My first venture to America

This was a trip I never expected to make, but circumstances changed and it became possible, then it became a reality. I love sharing the story with people and so I'll post up each day as I get the opportunity.

I had to ask Janet along, of course, she would surely enjoy it as well. "You'll be able to see those things in America you've always wanted to see," I told her, "and a great deal more." Her response was a resounding one, as only a wife can do, she said "No!"

Then a Canadian friend of ours said to her, "Janet, you should go, that sounds like a great adventure. And it's the right time of the year too, you'll see all the fall colours in upstate New York and many other places. Yes, you should go!"

"But," she replied, "what if we get there and this pickup doesn't go?"

Immediately he said to her, "Even if you're stuck in the one place for six weeks it will still be and adventure..." and so she decided to accompany me. Please enjoy the rest of the story.

The 'in a nutshell' version was that I bought, over the internet...

...a 1975 Dodge D100 pickup and we flew into Indianapolis to pick it up. We then were to head across to the east coast via West Virginia, up to New Hampshire, across upstate New York and make our way back to Indiana to spend another day or two with my son.

Then we'd head west, with places like Belen, New Mexico, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon on the 'must do' list as well as Pikes Peak and Spokane, Washington.

Our first touchdown in the US was at LAX, where we hired a car and drove to Huntington Beach to see a piston manufacturer. This is shortly after we first hit American soil:

We bought a Garmin GPS in Long Beach and that was to guide us on our long drive. I'd estimated that during our trip we'd cover about 7,000 miles, another forum member reckoned it would be more like 8,000 from memory, in the end it was 9,600. This is the story of that (very Mopar-related) trip.

Leading up to the departure date I was so busy that I barely got any sleep most nights as I prepared things. I had to get bills paid ahead, put things in place, get contacts lined up and lots of other things. And pack and not forget anything. "The toothpaste can't be in a tube of more than 110gms!" Janet told me, we had a 90gm tube and I packed it. And so it went.

We got two 'travel cards'... cards pre-loaded with US currency for spending. I budgeted roughly for food, fuel and accommodation plus a bit for buying stuff. You know, 8¾ rear ends and the like. I bought a Visa card from the ANZ Bank for $US6,000, I got that on a day when the exchange rate was about $1.03.6 in our favour, but I took the precaution of getting a Mastercard from the Bank of Queensland for $US1,000.

The Visa was better value for the bulk of the cash as the ANZ, like the Commonwealth Bank, had a flat rate of $15 for the initial load-up. Everyone else seemed to be charging 1% (as was the Mastercard), some with an additional fee. The ANZ had a slightly better exchange rate than the CBA that day so they got the business.

If we ran out we had some backup. During our trip my pension would continue to go into my Credit Union account and I have a Visa Debit card on that. No good for every-time use as it carried a $2.50 fee for each purchase or $3.50 for obtaining cash at an ATM. In addition, Janet (in addition to $US600 cash) took a credit card she was able to use. All of mine were, by now, totally maxed out!

Our fares had been $1,300 each, we'd wasted $38.50 each on getting 'International Drivers Licenses' from the RACQ and we spent a little second-hand shopping for luggage suitable for the trip. These bags were subjected to a lot of weighing and checking before we left home and mine were right on the limit as I carried as many copies of the F5000 Thunder book as I could.

Additionally I packed a small 12V to 240V inverter so I'd have 240V power for little things like the battery chargers for camera and phones (for the return home). I didn't have to take my laptop as my son was going to provide one of his old ones for me to use... and to ultimately keep. "Our oldest one is newer than Dad's newest," he later told his wife as he explained he was giving it to me. He also loaned me a cellphone and arranged an 'unlimited calls in the US' prepaid plan for it.

So on the night of October 2, quite late, we crawled into bed with the alarm set for 3am. Janet got no sleep as she worried she'd sleep through the alarm, so she was to be in quite a state for the beginning of the trip. That, and also the fact that the grandchildren had stayed over for a few nights just beforehand and given her a bad cold.

The first step, of course, was to get to the airport in Brisbane. Fortunately Janet's son lived near there and actually worked at the airport, so we drove to his place and he then ran us to the airport:

Janet kept a diary of the whole trip, I've transcribed pretty much all of it into this blog, it's in italics. Here’s how Janet recorded the beginning of the trip:

I “woke up” at 2am after having no more than 30 minutes of sleep. Ray has still not finished packing the car so we didn’t leave until 3:15am. Got to Clayton’s place at 6am, had a cup of tea. Elijiah was mucking up, Brogan and Junipah were still asleep, we didn’t see them.

Remembering that even the longest journey begins with the first short step, we smartly dressed and put the last few things into our bags. Most were packed into the car the night before. The circuit breakers for the hot water systems were shut off, doors and windows securely locked and the Subaru pointed towards Brisbane. Our arrangements were to drive to my stepson's home at Nudgee, not far from the airport, then he would take us to the airport on his way to work... which is at a freight depot near the airport. We had to be early as he starts work early, we would wait until we got to the airport before eating breakfast.

Clayton drove us to the airport in his work van, he took Ray first to a Courier company near his work to send ‘stuff’ away. We arrived at the airport at approx 7:15am. Checked in baggage, went through check-in, waited for a ’plane to Sydney.

It all worked smoothly, we threw our bags into the back of his work ute and the Forester was parked out front of his house (with certain instructions...) and then we started to learn (again!) about waiting and queueing at Airports. Checking in luggage, emptying pockets, taking off shoes and watches, passing through the x-ray, making sure we knew where to be when it was flight time, finding out breakfast at the airport is horrendously expensive and then onto the 'plane for the takeoff. Soon we were enjoying that great feeling as the power of the aircraft lifted us up away from the Brisbane scenery and over top of the abundant clouds...

There was just a little CAT during the 70-minute flight to Sydney, and soon enough we were descending on the northern approach to Kingsford Smith Airport. Sydney, as always, presented some interesting scenery:

Left Brisbane about 10:30, arrived in Sydney approx 12 noon. Went through Airport check – what a drama. Lost hair spray and toothpaste (too big). Got on ’plane – left about 2:00pm...

There was little time to waste there, we were ushered from the Virgin Domestic Terminal to a bus that took us around to their International Terminal. Oh, yeah, queues, waits, more of the x-ray routines, fill in forms then a short wait to board. It was a 1:30pm take-off and this 777 immediately appealed to me. It lifted off smoothly to give a view over the adjacent runway out into Botany Bay:

And it wasn't long at all before we were seeing the last of our homeland:

Ahead lay a lot of the Pacific Ocean. The aforementioned announcement by the Captain came over and I went into a kind of entranced state with this aircraft. Below us the ocean got further away, clouds dotted the blue, it was a great feeling:

When it came time for the first meal it was evident my request for special attention to mine hadn't been passed on. My allergy is a real problem in these situations and the crew were great working around it even though they hadn't been forewarned. We flew on... over the International Date Line, over the vast expanse of this ocean. Like I said, it was like the 777 was drilling a hole in the air, smooth, a little noisy, full of people and equipped for everything.

Darkness came and I got some sleep... Janet didn't get much, however.

First light and breakfast woke me readily. I scanned the horizon looking for breaks in the clouds, signs of land. But they were a way off yet as we weren't going to land until about 10:00am. We watched the screen that showed our progress, listened to the occasional announcements, talked to the Columbian girl in the seat next to Janet as the time passed.

Then I spotted it:

I later worked out it was San Nicolas, and on the other end of the island…

…was a Naval Station complete with airstrip. The next island seen was the famous Santa Catalina:

Yes, we were getting there! LA eventually came into view along with its totally busy aura, even from our altitude. This interchange just had to be photographed:

...arrived at LAX, California, 10am Tuesday – their time – went through Customs, saga again. Had about 12-hour layover at Los Angeles...

Awaiting us on the ground were the inevitable queues for customs, baggage, and in these queues we learned about the waste of getting those 'International Drivers Licences'. One of our fellow travellers, a frequent US visitor, told us they simply weren't needed!

Then we had to find out where to take our gear for the flight to Chicago... and we had to struggle with the four big bags and four smaller bags to go from one section of the terminal to the other to book it in. Fortunately they booked the big bags to go right through to Indy at that time. And now, with about nine hours before we were needed back at the airport, we were to take a drive to Huntington Beach, while buying that Garmin GPS was high on our list of priorities too.

David, my partner in the Hemi 6 development, had booked us a rental car and we soon learned how the shuttle buses would take us to the depot to pick that up. Great value, just $39 for the half-day with unlimited miles, we threw our small bags in the back and started driving on the wrong side of the road.

Of course, it was hard to remember this 'wrong side of the road' stuff when turning into carparks and at some intersections, but Janet was always on hand to scream at me when I got it wrong. We quickly got to a CVS store to get her some medication for her cold, too.

...able to check in baggage. Hired a car and drove around, a real experience. Nearly had head-ons a few times trying to go on the wrong side of the road. What a nightmare! Hopefully it will be better when we get to drive a car full-time. Heatwave conditions, 100 °F.

I think it was a Sears where we first looked at a Garmin, but as my son told me we'd get one for under $100 and their cheapest was $119, we kept looking for a Walmart. The first Walmart sign we saw excited us, “Yes, here we are!” But no, it was just a Walmart truck.

Eventually we found a store and they came through, too. I then tracked down the piston manufacturer's address...

... and had a profitable discussion with the design man there. He loaned me a sample to take to David in Pennsylvania and we went around to Long Beach to visit the people through whom I've been shipping parts for the past six years. And through whom I would be shipping my pickup when our adventure was over.

Oh, yeah, 'Adventure'? Janet, on expressing her concerns about this trip to friends before our departure, was told to look upon it all as an adventure, no matter how it turned out. I think that changed her whole attitude to everything.

After Long Beach, by which time it was evening peak hour, we headed for Hollywood as Janet wanted to see the big sign on the hill. But when we got caught in traffic snarls heading in that direction we decided we'd postpone that until we came back to fly out. We headed back to the rental car place and preparations for the 'red-eye' flight to O'Hare.

Janet mentioned that she had her toothpaste confiscated...

In Sydney her carry-on bag inspection revealed she had a toothpaste tube that held more than the 110 grams allowed ("It's half finished!" she protested, to no avail). She also had some hairspray, not aerosol, but pump action. Both were too big for the regulations and she lost them. Pretty soon I had to relinquish my 90gm tube of Aim, but the hair spray would require her to make a fresh purchase!

Caught the ‘red-eye’ to Chicago, about 4 hours. I had taken a tablet to help me sleep because I only got about half an hour of sleep between Sydney and LA. I was dead on my feet. I slept a few hours.

We arrived and stayed at O’Hare airport in Chicago (the busiest airport in the world), it was very ‘cleanliness-aware’ and there was a constant announcement about covering one’s mouth when coughing and washing hands after using toilets.

They had plastic covers over the seats which, by waving your hand over the back of the seat would automatically put a clean cover over it. Amazing. The hand towel dispenser had to be levered down to use. I changed clothes, had a wash.

11pm was the departure time from LAX with a flight time of about four hours to Chicago. What I thought was going to be a 6-hour flight was reduced by the crossing of time zones, so potential sleeping time was sadly reduced. I got to sleep okay, I believe Janet had at least a couple of hours. It was raining when we got to O'Hare some time before 6am on the Wednesday.

As our luggage had been taken care of, we simply had to take it easy around the airport as we awaited our Indianapolis flight about three hours later. I recall that we got something to eat and chatted with a few people, but little else. Outside it looked very chilly and uninviting and we were pleased we'd packed with the knowledge that our trip was going to take us into very cool weather.

Flying on to Indianapolis unexpectedly took us across another time zone, so what appeared to be an hour and a half in the schedule was down to about 35 minutes. The weather was improving:

My son knew our schedule and was to pick us up and take us into the city to while away the hours as he completed his working day. He wasn't exactly awaiting us as we got our bags from the carousel... actually, they never were on the carousel as they'd flown in on an earlier flight and were waiting for us in the attendant's office. I tried to find a phone to call my son.

Eventually he arrived. We didn't even know what sort of car he'd be in, but we knew when he turned up as there was very few other cars around.

My mother used to say to him, "Justin, the apple never falls far from the tree!" as she explained he was like his dad. Well, in many ways he's not, but the way he had to rearrange his vehicle to fit us in was just like I might have to do at times!

He gave me my cellphone and drove us for what seemed to be some distance and left us at the Greenwood Park Mall. There Janet was to investigate all the Sears, Macys and J C Penneys and many other stores after we'd sampled a bit to eat from Chick-fil-a. This was a fun little chicken shop with some edible food, strangely enough we never went to another in all our travels.

Took a short flight, 35 minutes, from Chicago to Indianapolis. Justin picked us up from the airport, he still had to work for the day so dropped us off at a shopping centre in Indianapolis for about three hours.

I was not feeling too well by that time so had to take painkillers, my throat was really sore and I was feeling quite exhausted. We had something to eat, everyone seems to notice our accents even though my voice is still really croaky.

I looked for summer tops as I didn’t bring any summer stuff. It was hot in LA when we were there and I heard it could be hot at the Grand Canyon. I went shopping, Ray slept on a lounge in the shopping centre – rather embarrassing.

As I tired I sat down on a lounge somewhere in the mall and Janet awoke me about an hour later when she'd done looking around. I went to the Sears blokes' section and looked over some of the tools, I had to buy some as I had a pickup that needed a few jobs done on it. Ultimately Justin phoned to say he was coming to get us, we clambered into his Toyota once again and headed for Bloomington.

Justin picked us up at about 5pm, driving us to Bloomington...

...about 80kms – a beautiful drive, like you see on ‘American Pickers’ territory, rolling green hills. Unbeknown to us, Justin had booked us into a motel, we’re not staying at his place.

It was a big shock to Ray – the motel stinks of cigarettes but is clean. No refrigerator and only a coffee-machine which takes forever to boil.

There he'd booked us in to the Plus 8 motel on the edge of town. This was a total surprise to Janet, but I was aware of it all (and hadn’t told Janet) as my daughter-in-law had kicked up a huge stink about the pickup landing at their place (nobody had told her!) a few weeks earlier and wasn't keen to see me at all. We registered at the motel and took our bags to the room, almost totally overcome by the stale cigarette stench in the place. Even though it was a 'non-smoking' motel, years of exposure to tobacco smoke left the carpets foul with the odour. Here's the motel:

Giving us time to settle in, Justin went home for a while and returned to take us out for dinner. His wife was working late (another issue complicating the prospect of us staying with them...) so it was nothing for him to take us for a drive at 8:30pm or so and do a little tour around the university section of the town before we went to a pizza place popular with the students. The huge pizza was his shout, but we took a couple of the leftover bits back to our room.

Justin took us out for tea for pizza. It was the yummiest I have tasted. Justin’s wife, Lora, is working all hours till late a night for the next couple of weeks at Bloomington’s university, hopefully we will meet her.

Thus far I've not said much about my pickup, the central part of the journey. This 1975 Dodge D100 longbed was powered by a Slant 6 which drove through an A727 Torqueflite. It had been lovingly repainted a year or two ago by the son of its long-time owner after the father died, I bought it through an advertisement on a forum and was told it ran fairly well. "But there's a bit of a miss up high, I don't know enough about carburettors to fix that."

I had not hurried the seller, who lived in the Indy area, to get it delivered to Justin's place as there was plenty of time, and in some of that time he might have had a chance to get someone who did know about carbies to fix it. He always assured me that he would work in concert with Justin in relation to delivering it to him. Great.

Except that he dropped it off without advising Justin, who in turn had not told his wife at all, and so there was hell to pay. On top of that, it was too near to their mailbox for the mailman to deliver their mail and Justin couldn't move it. As weeks passed, it transpired it wouldn't start either. It was a non-runner!

I noticed on yet another forum that one of the members, who clearly had an inkling of what makes things tick, lived in the same vicinity. I e.mailed Bill and asked if he could help, he could. First he ran some checks to see why it wouldn't go... establishing basically that either the carby was no good (most likely) or the timing chain had jumped a tooth. Then he had it towed to his place so I had somewhere to work on it when I got there. And so it would be safe.

I toyed with the idea of taking a carby over, but logistically I couldn't arrange it in time. Bill didn't have any 6-cylinder stuff at all, so I contacted Jon in Spokane. I buy axles from him and I know he frequents wrecking yards, so I asked if he could help. "Sure!" he said. Jon borrowed a slant-powered pickup and put one of his carbies onto it to make sure it worked right, then he despatched it overnight to Bill in Indiana.

Bill, meanwhile, ordered in a timing chain set on a 'use or return' basis from the local NAPA store. So everything was in place for me to get the truck going on the Thursday. Justin arranged to work from home for the two days so he could run me around any time it was necessary... while I was waiting for him to pick me up I saw this go by the motel:

Hmm... something is different here, I thought. Justin drove me to Bill's, winding around rural lanes past churches bigger than warehouses and whisking by mailboxes on the edge of the bitumen. The sights and sounds of the differences in the USA were starting to multiply in my mind as I met Bill and took my first look over my pickup.

Ray is waiting for Justin to pick him up to take him to try and fix the car so we can get going on our ‘adventure’. I slept well last night so that is good, I will have a quiet day and stay at the motel.

Ray has gone to ‘fix’ the car up. He says it will probably only take a couple of hours. We’ll see.

As I looked around, I saw that I had absolutely found the right person to help me with my Dodge, his collection included:

My first job was to change the carby... that done, and with some help from Bill's battery charger and 'starting fluid' we got it to run. Flushed with success (it was still quite early) I started looking at other things that needed doing before I hit the road. Bill pointed out that I'd need the special socket for the wheel nuts:

I checked thoroughly and couldn't find it on or in the truck, I tried phoning the seller but got no answer. Bill, who was on a day off to work on his wife's PT Cruiser, also at that time noticed brake fluid lying under the fuel tank... a leaking line needed replacing. So we went in to Elletsville where O'Reillys and NAPA are side by side. Tubing and fittings were obtained for the brake line along with more tools for me... oh, yes...

...a new headlight and a couple of other minor things. We checked out the wheel nut socket situation and decided that buying a complete set of nuts just to get the socket wasn't the right way to go. Instead we would get them off somehow and replace them with standard nuts. We ordered a much-needed tie rod end, but that wouldn't be in until Monday - it would have to wait until we'd done our Eastern loop.

Back at Bill's he flared the tube and we fitted the line, then the long task of getting off the wheel nuts began. We found that we could, using a long metric socket (17mm?) hammer the socket on and get enough grip to undo the nuts, then we had to hammer the nuts out. Along the way I'd mentioned to Bill that I'd like to find a canopy for the pickup, he pointed to one down the yard and said, "Would that one do?" I was flabbergasted! He had one!

At this stage the truck looked like this:

The hours were passing and we still had to establish whether or not it was fit for the road. With all the wheel nuts changed we took a drive around the block. Past those letterboxes etc...

The transmission showed signs of needing fluid so we made another trip to Ellettsville. With this topped up and the filter changed we were pretty much ready to go, which was a good thing as the day was about to expire. We’d checked the tie rod ends in the front end and a couple needed replacing. Neither NAPA or O’Reillys had stock nor could they get them the next day. They were to be ordered for when we got back from the first stint of our journey.

Justin had turned up ready to take me back to the motel if necessary, it was well past sunset when we got there.

I watched TV most of the day and found there are so many TV stations, incredible. But still hardly anything decent to watch. The ads are strange, a lot of them for lawyers trying to drum up business by people suing – mainly – medical institutions for problem operations and ‘mesh’ that’s deteriorating inside people. Fun!

Ray didn’t get back to the motel until very late – about 10pm – says the job is done with the car. We will go with Justin to get it registered tomorrow.

Janet stayed in the room that night while I went off to have dinner with Justin at Dennys. I learned here how the tipping game goes in the US.

At this stage I knew I would not make Virginia International Raceway by Saturday, one of my 'contingency plans', but I knew we would be on the road by Friday afternoon.

Friday I took Janet around to the pickup when Justin came around. Bill had gone to work and we found the battery dead!

Went with the paperwork to the BMV (Bureau of Motor Vehicles), went to start the car to get all our baggage from the motel before we had to pay for an extra night. The car wouldn’t start.

He had left all the sheds open for me so I hooked up the charger, while we got jumper leads on from my son's Toyota too. Janet got in to try the seat and found that the inside door handle didn't work on the passenger's side, so that was another job to do, while Bill returned and put meters on the alternator etc and decided that maybe it needed changing.

This took a while and we got it all going well enough, but we later decided that probably we'd left the ignition switched on after trying all the indicators etc the night before to be sure it was ready for registration. Battery chargers, tools and spare parts...

...were all there for us to use, Bill's place was exactly the right place to be!

By late morning we were mobile and we went to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to get it 'licensed'. Justin had spent some time the night before chasing down Third Party insurance for me, now we registered the pickup in his name as it then wouldn't require any inspections. We went back to Bill's place and put the temporary numberplate in the back window and thanked him profusely for all of his help.

After a lot of fiddling around and help from a fellow Ray has befriended via the internet, it sort-of went. But it wanted to stall every time it idled, very nerve-wracking. We finally got our stuff from the motel a few hours late, but they didn’t seem to mind.

As we drove off, he later told me, he heard it slip into top gear and he was sure that was a good omen. That was what it didn't want to do before we changed the filter and fluid in the transmission. We went into Bloomington and loaded the bags out of the motel room, then I detected a bit of a vibration in the front as we headed for NAPA for something or other I decided we needed. Checking things I found that one wheel was just a little bit loose - Bill had no doubt thought I'd done it up tight while I thought he did when we were engaged in that nut-changing exercise!

I bought some more tools, the kind of tools I'd been borrowing from Bill, and we went to a restaurant in town for a late lunch with Justin and then we hit the road. We were on our way to Kentucky and the slant 6 was revving away nicely, we gradually built up speed on the highway between traffic lights. And then it started to rain. And then we pulled up at some lights and it stalled!

There was a stack of traffic around, by now it was afternoon 'rush hour', and I tried a couple of times to restart it. No go. I imagined it was possibly the needle and seat, so I lifted the bonnet and saw the carby covered in fuel... my hunch was right.

We only got about ten miles up the Interstate (freeway) and the car stalled completely. Ray couldn’t get it started – so here we are blocking traffic on a busy highway and someone out of the blue came from a side street, two people actually came to offer help.

A fellow in a large pick-up got a chain and towed us around the corner. He spent a couple of hours with Ray, offering the use of his tools. Finally it started, still sounding terrible. All the time it is raining quite heavily.

Suddenly I was besieged with offers of help. A woman came out of nowhere to tell me she had a tow rope and could pull us around the corner, the bloke behind us came forward and said he had a chain in his truck! We took up the latter offer and were pulled into a nearby gas station's side yard where I removed the needle and seat and blew it out. I put it back but it still wouldn't start. Our helper put jumper leads across from his truck, no go. I phoned Bill.

"If it got enough fuel down its throat you might have to pull the plugs and blow the excess out of the cylinders," he said. I'd never heard of that before, but with more help from our newfound friend we did it and it worked. We were on our way again and had no more trouble, sitting on 55mph was okay by us and we headed for state border into Kentucky. Darkness came upon us too, and a minor navigational error compounded our difficulties by taking us the long way around, I think that was Bedford.

I am sure the car is possessed. An hour after we got it started, limping along the Interstate, the passenger-side windscreen wiper just stopped working so I couldn’t see a thing. We ended up exiting at the wrong place and went around in circles, probably driving an extra 20 miles in terrible weather on unfamiliar roads.

It was about here we realised that the fuel consumption was very heavy. I had to check it properly to see how we stood.

We made one turn off the Interstate that took us to a town with nothing, then we went into Corydon. We needed food, we needed a motel and we'd also decided to buy a few provisions including bottled water before we went on. I don't remember what we had to eat, but I do remember going into Walmart and buying some water there. I bought two 1-gallon containers rather than the little bottles, we had some bottles we could decant these into.

When we came out of Walmart, Janet had this story about an experience that really entranced her:

"This woman was shopping for clothes for her daughter and the girl couldn't make up her mind," she told me, "the mother said to the girl, 'You've got to focus... corral your mind..." A new expression had been learned and we went to find the motel.

We caused a few people to laugh when we stopped at a food outlet to get some fruit. They looked at each other and smiled when we told them what we did – our Australian accents said it all.

Walmart is an interesting shop, open 24-hours...

We knew there was a Super 8 and we went there, but it was full. A woman came smiling up to me in the lobby and said that the Hampton Inn (which was visible through the rain across the main road) had rooms and they were cheap. We headed that way, but it was accessed from a back street and I couldn't, under those conditions, find it.

A major part of the problem was that the previous owner had stuck heavy tint on all the windows, it was a nightmare trying to see in the dark. Fogging and glare from headlights and other lights made it worse. I headed for the Interstate again knowing it couldn't be too far to a place we could get somewhere to sleep.

Finally at 11pm we found a motel to stay the night, a very welcome sight near Louisville.

That was at Georgetown, maybe twenty miles further on. The signs said there was a Motel 6 in there and we headed straight for it. It was a late night, certainly after 11pm, when we booked in, but we were glad to finally be into the serious part of our 'American Adventure'!

Oh, please, don't think this thread is going to be filled with photos of motels where we stayed. I promise, just a very small number of them!

Saturday, October 6, 2012...

There was a McDonalds adjacent to the motel, so we went there for breakfast on the Saturday morning. The breakfast offerings were far in excess of what we see in Australia, including oatmeal mixes which made a solid meal for the day's beginning.

Breakfast isn't provided at the Motel 6 establishments, while Super 8 does have a 'Continental' breakfast which varies from place to place. I think this is why Janet preferred the Super 8s during the rest of the trip.

Georgetown is just outside Louisville and we smartly crossed the border into Kentucky... here's the route for the day...

The Interstate, with elevated and ground level stretches, smartly took us through the city and we emerged the other side quite confident that we'd be making good progress toward Quinton Weaver's home in West Virginia during that day. The weather had fined up overnight and traffic wasn't very heavy, and if it had been we wouldn't have been keeping up with it anyway.

About thirty miles to the east we pulled off the Interstate for a refuel stop. Petr... sorry, gas had been about $3.69 a gallon in Indiana which was below my budgeted $4 a gallon. But we were using about 50% more than I really expected, though I hoped that somewhere along the track we'd work out some kind of improvement for that. A timing light would have been a handy accessory.

We had a bit of a look around Simpsonville, on the way in noting that there was a Flea Market not far off the Interstate. We went back to that and had a look around. Almost immediately Janet found a Radio Flyer tricycle that would be good for the grandchildren when they visit us. She'd apparently been looking for one at home and found them expensive, about $70 for a reasonable used one. This one was just like new and only $6! "Can I buy it?" she asked. "Sure! Throw it in the back of the truck!" I replied.

We picked up another small luggage bag, then I retired to the truck to do some work there. Recall that I said we had some navigational problems? Well, here's how it looks if we momentarily go back to the previous day:

The blue line is the intended path south of Bedford. But we were on the Interstate (I64) at least thirty miles before that road joins it. We took a wrong turn and I simply said to my anxious travelling companion, "Well, at least this will get us to the Interstate then we'll know where we are!"

That's right, the Garmin wasn't yet hooked up! So that's what I had to do while she whiled away her time at the Flea Market. I'd bought a cigarette lighter socket to put in the hole from whence the original was missing and some fittings to power it up using the cabling I had to instal to make the inverter work. It didn't take long and made for a big advance in our capacity to find our way around!

Then Janet returned from the buying spree. "look what I found!" she declared, holding up a large stainless steel Thermos. It was easily explained, as we travelled we should have the odd cup of tea or coffee and this was the key to enabling that. But there was more to come, as my avid readers will learn.

Exiting the Flea Market we went off in the direction of Lexington. While I'd been working around the engine bay I'd noticed that the heater hose had been dislodged when we'd been changing alternators and the fan belt was wearing it through. The fan belt was a bit on the old side, and the power steering belt was worse, so it wasn't long before we stopped at Frankfort to find some replacements. The belts could be fitted as needed, but I didn't want to chance that hose bursting. Autozone provided us with all we needed.

Then we went across the road to K-Mart for a bit more shopping, then Janet had a good idea. "We really shouldn't leave Kentucky without having some Kentucky Fried Chicken, should we?" So we got ourselves 8 pieces of original chicken (for some crazy price compared to home, I think it was $6.95) and it was the best KFC I've had in at least thirty years!

Here's Janet's version, written in her diary that night:

Travelled away from Indiana into Kentucky, Ray picking up bits and pieces for the car at every car part place he came across. Decided to have some KFC for lunch in Kentucky. The nicest coleslaw and chicken I’ve eaten, better than at home. They have a buffet (smorgasbord) type of arrangement here as well, but we didn’t try it.

Before lunch we went to a large flea market, bought a nice Radio Flyer tricycle, hope to be able to ship it home with the car. Enjoyed myself wandering around the stalls while Ray fiddled with the car – spent about an hour there.

Went to Super K-Mart to look at something for the car, bought a blue vest. Ray still fiddling with the car, had our KFC and made our way through Kentucky from Lexington to West Virginia – about 385 miles (600kms), surprised the car made it.

They have fantastic roads here, each exit has signs, the first saying ‘Attractions’, the second ‘Lodgings’, third ‘Food’, fourth ‘Gas’ listing what is available at each place, quite a good idea.

They have Rest Areas with a building like our Information Centres and really clean toilets which automatically flush when you stand up – quite interesting the things that one finds a highlight.

But now the day was starting to slip by and we had to get back into the truck and get some miles behind us. We wanted to be in Weston WV by nightfall and that was starting to look unlikely. At least now we had a good view of what the Interstates were really like, unlike driving on them in the dark:

This picture shows a couple of things, actually. Apart from the Saturday afternoon traffic levels and the nature of the road, there's the blue signs between the green exit signs that give details of what attractions, camping, motels and food are available at that exit. Very handy.

We soon discovered, too, the 'Welcome Centers' that are placed near the state borders. We went to the one on the Kentucky/West Virginia border and found good toilets, staff who could advise on directions and attractions, maps and brochures etc. And we found out about the Motel Coupon booklets, a real bonus for travellers as it gives available discount motel prices in different towns in the upcoming state or states.

But generally, rest areas were spaced further apart than in Australia. Much better equipped, but not as conveniently located. This ugly beast was parked at this first one:

It struck me as a very basic way to anchor the slide-on, and those bars sticking out each side would certainly attract police attention in Australia. Janet looks at it as I've just explained this to her.

After this we kept on driving as time was running short and we'd made up our minds that we didn't want to travel in the dark unless absolutely essential. I kept looking for blue grass, but it was all green, though the fences on many properties had a distinct 'horse containment' flavour and some of the houses we saw from the Interstate looked pretty impressive.

The Garmin told us we still had a distance to go as we skirted around Charleston, the road got a bit more windy and the surroundings more hilly and fewer homes were visible... and even fewer towns. We had to find gas somewhere along that stretch, I recall, probably at Sutton. It was well dark then and I was getting some static from the passenger's seat. But we had to keep going.

Once again we were late looking for a motel. I can’t believe how many people must be travelling around requiring motel accommodation, nearly all of them are fully booked.

Hunger was also starting to creep into the equation and this more desolate area, surrounded by steep hills and with the road following the valleys, looked a whole lot less inviting than what we'd been seeing all day. Finally we drove into the shopping centre where the Super 8 was located and, with great relief, saw that the motel carpark was all but empty.

I went in to book in. But no, that wasn't possible! The place was booked out completely by two busloads of bingo players!

I announced this back in the truck and we both reeled in disbelief that people would take bus tours to play bingo. McDonalds was next door, however, so we were able to relieve the hunger pangs that were biting before we headed for nearby Buckhannon where the Microtel awaited us. We phoned them and booked a room before we ate.

We had to go to a more expensive motel tonight, $100, but they have laundry facilities, providing detergent and softener free so that is good.

It was dark and hard to see with that stupid window tinting, but we made it safely to the Microtel and were pleasantly surprised at the welcome there, the amenities and the room. And the fact that it had a laundry for guests, which meant that I indulged in bringing our usable clothing quantities up to maximum. It was more expensive than the Super 8 but it was warm, comfortable and in the morning we learned the breakfast was a lot more wholesome.

But that's the next day... a day reserved for catching up with a very old friend...

Sunday dawned on the Microtel in Buckhannon, WV...

The washing done, we went down to the dining room section of the lobby and found all manner of good things for breakfast... but well covered in the motel price...

Bacon and eggs were hot and waiting, there was a toaster, many jams and cereals, plenty to choose from. I recall that I had bacon and eggs and the short dark lady who ran back and forth with more supplies for the hordes in to eat was working hard at times.

Well fed, we loaded up the pickup with all our gear and set the GPS for Quinton's address. The trail that got us there took us across a narrow little road where I saw something I found somewhat strange. It adds into what I now recognise as a part of the 'hillbilly' makeup of the state.

It's not so much what's immediately visible here, but on that next rise have a closer look:

This is out front of a house (of some sort... as there are in this neck of the woods) and the basketball hoop is on a post that's right on the edge of the bitumen. I will say, however, that it must have bred good players because if they missed the ball would roll down some kind of big hill in one direction or another!

Through Weston's disjointed parts we followed the GPS instructions, narrow roads and mostly very old houses and business premises, then onto a long driveway on the Weaver family property that led us to Quinton's section of what he referred to as 'bottom land'. I've heard that expression before, but now I understand it more fully.

We drove to Quinton’s place. I was amazed at how close the houses were to the road – I think it’s because flat usable land is at a premium in West Virginia as it is such a mountainous area.

Quinton's house is the result of a couple of years of labour put in by he and Sarah. They cut the timber, milled it, found some old materials to mix in and gouged out the foundation area with their own machinery. Relatives helped at times, like when the concrete pad had to be poured, but mostly it was Quinton and Sara doing the work... as he recorded step by step on 'The Forestry Forum' under the title of 'Building a cabin in the mountains.'

It was intended to be a holiday home for them to retreat to from their place near Galveston, but the last hurricane that hit that area just devastated Quinton and he moved everything in here. Their daughter, Sonya, who was just an eight-year-old when he was racing Clubmans in Australia, lives in the downstairs section. All the same, Quinton pointed out that the house was never intended to be a permanent residence and was too cramped for that.

We were welcomed by Sonya who has just moved from Texas and is now living underneath her parents’ house. The house has been completely built by Quinton, right down to sawing the wood from trees grown on their block. He has his own sawmills.

Of course, Quinton wanted to show me his sawmills. He does a little bit of work on these for people in the area, this first one being a more conventional type:

That's Sonya with him there, while he's alone in this pic with the more sophisticated Peterson machine... did he say it's made in New Zealand?

He still has work to do on the property, a big barn I think he said he still wants to build so he can work on his cars. There are two of them, both VW-powered (water-cooled VW, that is), and he hasn't lost the urge to enjoy his driving. Mind you, he's mighty proud of his big Silverado, while his 4-wheeler has twice the horsepower of his next door neighbour's!

It was really good to catch up with him. It's been well over thirty years since he returned to the US and life has changed a lot for both of us in that time. Sarah, unfortunately, was away at some religious organisation's conferences as she is now a pastor in the church there. Which explains why, once when I rang from Australia, she asked me if I have "...accepted the Lord Jesus..." in my life.

We had pork in a white sauce and macaroni cheese for lunch, Sonya and I hit it off quite well. We went to the shops together in Weston, she bought beer and I bought two T-shirts with ‘West Virginia’ on them.

The house is all open up top and heating is well provided for. Quinton showed me the sawdust pellets he uses in the heater, something I've not seen before, and he had to explain he didn't have a timing light I could use on my pickup. The afternoon wore on into evening and he piled us into the Silverado and took us to the Stonewall Jackson State Park.

There's a resort or club there and we had some drinks and played some pool, at which I've never practised much and therefore I'm good at losing. Sonya, however, showed great skill at both the drinking and the pool.

We all went to the local dam which has a golf resort on it (very posh) and had a glass of wine, Ray and Quinton played a game of billiards. Then we went back to their place and sat around a bonfire, had a drink of moonshine and blackberry juice and beer with tomato juice.

Up in the loft we slept well that night.

That night we slept upstairs, then in the morning we had to bid Quinton and Sonya farewell as we still had miles to cover, people to see etc.

It's all a bit nice, though, isn't it?

We had bacon and eggs for breakfast.

Our next port of call was to deliver a part of a bumper bar that had been sold by a bloke in Melbourne to Rick in Dellslow, that was about 60 miles and the GPS took us straight to his house. After he locked the dogs in the house I delivered the article, he traded that for a bottle of 'moonshine' for our trouble and I had a look over his little collection of cars. Rick did have a timing light and we checked the slant 6 over... 4° retarded was the best adjustment we could get where the distributor was sitting, by moving it around one tooth we could get plenty of advance, but nothing less than 14°.

We then drove to Dellslow to Rick’s place… he helped Ray get the timing right in the car, it is running a lot better.

At least it had more power now, but the fuel consumption was still suffering, I think the cam timing might be out a little and I made the decision that I wouldn't be going to the trouble of fixing that. We bade Rick goodbye and set the Garmin for Charlottesville.

What we didn't realise was that there were settings in the Garmin that would play havoc with the logic of our trip out of these hills. It was set to 'shortest route,' so it wasn't long before we left highways and started across roads like this:

On the map it was to take us along this course, which I'm sure would have been slower than going back to the Interstate:

Ever the optimist, I expected it would get us onto something more substantial, but there wasn't to be much in the way of relief from the narrow winding roads of West Virginia. It was, as can be seen, raining from time to time and then the nylon clip in the end of the passenger's side wiper drive rod had broken up.

It started to rain and I didn’t have a wiper in front of me because it had broken on Friday. Ray stopped at a Dodge dealer and picked up a part for the wiper that was broken.

We stopped for fuel and a bit of a shop (our real introduction to the infamous 'dollar' stores...) at Belington and I noticed a Dodge dealer as we went to drive off. I rushed in there and bought two of the clips and dismantled the vent panel in front of the windscreen to replace the broken one. I needed a pair of multigrips to make this job easier so I went back into the dealership and borrowed them.

Well, it wasn't that simple. 'Multigrips' is not a US term, it seemed. After some careful explanations I learned they are called ‘channel grips’, but they had them and the wipers were once again totally functional. What going back in there did do was enable me to shoot this photo:

This Chrysler New Yorker had been sold new (1968?) by the Belington dealer and they had it back because the original buyer died. He'd done very few miles in it (the manager said 22,000, the salesman said 32,000, it didn't matter really) and they wanted $12,000 for it. It was absolutely as-new.

It turned out to be a very good thing I got the wipers going because the Allegheny Mountains were about to throw us a curved ball. Through the Monongahela National Forest the rain turned to snow. Light snow, fortunately, but it was enough for Janet to go into a state of sheer terror as she'd never experienced driving in snow before. She did, however, settle down and take some photos as we drove:

We travelled on, doing altogether 270 miles. The Allegheny Mountains were a real experience, not only were they very steep and windy but up the top it was snowing – beautiful on the changing-colour trees but frightening driving in it.

Eventually we came out of all of that. I was taken by the mist in the tight mountain valleys here...

...and then we entered Virginia. Of course, with the stop for the wipers, the slow running over the back roads (which might have saved us all of five miles) and the rain and snow it was getting late. I phoned ahead as our hosts for the night would not have been too sure whether or not we were coming. I also got directions... but on the way we had to eat. We were through the last town, but we found a place that was about to close for the night at Lydia Mountain.

Went over the border into Virginia – travelling to another acquaintance of Ray’s. Finally got to their place down a narrow road, looking for number 3000. Driving up the long driveway in the dark we saw deer and, on top of the hill, was this enormous 2-storey house lit up.

Then, after going up a detour we shouldn't have, we finally arrived at Graham's place and drove up his mile-long driveway to find he had a very nice home on the top of a hill.

Our wives got involved in talking about who-knows-what after we had some coffee, Graham and I went off to look at various books and photos relating to his racing cars. They explained that if they'd known for sure we were coming that night they would have set up the log cabin a couple of hundred yards down the driveway for us, but without that knowledge we'd be staying in their spare room. Either would have done.

We were welcomed into the house, sat down and had a cuppa, we were offered fancy biscuits. We all chatted for a while and we were offered a bed for the night.

What a beautiful room, better than any plush resort! A 4-poster bed, our own en-suite. Sharon and I sat until 12:30 talking in the loungeroom. During the conversation we started talking about charities and I asked if they had doorknock appeals call. She said the only ones that bother coming this far out are Jehovah’s Witnesses.

By about 1am we all decided it was time to stop talking and head for bed... we'd resume our discussions and discoveries in the morning...