Road trips are priceless. It's personal time to live, do you own thing, forget about the everyday anchors of life's requirements. Time to get away from it all and do your thing, when, where you decide. Living life on your terms and no one elses. Being free....
When a trip like that is taken with a bud or buddies it will never be forgotten. As you age and unfortunately get to the point where no longer can you do those things, the past gets a lot more vivid and real. I did a similar thing with a vet bud of mine, we each drove our cars to a dragstrip about 70 mi. away for a grudge race--big money involved-not one but two McDonalds senior coffee's! I won 2 out of three, and still have the receipt from the win. My bud p***ed 3 years ago, tonight I'll go to my garage and have a strong drink for him, stare at my hot rod and think of times past, I miss him terribly.
@Tman hes off a year he was there in 18’ there was a H.A.M.B. drags in 19 though. It was a rain year, I actually remember handing off the yahoo cup to the guys headed south at Pete and jakes because I wasn’t going to make the race. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/2019-hamb-drags-photos.1161759/
I'm referring to the 2019 H.A.M.B. Drags in this particular post about bridges. For the full story, check out TRJ #83 and this article here.
I forgot you went two years in a row and when I went to confirm that there was a 19’ drags I saw your photo of Joes roadster, and not realizing it had different wheels on it, clocked that it said 18’ and figured maybe you got them mixed up. My mistake.
@J Ukrop “Back when I was planning the trip, I penciled in a series of landmarks that we needed to hit.” Hello, We know what it takes to plan a cross country trip. We had big plans to go across the country to the East coast via a Southern route that would take us to OKC, see the “old homestead,” and visit old haunts. Then moving on to the East coast with stops along the way at the Mississippi crossing, the old Valley Forge, the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay for some sailing. Reservations were made there and up the East coast to Maine. If and when sailing was good/bad along the East coast, our return route was Northern and would go through the Great Lakes Area starting with sailing with friends in Lake Erie. Then Chicago and head West along the far Northern cross county route. There were stops and sights along the way, but reservations were not necessary. (unless we stopped in a big city or a popular city) The goal coming home was Montana, Yellowstone and winding up in Salt Lake and across to Lake Tahoe and then So Cal. We had plenty of reservations already placed and it was the whole tour of the USA for us. Jnaki Well, the best laid plans always have a glitch or two. One, we could not find the OKC homestead from my wife’s family home(s). We found her old school, supposedly near her house, but the houses looked different than the one photo we had. So, we headed East to start our long tour of various places. Two, after seeing the largest McDonalds build over a freeway bridge, we moved Eastward, only to get stuck outside of St. Louis. Two miles in two hours, is what it seemed like and the construction never seemed to end. So, we got off of the highway and headed West to K.C. Now in the nice A/C room with a commanding view of KC, we had to cancel all of the eastern road trip reservations. We were now headed back west and it was a new route with new things to see and do. The one thing we did not enjoy was the pop up rain storm that hit us with a flash flourish on Highway 70 headed west toward Denver. It was so strong that cars were going 20 or less. The rain was sideways and the wipers were almost useless. So, all p***enger cars were going slowly and over to the side of the pavement. The only idiots going fast were the semi diesel truck/trailer combination guys that were still going, like 80 mph, when they zipped by us like we were cemetery stones. The rest of the itinerary was not planned and we had fun doing different things we normally would not do. One was when we got home, we knew our son was using our house to have a get together with his friends. So, we rented a hotel room at the harbor and sailed our boat for several days of incommunicado. Good winds, great sailing, nice harbor/ocean view from our room all played their part. Pus, we also went to our favorite local restaurants for some great meals... Adapting to the horrendous Midwest traffic was not the best way to see the areas. But, making the change on the go and enjoying the fruits of our unplanned route was excellent. Several National Parks, hikes in the woods, several small lakes with unusual wind patterns and very few people... My wife and I felt as if we were on an old "Conestoga Wagon," except this one had great horsepower and A/C...YRMV
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