, Yogi. . . . . but ya know, stomping in Harley Earle didn't have the same result . . . .
 
Y'all are just going to have to overlook my poor spelling and typos. I used to spell decently until I discovered spell-check. I've never typed accurately.

Thursday the 24th saw us getting our sixth consecutive late start. We rolled onto Hwy 58 at 9:10 a.m, two days and an hour behind schedule. I privately gave up hopes of seeing the Grand Canyon, which I had seen when I was four, and wanted to see again.

The overnight in Barstow was anticlimatic--no gunfights, no stampeeds, no possies being formed, nobody thrown through barroom windows--but we could imagine, and pretend . . . .

We headed along I-40 for Needles, 139 miles away across the Mojave Desert. I have vauge memories of crossing the Mojave when I was three, the back seat occupant of my parents' chalky-purply black 1939 Dodge. It was so hot we couldn't touch the exterior metal of the car. Dad had put one of those torpedo-shaped humidifiers on the car, the kind that have straw in them and clamp onto the top of a window glass, and when the straw is wet, damp air comes into the car. We also had a porous canvas water bag hanging in front of the radiator to add a bit of humidity to the air flowing through the radiator. I don't remember the scenery on that trip. Four-year-olds aren't interested by vast flat expanses of nothing.

We had been told that the desert had gotten a significant amount or rain earlier this year, causing things to grow and bloom which hadn't been seen in a decade. "It's beautiful," we were told. Yes, it was. I didn't see much growing that looked unusual outside of a desert context, but there was much, much more green than I had anticipated, in isolated little balls dotting the whole visible landcape of ligh yellowish soil and vari-colored rock.

The desert struck me as far more dramatic than the mountains. It must be because it can be seen in huge amount as a single thing. the mountains had either blocked great vistas or such vistas presented themselves as a collection of individual humps--not as a whole, single thing that stretched for miles in every direction. I got the impression that the desert was a great power, mererly permitting us all to travel on its back, and could,if it wished, swallow up cars, trucks, and highway in an instant. It hummed with tension.

The other outstanding impression of the Mojave was the train traffic, all of it to the south of us. Several times we could see multiple trains at the same time---whole trains at that. On one occasion there was one train on a siding being passed by another train, with a third train in sight approaching head-on. We had to assume there were two through tracks out there. We probably saw ten trains on the Mojave as we crossed, most of them strings of ocean shipping container flats---COFC cars, for "container on flat car." There are also TOFC cars, which have fifth wheels and carry either truck trailers or shpping containers mounted on their detachable trailers. We didn't see any of those. TOFC cargo movements aren't as economical as COFC.

From Dees notes: "Seeing seveal varities of (yellow) wildflowers" . . . and an hour later, "Begining to see purple wild flowers, other vegetation changes . . . Now seeing white flowers." For posterity, "now" was some time between 10:50 a.m. and 11:05 a.m., March 24, 2005. Humph.

I'd quit taking notes by then.

We made it through the 2603-foot pass just west of Needles, on the east edge of the desert, without incident and had lazied our way all the way down the long decent to the desert floor by 11:36, when the car died again. We were rolling slightly downhill with Needles in sight, but were approaching a cut through rock which left no shoulder, and I took advantage of a wide, flat, rock-and-gravel paved apron (almost a parking area) to pull off and stop.

Again, there was no clicking from the fuel pump. I knew it wouldn't be a continuity problem at the coil, so I checked the connection to the pump, which I found, by following the wire, bolted onto the outside of the right perimeter frame just forward of the rear wheel. There was spark between the wire and the pump body, so the pump had expired.

AAA got their second call from us within four days. And they almost got an earfull of short-tempered, exasperated customer, too. I had so much trouble hearing them that I had to walked a couple hundred feet away from the car, uphill to an exit ramp, to communicate with them; and I was passed from one "club" to another and then to a third, having to repeat information each time. But you know, it takes more chutzpa than I had at hte moment to bawl out the guy throwing me a rescue rope because he makes a few bad tosses. I kept my temper and in due course we met Ed.

Ed is a short, stocky product of the desert, and by his own statement he loves his job driving his flatbed wrecker. It's very hard to say how old Ed is. His skin is leathery and deeply grooved from the desert sun; his blonde hair is thick, long, and wild; and he'd be long in the tooth, I think, if his teeth weren't worn so far down.

But Ed knows his business, and he's courteous to a fault. At one point he asked my preferences about securing the car, saying "I don't want to do anything your'e not okay with." We need more Eds stratigically positioned where we break down.

Ed suggested a particular garge; I overruled him, specifying any General Motors dealership in Needles. "I figure I'll get more sympathy from a Buick dealer, or at least a GM dealer, if it comes to needing a courtesy loaner or a ride," I explained. Ed agreed. We went to Colorado Cith Chevrolet/Buick/Cadillac.

The young service writer saw us coming. Before I had finished explaining that we needed a six-volt fuel pump located and a half an hour's mechanic time to install it, he cut me off: "We can't get to it before Monday, or even Tuesday!"

"We're in transit from Washinting to Florida," I tried to explain, and he cut me off again.

"We got other people ahead of you who need their cars fixed to. We can't get to it!"

This service writer at Colorado City Chevrolet/Buick/Oldsmobile was the first, and only, first-class, brass-bound, rude jackass we encountered on the whole trip. It was evident he didn't want to "fool" with an antique car and knew he didn't have to--to hell with the human needs and degree of urgency.

Okay--I climbed back into the truck (a stretch cab flatbed, with a back seat for Dee--class!) and Ed began inching us backward out of the narrow space left for a service lane. "Oh, I wish they hadn't put that Cadillac there," he said after ten feet, and stopped. I looked behind us. A fat, sleek salesman was leaning down over a new Sedan DeVille, plastered with window stickers, talking to a client, who had stopped blocking half of the narrow lane. They continued to chat, oblivious to our need to back out, oblivious to the backup buzzer whining from the wrecker. I had enough.

I climbed down from the wrecker, stomped back to the fat sleek slaesman, and bellowed "If you refuse to work on my car, the least you can do is let me out of your damned driveway!" Fat Sleek barely looked my way. I had a suspicion what I'd do next if I stood there, so I turned and stomped back to the wrecker, intending to suggest that Ed simply start backing toward them with the apparent intent of crushing the new Caddy. As I climbed into the cab, I saw the Caddy pulling into traffic on the street. As we backed out, Fat Sleek and two Thin Sleek salesmen who had had bystander capacity strolled into the showroom without so much as a glance our way.

Once in my life I sold Cadillacs at a prestige dealership ina a fairly large city. I would have gotten summarily canned if I'd displayed such a callous attitude toward anyone who drove in, but here callous disregard and unsupported arrogance seem to be the dealership culture. There must not be a competator within 75 miles.

Ed took us to A+ Auto Service/NAPA Auto Parts, just around the corner for Condescending City Chevy/Buick/Olds. Its owner first located a six-volt pump which could arrive the next day, then, after I whined and wrythed, made more calls and found one right there in Needles, which could be delivered (for $15) within the hour.

Dee and I went to eat; when we came back, the car was on the rack and the installation was in progress. About $80 for the pump, $15 for delivery, and $89.50 for installation. We got victimized on labor, but the man did find the pump, was polite and candid, and was the only game in town. I consider ourselves lucky.

We took a picture of Ed standing in front of Harely before we left. I bet he's going to be surprised to get a copy of it.

We were back on the road at 4:30 p.m., and shortly crossed the Colorado River into Arizona. No white water here; in fact, very little water at all. The river is very much tamed at this crossing by Davis Dam, at the south end of Lake Meade, just a few miles upstream.

We began a long, mercifully gradual ascent into the Plomosa Mountains, with darkness beginning to overtake daylight. It was fully dark before we reached the high plane on the east side, and it was beginning to snow as we rolled toward Williams, Arizona, on I-40 directly south of the Grand Canyon. I hadn't driven in real snow since I got my one date with a town girl with a car at Notre Dame in 1963. I was apprehensive, but Williams wasn't far off, and there was almost no traffic.

It took us three tris to find a vacant room in Williams, but the one we did find, a little after 9 p.m., at the Colorado Motel, was very nice. I heard the desk clerk tell a couple ahead of me "I have two no smoking kings left. I'll give you the manager's special of $49.95 plus tax."

When it was my turn I said "I'll take your last manager's special."

We made 459 miles.

Williams is at 6,762 feet elevation and was established in 1881. It bills itself as "the Gateway to the Grand Canyon." The Dennys restaurant there is actually pretty good. It was just too late to hunt up any of the tourist restraunts specializing in prime rib and heavy beef.

When we woke Friday morning and looked out, we found four inches of snow covering Harley Earle. I suspect that's the first time snow has ever blanketed, or even accumulated, on it.

Next: Ruggedness of New Mexico and Arizona; a tunnel and a wonderful scenic road for bikers; and the year spent crossing Texas
 
For some unaccounted reason we got on the road at 7:15 the next morning. F

Before that I had to get the snow off the car, at task for which this Florida boy wasn't equipped. I spotted a supersize plastic drink cup in the back seat and used that for a snow scraper, full rim against the glass. It worked pretty well. I cleared the windshield, then drove the car gingerly around to the front of motel, where I had seen a hose, and begain washing the rest of the snow away. A nervous manager came out and told me I shouldn't wash the car there because that place was always in shadow and the water would freeze and be dangerous for guests. I hate to say he was right. I pushed the rest of the snow off onto the wet spot and ground it in with lots of texture--problem solved.

We had planned to take I-40 east-northeast to Amarillo, then US287 southeast to Ft. Worth/Dallas; but with a forecast of more snow along I-40, we went east the 40 miles to Flagstaff then fled south on I17 toward Pheonix and Tucson. We were one only a very few cars on the highway. As a matter of fact, I think we saw more cars in the median than we saw on the pavement for the first 20 miles. The only other car rolling east was an Arizona highway patrolman. We saw more snow plows than anything. Some were clearing the shoulder, others were spreading sand. I was impressed with how big the plows were. I surmise that snow plows in the Arizona mountains have to be pretty serious.

We saw a sign saying "WINTER DRIVING CONDITIONS." No--surely not! I drove with an egg under my right foot (not that Harley Earle was going to break traction with its massive horsepower if I twitched my toes)and held the wheel as if it were filled with couldy nitro. Old Earle slushed and slobbered onward, apparently unaffected. I suppose 4200+ lbs is an asset in snow on pavement, but I sure hope I never get it stuck in the Florida sand.

I17 rises and drops emphatically below Flagstaff, but overall is a descent from the 6,000-foot plane around Flagstaff and Williams. We saw elevation markers for 6,000 feet, 3,000 feet, and then 2,000 fett, and at the 2,000-foot elevation the snow abruptly disappered from trees and median and shoulders, and the falling snow turned to light rain. We continued gradually downward.


Uh oh. Elecrical storm as I'm writing . . . shutting down until it passes.
 
Electrical storm has passed; it has rained like Noah's Ark --- and the brand-new post Ivan roof is leaking into my office, where there was no leak before !

I-40 skirts north of Flagstaff, and I17 drops along its east edge. We didn't even see it as we oozed our way south. Whereas I-40 east of Williams had been relatively level--"relatively" being the word of emphasis--I17 was much more mountainous, with steep grades both up and down. We saw at least two signs warning trucks of 6% grades. Dee noted that we passed downward through the 5,000-foot level, in rain, at 8:38 a.m., and that "the vegetation is chaning back to smaller trees, yuccas, catcus, wildflowers"--and illustrated her recorded observation with an illustration of a catcus plant right out of a Roadrunner cartoon.

There was brief sunshine at 9 a.m.. We were still in the snow then, and it was blinding. I was grateful when the clouds closed over twelve minutes later.

We pulled off for lunch at Black Canyon, and ate at the Hogs 'n Heat Cafe--honest! And next door, in this remote, rocky, arid, postage-stamp-sized place where pickups outnumber even SUVs five to one, was a "Chinese Antique Store." I offered to let Dee browse, but she surprised me and declined. Maybe that was because we'd just lost a half-hour brousing a shed full of Indian craft items next to the Hogs 'n Heat.

At 11:11 we passed through the Pheonix City Limit, and traffic became slower and slower. That is all the better to see the decorated retaining walls of I17. Pheonix has done itself proud with mosaic tile patterns and bas relief concrete forms, most painted. Full-lendth lizards cling to overpass supports; Indian designs sprawl for hundreds of feet along retaining walls, with new ones beginning where preceeding ones stop. Very impressive. Even a cynic (moi?) would approve and appreciate.

Darn -- another lightning storm. . ..
 
Black Canyon Junction Arizona - Now that brings back memories. Way back in 1970 3 of my Air Force buddies and I were headed from our base in Tucson to the Grand Canyon on the 4th of July weekend on motorcycles.

We arrive at Black Canyon Juction after dark. Then it was only a gas station. We could see enough to tell that behind the station was nothing but empty property; looking for a place to bed down, we asked the Station owner if he minded if we rolled out our sleeping bags and slept out under the stars and parked the bikes behind his station.
"No no not at all boys - you can make yourself's at home, but let me tell ya; THAT THERE PLACE IS INFESTED WITH RATTLE SNAKES", he said, with a big daring grin on his face.

Long story short - we fired up our bikes and went up the road to the higher elevations of Sedona Canyon, and slept out under the stars with a little less anxiety.

Everytime I hear of Black Canyon; it takes me back all those years to that staion owners hospitable comment.
 
39 --- no guts, no air medal . .. .

I can well imagine the rattlesnakes in that place even now . . . the old highway swings off 60 and runs parallel a block south, for perhaps a mile or two. Three gas stations, the Hogs 'n Heat in what I suppose passes for a little strip mall including a jewelry repair shop, a real estate office, and several others I don't remember; a big Indian crafts store; an Amish restaurant (yes, Amish!!); and a few other very small enterprises. And all the water is in small containers. . . .
 
Oops -- Black Canyon is on I-17, about 2/3 of the distance between I40 and Pheonix . .and the old highway bow is 4 miles long, according to Atlas.
 
US60 from Apache Junction, on the eastern edge of Pheonix, to Florience Junction, 14 miles to the southeast, dwindles down from seven east-bound lanes (counting exit lanes) to two, and finally to one. It's flat across this reach, and traffic is fiendishly heavy for anyone who is unaccustomed to being deprived of decent exterior rear view mirror; but with each exit, traffic diminishes noticeably, actually reducing driving difficulty as the lanes disappear.

From Florence Junction through Superior to Central Heights, US60 climbs the southwest side of the Pinal Mountains, hills in height compared to the Rockies and Sierras and a dozen other mountain ranges we'd crossed so far, but far more rugged than any we'd yet seen. Vertical precipices predominate, and aren't smooth--their surfaces are formed with piles of bolders and chimneys, rock outcroppings, and vertical crevices. One sees them at short range, too--at times rising from the very shoulder of the road. Driving was getting downright fun!

At Central Heights we turned right onto US70 toward Globe and beyond Globe is about 3500 feet. The town of Safford, 77 miles southeast on US70, is at 2920 feet; I bet we went up and down 5000 feet in between.

US60 is a sportbikers dream--twisty, steep, and challenging. I rode bikes for 25 years. My last bike was a 1979 Suzuki GS850 in touring trim (banana peel seat, known as the best UJM (universal Japaneese motorcyle) ever built. Oh, to have the reflexes and depth perception of my youth, and make one pass over US70 from Globe to Safford . . . but then, the eyes and reflexes of youth are long gone, and the dignified, stately plodding of Harley Earle was much more suitable and completely satisfying. He climbed with deeped growl in his throat; his brakes worked smoothly and progressively, with surprising bite, on the downgrades; and once some g-force had set against his steering and bias-ply tires, he tracked through the curves with calm confidence. Not bad for a 56-year old fat man. Not bad at all.

From Dee's notes: "12:50 going through the Tonat National Forest [passing all the bolders and both trees]" . . . "Superior founded 1882" . . . "1258 restroom stop;/- 11:10 back on US60" [her note-taking was really cooking that day . . .} . . . 1:12 Queen Creek tunnel" Hmm . . here's a sketch of a wildflower that looks like a toilet brush point up, emerging from the top of a pumkin.

I believe that's the first time I've even been in a tunnel built through nature. On the other side was a scenic overlook. To the right was the amazingly rugged Queen Creek ravine, with rugged cliffs on its far side; to the left, rising right from the curb, were a couple hundred feet of equally rugged rock cliff. We pulled off and took pictures of Queen Creek and of Harley Earle, and we used the timer to take our picture together with the ravine in the background and in front of Harley Earle. Just as the camera tripped on that on, I planted a big wet one on Dee's right ear. The camera caught her expression--revulsion, surprise, and amusement in equal parts.

From that scenic overlook we continued to climb, and drop, and climb again. We crossed Devil's Canyon and Pinto Creek, and at 1:38 were in Miami. Miami? Sure enough--Miami, Arizona. It's even in the Atlas, just before Central Heights and the intersection with AZ88 and US70.

Somewhere along US70, as I remember, were the vast terraces of copper strip mining, were the soil, mostly pulverized rock, was a dirty white with a greenish tint. One little town proclamed itself deeply grateful to the copper mines which had brought it into existence. Dee's notes, which so accurately record our trip to the bathroom, don't mention the copper mines. For the last 10 minutes she's been searching through the notes, sure she must certainly, definitely mentioned them, but to no avail. I love my little note-taker--she gets all the important stuff.


There was some evidence of a passing effor at land reclamation toward the southeast end of the mined-out moutains, but it too, was dirty white with a greenish tint. Oh, well. We need copper as we need oil, and coal, and granite, and shale.

On the flatlands southest of the Pinal Mountains we rolled through Peridot, and Bylass, Ft. Thomas and Pima. One town named on road signs consisted entirely of one very small, broken-down, general merchandise store. It must have had a post drop in it--not even a full post office, as there was no flagpole and flag outside.

Dee had been recording striking signs. On a trip to Jackson, Michigan, several years ago we had seen on a pasture fence a sign proclaiming "Used Cows for Sale," and speculated with interest about the nature of their use--the bull was a cad? We also saw, way up on a high hill, a billboard proclaiming the existence of "Crazy Mike's Tattoo Parlor--tattoos while you wait." I think I'd prefer one to go, actually . . . . From Dee's notes:

1.) Self-Service Pet Wash [Spot drops quarters into a slot . . . ]

2.) Diesel Fried Chicken [she won't let me convince her that the meaning was to be Diesel Fuel and Fried Chicken]

3.) Jewelry and Loans [a high-class pawn shop in Pheonix]

4.0
 
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