66 replies to this topic

[JEA86]

Drive safely man!

[Old School REX]

Mark, it was awesome to see you again buddy. Jeff and I had a ball.  Hope the rest of your trip gets even better!!

 

 

Needless to say, Nashville was looking good last night.

 

 

This thing looks amazing wherever it rolls... Period...

 

 

Two cool dudes headed out on an awesome adventure. Life is too short to not live like these guys, even if it is only for a few short weeks.  This photo is exactly what this whole thing is all about. Some crusty old Japanese econo-boxes putting you in a position you would have otherwise never found yourself in.  Good luck you two! 

 

[ballade]

Day 2

We left Nashville a little later this morning as we needed our rest from the full day before.  We were fortunate to have another Honda CRX driven by Cam, a friend of Mark’s from the Nashville area, escort us out of town to begin day two of our journey. Our end destination would be Tulsa, Oklahoma, but a tour through Tennessee from Nashville is not complete without a stop in Memphis at the iconic Graceland home of Elvis Presley. The modestly sized mansion that was lavishly styled during the 1970’s is surprisingly smaller than we had anticipated, but the jaw-dropping moment of the visit is the “trophy room” which displays all of The King’s gold and platinum records from floor to ceiling on every wall. It is a staggering tribute to the commercial success of Presley’s music. After pulling ourselves away and continuing on, we headed west once again towards the state of Arkansas. The heat and humidity of this day and of yesterday starts to wear you down. Fast lane with the windows down definitely helps. that they thoroughly enjoyed was the call of the cicadas in the trees as we drove.  We must also point out that these are not the ordinary cicadas that buzz occasionally in forests of Ontario, this is a constant near-roaring that would make a conversation difficult if you are within a few feet of these trees. Thousands were buzzing at once in each tree and non-stop throughout the day. It was impressive and beautiful.  On a trip like this long drives seem to change your perception about distances. Once you get into the groove of being on the road with a clear purpose and destinations each day, the miles melt away, and a five-hour drive between attractions suddenly doesn’t seem all that far anymore. A late evening dinner took place in small town of Alma Arkansas where the two thirsty travellers were schooled in the concept of a dry county. So you cant buy beer anywhere? nope. So we settled for two waters on the rocks.
We’ll be leaving the bible belt tomorrow.


From the Road
Mark and Kevin















 

[ballade]

[koshir]

Have a nice safe trip...

nice photos can't wait to see another set

[1st gen si]

Nice pix and good story, can't wait to see more.
Keep up the good work

[DuallDude]

Mark and Kevin are great guys! Thanks for stopping by to see my recent purchase. Yall drive safe and enjoy the trip!

[ballade]

Day 3

We managed an early start today in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Yet another Honda Civic CRX owner, Bobby Ritter, met with us this morning and he showed us a good spot for breakfast.  The CRX online community has been following along in a big way and seem to be enjoying our tour quite a bit and some are now meeting up with us along our route as we pass through the larger cities. An added bonus to meeting these people is the fact that they know the areas and Bobby today introduced us to a quite large blue whale that sits along a stretch of Route 66, which we have been fortunate enough to explore. The blue whale was a gift from a man to his wife many years ago and has since become quite a roadside attraction.  The legendary Route 66 goes back to the 1950’s, but has largely been replaced by the interstate highway system. Some stretches can still be found, but traveling along its former route is now nearly impossible. We then continued on westward towards Oklahoma City to visit the memorial dedicated to the victims of the  notorious 1995 bombing of a government building. The attack claimed 168 lives. The site features a pond with nearby statues of chairs representing each victim that day. It’s a very touching and beautiful memorial.  While in Oklahoma City we also met with Duall Inselman who recently purchased a Honda Civic CRX and wanted to meet with Mark and pick his brain about restoring it as it has seen much better days. After the driveway consultation, we headed out on the road again where we soon crossed into Texas where the terrain changed drastically and has started to appear much more dry with scrub grass and red rocky soils. Interstate 40 which cuts through the northern section of Texas is a road that is dominated by transport trucks. They rule the road here. There is no question about that. American truckers remind us of that great 70’s TV show “B.J. and The Bear”, although we never did see any chimpanzees riding along.  We did however get a few loud honks as we gestured out the window for them to blow their air horns as we sped by. The 10-year-olds inside Kevin and Mark loved that!  We crossed the Texas border and into New Mexico later at night. We ran headlong into quite a severe rainstorm and due to any possibility of pulling over on the shoulder and waiting out the downpour, we were forced to keep going (the paved shoulders here are not even wide enough for our small Honda). Visibility was nearly nil along some stretches so we hugged close to a transport truck directly in front of us and had him lead the way for us.  Heavy rain was the last thing that we expected. Isn’t New Mexico supposed to be a mostly desert landscape? Thankfully lights appeared out of the night ahead and we arrived at Roswell, the famous town that has been linked to an alleged UFO crash nearby back in 1947. We didn’t see any aliens ourselves, but we did share a motel parking lot with a strange craft that also needed a safe port to wait out the storm.

From the Road
Mark and Kevin














 

[ballade]

[Vicious]

That last pic is just ummmmm whoa lol

[1gencrx]

Great pics. It was nice to meet you guys. Have a safe trip.

[ballade]

Thanks guys

here is the link to my newspaper it also provides the captions for the photos.

were starting day four!!!

http://www.thebarrie...-kms-in-13-days

[NWClassicHonda]

Great thread, in for the updates!

[ballade]

Just a heads up the whole trip can be viewed at http://www.thebarrie...-kms-in-13-days
which offers captions to all the photos.

Day 4

Day 4 saw us up at 9am. It didn’t look good as it was still raining hard from the night before when we had all our troubles with visibility. We were in Roswell, New Mexico, and all of this rain struck us as being odd as it’s a dry desert region. By the time we checked out and packed the CRX with our gear, the rain began to taper off and soon quit.  We pulled out and continued the drive through the town of Roswell, where we suddenly encountered flash flooding due to the amount of rain that fell. Most of the streets in the town were under water and we had a difficult time navigating through it.

Thankfully our first stop of the day was nearby at the International UFO Museum & Research Center, which proved to be equal parts fascinating and entertaining. The research section of the building houses thousands of documents relating to the famous UFO crash of 1947 outside of Roswell.

Once back on the road (Interstate 10), we were faced with more rainstorms. We pulled over at one spot called Deer Creek and stood by the bridge over what is usually a dry creek bed. Today it was a raging river that even kayakers would probably avoid. There was a crew there from the local fibre optic utility company who were inspecting their lines running underneath the bridge and told us that this was the worst flash flooding of the past decade. While speaking with them and taking photos we thought it would be wise to park on the west side of the bridge as it was certainly taking a pounding from all of the rapids.

The desert has a way of preserving old cars yet weathering them beautifully. We came across many old derelict trucks along the side of the road. We made a few stops to photograph these wonderful old vehicles, including a multicoloured example near Glencoe, New Mexico.

Most flags seemed to be at half mast today and it soon dawned on us that it was the 9/11 anniversary today. After being on the road for a few days you tend to easily lose track of time and are never really sure what day it actually is.

Later in the afternoon we once again found ourselves caught in monsoon-like rain. At one point we had to hug the car close to the median to get by the flash floods that were now spilling out across the the interstate highway. Once we got through a small mountain range and into the town of Las Cruces, New Mexico, the skies cleared and bright sun was with us for the remainder of the day. With the sun out it didn’t take long for the desert to quickly dry up and an earthy soil smell hung in the air for many miles. The creeks that were filled with water were now empty once again and all that could be seen was mud.  Ben, a young Spanish resident of the town that we met at a gas station remarked that “The rain brings life”. He’s also a Honda CRX owner and was attracted to our car. He and Mark discussed the finer points of refurbishing these vehicles for a while.

At about 45 minutes outside of Las Cruces, we had our first introduction to US Border Patrol agents. These guys are deadly serious and even more intimidating than state troopers. We were now approximately 150km or so straight north of the Mexican border in the area known as The Border Lands. We were forced to pull into a border patrol checkpoint, which seems to work the same way as the truck weigh scale inspection areas on the 400 series highways around Toronto. Here  you hand over your passport and get drilled with questions the same as if you were trying to cross a border. We were still nearly 150 km away from Mexico at this point. They don’t fool around with their southern border.  Their marked SUV’s are everywhere and they always seemed to be driving at twice the posted speed limit. Stay out of their way is our best advice.

At this point in our trip we were truly isolated and in the middle of nowhere. Along this stretch of road we would drive for tens of minutes before encountering any cars at all. And they usually turned out to be Border Patrol agents.

We passed through a small village called Rodeo. Not much going on here.  As we left the area, Mark said “look in the mirror” which showed a police SUV rushing up behind us very quickly. As Mark began to start pulling over, we passed a small sign that said that we were now crossing into Arizona. The officer behind us quickly slammed on his brakes and with dust flying, did a quick u-turn at the sign and let us go.  It seems we evaded a ticket for something. It was almost like we outran the police to the border like in the Smokey and the Bandit or Cannonball Run movies.  Ok, not really, but almost. It’s not like we intended to beat him to the state line. What did he want with us? Speeding? We didn’t think that we were going over the limit much, although we would later discover that we had a headlight out as another officer in Arizona pulled us over for it and then let us go with a warning after hearing our travel stories and what we were up to down there. He seemed to like the idea of our journey.

When we were within about 30 km of the Mexican border we crossed paths with the Border Patrol once again. There were three trucks parked off the road and up on a hill. One of the vehicles had a tall mast with cameras and motion sensing equipment and were facing a wide expanse of land in a valley below them. They were there to try and detect illegal migrants from Mexico as they made their way on foot through the harsh desert at night as they made their way deeper into America.

By about 8pm we arrived at our southernmost stop on our long journey: Bisbee Arizona, which lies just a few miles north of the Mexican border. It’s a beautiful tourist town not unlike Banff. It is filled with restaurants, artist galleries, antique shops, and many old cars, trucks, and motorcycles. A quirky and interesting place that we would love to visit for a much longer period of time someday. We had our dinner there which consisted of very good Mexican food.

After eating we headed out for the final leg of the day’s journey which took us to Tucson, Arizona about 160 km away. Sadly there were no UFO’s parked in the motel lot tonight.

From The Road
Mark and Kevin









 

[ballade]