Road Runner Nest

The best roadtrip I have had so far was when I visited the US for the first time back in ‘91 a couple of years after getting married. I bought my 72' Plymouth Satellite Sebring at a car yard in Clinton, TN and prepped it for a planned coast to coast trip across the US and took 2 + months off with Mrs. Dixie before starting school in Phoenix, AZ. The entire trunk and rear seats were filled with our stuff, turning the coupe into a big 2 seater. Took a mix of Interstate in the East, but stuck to B roads out West:-

Tennessee - Knoxville / Gatlinburg
Virginia - Charlottesville / Richmond
Washington DC - Simithsonian etc.
Georgia - Atlanta
North Carolina - Myrtle Beach
South Carolina - Greenville / Charleston
Louisiana – Baton Rouge / New Orleans (of course)
Mississippi - Bogaloosa (kept on driving)
Alabama - Don't remember
Texas - Austin / San Antonio / Houston
New Mexico - Albuquerque / Santa Fe / Roswell / Petrified Forest / Carlsbad Caverns
Arizona - Flagstaff / Grand Canyon / Prescott / Phoenix
California - Palm Springs / LA / Big Sur / San Simeon (Randall Hearst) / San Francisco / Yosemite.
Nevada – Reno / Las Vegas / Henderson

Things I remember:

1/ Not being able to see anything out the rear window due to all our crap in the car.
2/ Wearing down right heel of my Tony Lamas due to lack of cruise control.
3/ Losing front brake calipers / warped Rotors in NM – waiting 5 days in Roswell NM for new Rotors / Calipers.
4/ NM State Trooper helping me push a fully loaded Plymouth across the Intersection in Santa Fe after stalling out due to high elevation and vapour lock.
Losing an oil seal outside Albuquerque and Santa Fe and clouding up the Route with blue smoke (oil pouring straight onto the headers)
5/ Losing headlights in Texas (quick fix)
6/ Hitting major pothole at speed in Texas (damn that state goes on forever)
7/ Seeing the Big Array shrinking in the rear view mirror as the Satellite booked along at 85 mph
8/ Seeing the nose of the Plymouth rise up as the secondaries opened and hearing that delicious V8 induction roar away when overtaking semi-trailers.
9/ Miles and miles of sky country
10/ B road diners (BBQ / Catfish / Mexican / Waffles)
11/ The Damned / Steve Earle / Rolling Stones / Chris Isaak / Black Crowes / Divinyls / The Cult on the tape deck.
12/ Hokey AM country Music stations with John Deere and Fertilizer commercials
13/ Plus-size waitresses serving food in New Mexico
14/ All you can eat Prime Rib Buffets in Las Vegas for $6.99
15/ B-1B Bomber passing overhead at full tilt at 1500 ft outside Laughlin, NV
16/ Trying to negotiate 6-7-8 Lane highways in Ventura going into LA.
17/ '65 Dodge convert giving me the thumbs up on same highway as 15 above.
18/ Mrs. Dixie sitting cross-legged on the front seat (try that in a Hyundai), drinking Coke / painting nails / reading National Enquirer out loud etc.
19/ People waving at us out West with our old Mopar and Tennessee plates
8/ People shooting the bird at us out West with our old Mopar and Tennessee plates
20/ Driving along Big Sur on a warm sunny Sunday Morning going up to SF.
21/ Driving over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
22/ San Francisco streets hastening the demise of the Plymouth's transmission - possibly due to worsening leak from Texas pothole. (Incidentally….throwing that Mustang and Charger down those streets filming Bullitt must have taken balls of steel – those are some STEEP hills).
23/ Breathtaking Yosemite scenery
24/ Long sunsets out West
25/ Never wanting it to end....

All up we covered about 8000 miles. I drove the car back to TN (4 days) a couple of years later after finishing school and dropped it off before leaving the country to go back to work. I clearly remember:-

1/ Lying on the ground under the Plymouth in a cloudburst cursing / fixing the fuel lines / pump / fuel filter in Oklahoma.
2/ Having the car filled up by the ‘Children of the Corn’ at a small servo in Arkansas (you may laugh, but it was creepy at the time)
2/ Having a Goodyear delaminate at 70 mph outside Bucksnort TN in pouring rain on a Public Holiday. Put a smaller diameter used tire from the only open garage (spare was flat)

I have have 4 years until our 25th Anniversary where we will cruise the SSP once again on a trans-continental trip - this time all restored so I don't have to drive with one ear on the engine / tranny
all the time. if you ever get the chance to do so, I recommend it. Was this trip expensive? Yes. Was it trouble free? No. Can I think of many instances of better memories or money better spent? Absolutely not.

Ian B.

Wow, You have a good memory, I can't remember what I had for dinner last night. Me and a buddy drove his 71 from detroit to the east coast and down to fla then accross to texas up to Wisconsin and back to the motor city. That was in 74, One thing I do remember we twisted an axel in Georgia. We got one from a bone yard.

I guess the longest road trip occurred in 1980 when I left Ft. Carson, Colorado, and drove to northern Indiana on emergency leave. I was driving my 1973 Satellite (base Satty, no carpet, vinyl floor, am radio (okay, I had a Pioneer am/fm casette under dash) and the workhorse .318.

I wound up leaving it in Indiana so my sister (who was pregnant at the time) could use it to get back and forth from her doctor's appointments) and then reclaimed it when I left the army six months later.

Not an outstanding version of the b body, but it was a great, dependable little car.

I drove mine (when I bought it) from cental PA to Racine, Wi.
FUN TRIP!

I drove mine 1600 miles home when I purchased it. Boisie Idaho to Central Wisconsin.... It was an exciting and scary trip. From the 3.91 rear howling at 70MPH, to being pulled over in Montana while not being registered. Electrical gremlins and road construction around the Twin Cities also added to the cars resume.

It was really something.

Dennis

1974, I bought my first GTX, a '68, 440 auto car. I was stationed at Ft Campbell KY, and home was 420 miles away. Used to drive it home almost every weekend, but somewhere along the way, we got a little game started called "Let's get a beer". We'd climb in the car, and see how fast we cold make it from Ft Campbell to Huntington WV, drink one beer, and head back to Ft Campbell. The fastest one way trip ever was 3 hr, 57 minutes from the back gate of Ft Campbell to Molletties Pizza's parking lot. Insane, I know, and it stopped after I started having nightmares of the front u joint breaking and acting like a pole vault, flipping the car end over end.