This trip has been a year in the planning and preparation. Last summer we trekked across the US to attend daughter Becca’s wedding. The trip was a six week adventure that ended all too soon. Just around Christmas we were informed that a new grand daughter would arrive in the Seattle area in mid summer, so another trip cross country was in order. Then the gears in our heads began to churn and we came up with a grand plan.
Back in the dark ages, 1984, when I was younger, I did things that normal people would consider a bit on the loony side. One such adventure was dreamed up by Brock Yates, former racer and auto journalist, called One Lap America. It was the natural progression of Sea To Shinning Sea Dash that duplicated the fabled coast to coast non stop dashes in the thirties by racer Cannon Ball Baker. The run, made famous in a movie cannonball Run staring Burt Reynolds among others, started in New York City and ended in California some 30 plus hours later.
One Lap was a little different. We left, spaced at one minute intervals, from Derian Connecticut determined to drive the perimeter of the country in seven days. We did it, and it was for the auto nut a true blast. Well now in my seventh decade of life, I have decided that seven days is too quick and seven months ought to be about right.
Back then our steed was a modified Mazda Diesel Pick up. My son Steve took the truck and modified the suspension and added a turbo charger to the engine. He tweaked fuel injection system, added a roll bar, trip computers to the dash and a lot more. My co-driver on that trip was Bill Scheller a Vermont based free lance writer who was sending reports to the Christian Science Monitor and I was doing TV for PBS. We had one overnight stop on the trip, at the Portafino in Redondo Beach California.
This trip will be in our 1990 Foretravel Grand Villa, Rover II, pushed by a Detroit Diesel. The co-pilot is DW Lucy and there will be many stops along the way. Tagging on the back will follow our car trailer with Subie the Subaru Outback along for the ride.
So this trip is New Hampshire to Seattle. A visit and thanksgiving with Becca, Tobin, and Elise, the new grand baby. Then down to San Diego and hook a sharp left. Of course stopping In San Francisco, and other points along the way. Then investigate the great southwest and on to New Orleans. More family and Jazz festival are the plans for visiting the Big easy. Across the gulf coast to central Florida and more kids and grand kids to visit. While traveling north up the east coast we are going to try to find some friendly blue fish and stripped bass along the outer banks. And then back to New Hampshire after the roads dry out from spring mud season.
Both Lucy and I will be writing blogs along the way and posting them here. Lucy is a former news gal and managing editor of the Mansfield News in Mansfield Massachusettes. We are both published photographers and will try to learn how to post our photos with the blogs.
But right now I am making lists and checking them twice to be sure that I have done what I need to to make sure that an 18 year old motor home is ready to go. The next blog in this series will be a list of what I have done to get ready. I will be interested in your comments as to what I have missed.
My next regular Monday blog will look at Shocks, not the electrical kind, what they do an how they work.
Brad & Lucy
John
Brad & lucy;
I’ll be reading your articles with much interest as my wife and I are planning (in the very early stages) a trip from Florida to Wash. state to see my son. We are hoping to take the Southern route to the west coast and the northern route back across the country, then south to Florida.
John