The wife and I have been married for nearly three years now but we've still yet to travel anywhere outside of the local haunts of Florida. We're finally fed up with it and are planning a high-speed burn through Colorado, Utah, Nevada and ending in California before arriving back in Florida hung-over and burned out just in time to start another work week. Now for this sort of adventure we'll need more than high-priced hotels, low-rent company and a plane ticket each way. We need a plan of where to go and more importantly, when. Tentatively we have set the time frame for August, which falls wonderfully in-line with SpeedWeek and the motorcycle trials. I'd really like to be there for one whole week of the two weeks we plan to be away, though I'm not sure that my better half will agree with that plan or if the best of SpeedWeek is to be found all week long. I'm hoping you guys can help me out with that to make sure we make the most of the journey since there are a large number of salt-laden rodders on here whom have put their time in on the flats. Her lone goal for the holiday is to spend a couple of days in Colorado, near Denver. We have friends in the area as well as a couple of hay-eating quadrupeds to which she'd like to pay a visit. Vegas is on the calendar though we both feel one day there will be plenty. If we have any money left over afterward we'll continue our journey into California; paying a visit to my brother in LA. Wander about the Golden State fora few days before flying back to reality. I feel as though the itinerary is rather sparse despite the tight packing of locations and could use some fattening up with fun things to see and do. What am I missing to make this vacation really kick, and what should I know about the flats to get the most of them? Camping a good option or are we better to hotel up and travel to the salt each day?
I you are in the LA area, hit the Pomona Swap Meet or the Long Beach Swap meet..San Fran...Pier 39, Fishermans Warf...Alkatraz...Cable Cars etc...
uuh-you on the right site? public profile lists nothing about old cars. you know you lose points for not driving in a old ride for the trip. of course you already did a search here of the Events Calendar and other threads here on lists of events/things to do. search socalcarculture.com too.
Do you always judge a book by it's cover? I can assure you that I'm in the right place. I love old cars, just haven't found the right one yet. It's going to cost us $~500 to rent a car for the trip, pickup in CO, drop off in LA before flying out. I've dabbled the idea of finding a similarly priced early 60's bucket with a slant 6 to carry use around, but I'm not sure I could find something that could be trusted for that price. Future plans are to get an early 60's full-sized Ford or early C-10 and make a return to the flats in style -- but that will be a few years from now.
He did say he was going to the Temple of Horsepower - BONNEVILLE. How does that NOT fit in here? a $500.00 60's Bucket? Really - where are these to be found????????
You never know hotroddon, I might have to Flintstone it, but I'm sure they are somewhere. Wifey wants a rental anyways. She doesn't want to tempt long travels through Western wasteland without the conveniences of A/C and guaranteed travel from A reaching all the way to B.
in AUgust, is the Goodguys event in Pleasanton (mid California) if you are in the area.. it is usually after bonneville
Traveling through the desert southwest in August with your wife in the car, you definitely want to RENT a car. Do NOT mention the words Bonneville Salt Flats to the rental agent under any circumstances....
What you might do is list all of the cities that you are planning to visit and then Google the distance between them. That will give you an idea how long it will take you to travel between them. If you are just going to be gone a couple of weeks, you might not have a lot of time to visit some of the cool stuff in California. Usually I'll create a spreadsheet and plan each day that I'll be gone; which helps me plan my itinerary.
If it were me, I'd finish up in Vegas and fly out of there. Check airfare, but rates in and out of McCarran are usually pretty reasonable. Your biggest enemy is TIME. If you're going to do Bonneville, you'll burn most of a day getting from Wendover to Vegas and there is NOTHING out there to see (apologies to the desert rat HAMBers). I'd keep going west and take in Reno, or pick up US 50 in Fallon and head thru Carson City to Lake Tahoe. Do CA north to south. Stay off 80 between Reno and Sac. It's a mess (at least 2 years ago it was) and there are often long delays. If you really want to see ALL of CA, pick up 395 in Reno and head up through Susanville to 36. You can take that all the way over to the north coast and follow 101 down to SF and the rest of the world. It's a lot more miles but a beautiful drive, and you'll see parts of CA that most people don't even know exist.
A couple of real quick thoughts. For most women that I have had in my life, 1 or 2 days at Bonneville is really the most that would be comfortable. I don't think I'd push beyond that. Please don't take this the wrong way, but have you ever traveled in the West? you mentioned "tight packing of locations"... Dude, the distances between the locations you mention are pretty damn large! Don't fall for the "well, it's on the same map, so it can't be too far" thing. Just beware that you are looking at full days of drive times between fun stops, more if she is equipped with a 75 mile winkle timer! It's easy enough to be in So-Cal for two full weeks and not see half of your list by itself. What kinda of things would you like to do while your there? We could all say this and that but without knowing what you want to see it's awfully tough to package.
The West Coast would look much better through the windshield of that Plymouth you have in pieces....I'm just sayin'.................. Centurion9
I'm still thinking about the $500 bucket with a slant 6 that will be road worhty! Things must be different in Florida. Wow
Don't forget about the West Coast Kustoms 31st Annual Cruisin Nationals Memorial day weekend May 25-27, 2012 in Santa Maria Ca. and the Nipomo Swapmeet on the 28th which is only 15 min. north. Go to WWW.WESTCOASTKUSTOMS.COM for more info
Too bad you aren't coming through Austin, Texas, the best damn show ever is the Lone Star Roundup, in April.
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