Oh. My. Goodness. I said I was going to blog on the Hot Rod Power Tour. Really? What was I thinking? Between tornadoes (with a daughter still back in Norman), entering the wrong information in the GPS which caused us an extra one hour of travel, having a freakout/breakdown because I didn't get to eat for seven hours, meeting an old friend in the area, and dancing late into the evening, I'm not sure how this blogging is going to go. Now it is 11:30, we are back in our room and watching the weather summary of the evening.
So, let's dial it back and see if I can recall some of the more pleasant and interesting events of the day. We left home at 10:00, and again at 10:20. You know how that goes. I think I left the computer on. Oh, well, but I think I remembered everything else. The cool, windy weather felt wonderful in the morning. I had a flashback to the 60s, taking non-AC vacations. I don't think I've been on a long trip without AC since then. Flying down the Interstate, everything was green, the ponds were full, the Oklahoma countryside was beautiful.
Headed north was an amazing RV outfit, a semi-truck, pulling a semi-worth travel trailer. On the trailer, between the trailer and the truck, was a little Smart Car and all three pieces were painted with a matching paint job. The car was on top of the flat trailer, not being pulled on the ground. Wonder how they lifted that car up. I just googled images of "million dollar RV" and those images were piddly compared to this RV system. If you're that rich, do you RV around the country? Apparently.
As we reached the Arbuckles, the sky began to clear. I think I saw the same dead armadillo, spaced in the exact same 3 foot distance off the road every three miles. Maybe it's some kind of conspiracy, secret mile markers that only certain people knows about.
On I35, we had nine thumbs-up from people passing us on the Interstate. I'm going to give a thumb-up count every day, but I will only count thumbs from non-hot rodders. When we passed through Gainesville, we began to see hot rods headed south. We were happy to have a 20-something man pull up beside us, roll down his window, and yell, "Moonie Eyes! Are you going to the Hot Rod Power Tour?"
When we stopped in Gainesville, our last opportunity to get ethanol-free gas, we calculated the Buick's mpg at 18. We may have the highest MPG hot rod on the HRPT. Jim was very pleased. He kept the speed at 60-65 mph on the interstate.
Then, at 3:15 PM, the excitement started: a GPS that doesn't understand that if you enter "The University of Texas of Arlington", you'd like to be headed to Arlington, going east on 635 at 4 miles per hour (when you have no need to travel east), a person in the car who is ravenous and irritable answering warm, fuzzy and frequent texts and phone calls from family, and watching tornado weather where your child is. Don't ask about this. Just don't.
By 5:00, we were fed and happy at the hotel, with a room on the 15th floor with good view of the car below. Jim carefully parked the car beside 40 Ford Coupe. He trusted that person not to ding his door. We've had some good conversations with other gearheads and expect more today. Everyone is very friendly. About a third of the parking lot is hot rods, from the 40s to new cars.
Hopefully, today will be just as fun at the fun parts of yesterday, without the drama.
Thumbs up count today - 9
No comments:
Post a Comment