Our guys are nearing their destination. Little by little, sunny California is approaching David, Jason, and Otto. However, don’t think that being southwest of Michigan means that their misery is done. I just got off a call with them and conditions somehow haven’t improved much. The Mustang is chewing through tires, they stayed in what sounds like the worst motel in America, and it sounds like Otto wants to ride in the Golden Eagle while it’s on the trailer? Road madness is setting in as David’s terrible move continues westward.
Jason has informed me that their starting point of this leg was Weatherford, Oklahoma. Their southern route is taking them even further south than I expected. Jason told me that for this leg, their destination was Sante Fe, New Mexico. It’s a route stretching about 464 miles that saw them rolling through the top of Texas. And, amusingly, our team couldn’t even get their day started without some sort of shenanigans.
Jason Tries To Convince A Completely Wrong Hotel To Give Him Shampoo
Jason told me that their departure hotel didn’t have shampoo. At first, he figured that it wouldn’t be that big of a deal and that he could pick some up from a gas station. Apparently, he was wrong because he couldn’t find any shampoo at a convenience store. That’s when he concocted a brilliant idea: What if he walked into a more expensive hotel and asked for shampoo? Jason did just that, and walked into a Holiday Inn, asking the front desk for shampoo, claiming that his room didn’t have any. Unfortunately for him, the front desk didn’t buy it.
Also, if a Holiday Inn is a major upgrade, then you know that our guys are staying in some dirt-cheap accommodations. I’m not sure these guys have a price floor. And trust me, it’s going to get way worse!
David Burns Rubber
David was a man on a mission on Day Four. He had nearly died just the day before as a result of shower spaghetti and apparent cubic feet of mashed potatoes. We’re still not entirely sure why David effectively consumed a bucket of mashed potatoes, but his stomach hated him for his life choices. Despite all of this, Jason says that David was more energetic now than at any other point in this trip.
See, about seven hours away in Sante Fe was a person that David wanted to meet. This person is someone that David was far more interested in meeting than even the seller of the best holy grail Jeep on Earth. The motivation to see this person was so great that David increased his speed in the Mustang from 60 mph to perhaps 75 mph. Neither Jason nor David knows for sure how fast he was driving, but David says that the anticipation of meeting this person easily added 10 horses to his old pony car.
In fact, he suggests doing a drag race with someone you want to meet at the end of the track. You’ll easily gain free horsepower!
Unfortunately for him, the Mustang wasn’t nearly as excited about this as he was. At the beginning of this trip, David said that his brother’s 1966 Ford Mustang was wrapped in Douglas tires that were awful in anything but dry weather. Apparently, they also have alarming tire wear, too. The Mustang apparently has control arm bushings of the Bluetooth variety, and the suspension and steering need to be freshened before it could get an alignment. That means the car is just grinding down the tires.
In an effort to increase the longevity of those tires, David and Jason pulled off to swap the rear tires with the fronts. Despite their southerly position, things were still bitterly cold, and Jason made sure to emphasize how much it sucks to swap wheels when it’s cold and windy. It was a simple job made miserable by more of that relentless cold that they’d been facing for the whole trip. Also, the Mustang looks the way it does because David has a lot of junk in his trunk, and dirty hands…
Jason also tells me that during one of their stops, David encountered other people trying to fix a car, and he fed them hot dogs. During this trip, David and Jason have noticed that people seem to react more to the Golden Eagle than the Mustang. Lots of people have said something about the Golden Eagle, but the Mustang didn’t get any attention until some totally sloshed guy came over while David was swapping the wheels.
Jason Suffers In The Wagoneer
In our call, I asked Jason about how the Wagoneer is doing. As it turns out, Jason was able to fix the CarPlay issue, and all it took was for the infotainment system to crash, necessitating a hard reset. Apparently, just crashing your Stellantis infotainment system will fix it. Jason described the situation as annoying, to say the least. That’s when David countered with something that surprised us.
Jason, Otto, and I learned something about David during the call. The Mustang doesn’t have a radio of any kind. That means David is just sitting there, driving the Mustang in a direction. He describes the experience of driving the ‘Stang down the highway to be similar to sitting at a desk and doing nothing at all. Jason and I begged him to buy some headphones or something because holy hell, that sounds boring. But David is determined to drive this whole thing in dead, cold silence. Clearly, road madness is setting in for both Jason and David. It seems to me that Otto is holding the group together.
Discovering Cadillac Ranch And A Scaled-Up Dodge Caravan
When our team reached Amarillo, Texas, Jason and Otto checked out one of the most famous roadside attractions in America. Much ink has been spilled about the fabled Cadillac Ranch and its buried vehicles-turned-art pieces. The tailfins of these vintage American autos have pointed to the sky since 1974 and have served as an art installation for anyone who encounters it. Jason and Otto wanted to leave their mark but found themselves unable to access the parts they wanted.
While the father and son duo were exploring that American landmark, David was supposed to be buying new shoes. But he already had shoes, so he went exactly nowhere. Yes, it seems that on every one of the Autopian’s recent trips, David has found himself in need of at least one piece of clothing. See, David has clothes, but they’re all oil-stained from top to bottom, terrible if you need to look clean at a destination. Perhaps with enough time, he’ll get an entire outfit!
Later, they happened upon this USA Corporation Europa. So far as I could find with various models for sale, this RV manufacturer took Dodge and Chevrolet chassis and built RVs on top of them. What we’re looking at here is the Dodge version, and the front end is an absolute giggle.
It’s almost like the company took the front end of a Dodge Grand Caravan and decided to scale it up.
Power comes from a Dodge V8 and the interior is also a smattering of the Dodge parts bin. And yes, the company was really called “USA Corporation.” Has there been a more generic company name?
Our Team Sleeps In The Worst Motel In America
Thus far, this entry hasn’t been so bad. A lot worse could have happened! Well, buckle up, because David’s love for everything cheap ends up biting them all in the arse.
David, Jason, and Otto planned to stop at a motel for their night stop. Online, this hotel was advertised at a bottom of the barrel $58 a night. When David called the motel, the price then raised to $75. But hey, $75 for a room with two beds is still cheap, so they continued. But when they got there, the price went up to $100. Tired, our team lifted a Benjamin from their pockets and got their room. And…I’m not sure I’ve heard of a worse motel in this entire country.
Jason started off by calling the motel a total craphole. He provided me pictures but followed them up by saying that they just don’t do the motel justice. Somehow, everything was terrible. For starters, when they opened the door, they immediately noticed that the floor was parabolic. At no point was the floor level, and that jacked up all of the furniture. Every bit of furniture sat at an angle, sloping toward wherever the floor took them.
Ok, that’s weird enough, but then they noticed that everything else in the motel room was also crooked. Every light switch was crooked, as were the outlets, and Jason even noted an outlet that was completely hanging out of the wall.
This is when David chimed in to say that everything was so crooked that the shade on a lamp was sitting at a good 30-degree angle. Guys, I think you rented a funhouse for the night!
Jason said that everything in the room was so low quality it was if the room had a level of contempt about it. The room was like if the owners of the motel intentionally tried to figure out what was the least they could get away with and still sell you a room. I mean, they even used the same Goodwill artwork for both beds!
There was spackle all over the place, splashes of paint that even a colorblind person could tell was the wrong color, weird poorly-repaired holes in the wall, and random wall repairs that don’t match and don’t make any sense. There was also a closet that didn’t actually have an end to it, just another opening. Oh, and apparently there was a side room of some kind, and it bafflingly had just a closet, a desk, and a sink.
Otto notes that it was like a prison and nothing worked well. The beds felt itchy and they had to check for bedbugs. They’re fairly certain that they didn’t find any, but things looked sketchy. Otto said that everything was so cheap there was no Dr. Pepper. Instead, the vending machines served generic drinks like Dr. Thunder.
Ah, and I forgot something. Apparently, the cops came by at 1 in the morning, asking Jason why he was sitting in the motel’s parking lot. That sounds about right for a hotel like this.
More Bad Ideas, And Do They Know Where They’re Going?
During this conversation, Jason and David made a large number of comments about the position of the sun. It seems that they weren’t entirely sure whether they were headed east or west, and neither of them seemingly knew where the sun’s position was. I’m not sure how you lose track of the sun on a clear day, but that sounds like what happened, and it took them quite a bit of time to figure out that they were headed in the correct direction. Like I said, road madness…
I also asked about the Jeep Golden Eagle, and that took them on a whole different tangent. Jason and David said that Otto wanted to ride in the Golden Eagle. And, well, there is a photo of Otto eying up the beast of a rig. But while the pair were talking about that, Otto cut in and said that he absolutely did not want to ride in the Golden Eagle.
David and Jason countered by saying oh no, he totally did want to ride in the Golden Eagle. To settle this debate, Otto took the phone and told me that he’d love to sit in the driver seat because it looks cool and it’s sort of stupid, but he declined because he didn’t think that there would be any WiFi. That’s when Jason assured him that he could ride in the driver seat of the Golden Eagle, there definitely will be WiFi, and they’ll tow the Golden Eagle around a parking lot or something with him in it.
So, uh, I guess that’s going to be a thing!
Our band of heroes expect to reach David’s new apartment by Saturday. However, because of reasons best explained by just saying “California,” the power company will not be turning on his apartment’s power until Tuesday. That means that David will be living like a caveman through the weekend and part of next week. He’s still not sure how that’s going to work out, but he’s pretty sure he’s going to be sitting in his powerless apartment while it rains outside.
Thus, somehow, the entirety of David’s move will be miserable in some way, which is totally on-brand. The team tells me that their next stop is Omega Mart in Las Vegas before doing the final leg. Then, David will be home. From our team in the field and from me, we wish you a happy start to your New Year! We will return in 2023 with even more fun. Since their journey isn’t over yet, watch it go down on our social media pages.
Well, no reports of illness/falling asleep today so maybe some of our worst fears from yesterday are allayed, although if David’s car is trying to kill him it seems to be doing so with crappy alignment and tires, along with sheer boredom! If you compare your driving experience to sitting at a desk all day without doing anything it’s not a resounding endorsement.
Like many of you I’m wondering who the man in Santa Fe is, I’m guessing that might wind up being a story in and of itself but are there any guesses, any Jeep gurus or automotive celebs in the city?
I hope they’re keeping a close watch on the weather, I grew up in Southern AZ, but can clearly remember news reports almost every winter of big pileups outside of Flagstaff on I-40, just because it’s in AZ doesn’t mean it’s not snow or ice covered.
Pay attention to this man. Flagstaff is IN Arizona, but as a Flag native, the weather is more Colorado than Arizona, thanks to the 7000 foot elevation. If there’s weather likely in Flagstaff, the crew is likely going to find less snow taking I25 S from Albuquerque to Las Cruces, then I-10 to I-8 to Lots Angeles.
Play up the Journalist credentials and maybe you can arrange a tour of the new Lucid factory in Casa Grande just south of Phoenix.
Oh, no. I still have nightmares about one of Jason’s picks for a hotel. My minimum standard is pretty lenient at “just be clean and functional with no bedbugs,” but oh no. I took over one of Jason’s trips to the Lane Museum when he had another thing come up. This was cool, because I got to goof around with all kinds of weird microcars, and that’s extremely relevant to my interests. This is where I discovered that I need a Zündapp Janus, the mid-engined sportscar of weird front-door’d vehicles. I still really, really need a Zündapp Janus.
HOWEVER, this also meant I took over Jason’s hotel reservation.
This particular hotel had the single rudest front desk/manager combo I’d ever encountered in my life. The main front desk guy had no idea what to do with our corporate credit card information, and seemed to blame me for being inexperienced with the details of corporate travel. I didn’t have the card—it was Patrick’s that was used to book the room—so I had to wake him up late at night to get this card business straightened out, which took a while. Originally, the check-in guy at the hotel’s front desk worked out a deal with our corporate booking company where they were going to let me stay in the room and let PG fill out the card authorization form they needed when PG woke up in the morning. Reasonable!
Then the manager—who was the brother of the front desk guy—butted in, reneged on that deal, and started yelling at me as if it’s my fault he’s decided to do his own thing. It’s late and I’m exhausted, and they wouldn’t refund this night for me to get the hell out of there to go anywhere else, either. Fortunately, PG had woken up by this point LATE in the night, at which point, the manager and front desk guy tried sending him the correct authorization form…using a frickin’ cell phone that must have had Negative Potato for a camera resolution. IIRC, Patrick couldn’t even read it because it was just pixelated garbage. It took SEVERAL attempts to try and send this oh-so-necessary-right-now form over because the frickin’ professionals there didn’t have a basic scanner. This was, gosh, 2017?
After these guys got done blowing up at both Patrick and me, and we’d done this stupid form nonsense that could have easily been dealt with in the morning, I finally got to my room…which was flooded. The carpet was soaking wet and I could tell that the concrete slab underneath the room had a big ol’ crack in it where half the room was basically starting to slide down the hill. This place really should be condemned. So, I had to go back to the nightmare front desk and ask for another room.
At this point, it’s in the wee hours of the morning and I’m still not checked in anywhere that’s actually fit for habitation.
They ended up giving me the “honeymoon” suite with a heart-shaped jacuzzi in the corner after I showed them that the first room was disgusting and wet, but the door jamb on this second room was all messed up like it’d been broken into before and I was afraid to plug anything in all night for fear that the electrics in the building were messed up from the other room’s flooding issues. I don’t think I even unpacked my Puffalump because I was that afraid of catching bedbugs from this joint. I didn’t see any bedbugs, but the room had other bugs, both dead and alive. It felt dirty to the point where I didn’t want to touch much of anything, and I am still shocked that I didn’t bring any bedbugs home.
Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep or use the heart-shaped jacuzzi tub.
(To be fair, Jason had no idea of the Weird Motel Hell I was about to encounter from his reservation and felt awful about this afterwards, so all’s well. Still funny in hindsight, though. Moral of the story: A nicer hotel is worth the extra few bucks, I promise.)
Bed bugs are one of the most metal things ever. They are among the most hated of creatures.
The pain is worth it if you get to play with microcars.
I’d put up with the worst bedbug infestation EVER for a night if I got to play with a Goggomobile Dart!
(WARNING! GRAPHIC BEDBUG PORN BELOW! NSFW? CREEPY/COOL MUSIC INCLUDED.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XlONPtcpO4
I don’t think the Lane wants to deal with an infestation in the upholstery, though. I’m being thoughtful to the microcars when I’m being squeamish about bedbugs, haha.
“they weren’t entirely sure whether they were headed east or west, and neither of them seemingly knew where the sun’s position was”
I completely understand fatigue and road-weariness and the feeling of disorientation when you arrive in town in darkness and depart in daylight. But am I the only smartphone owner whose phone has a compass app? Is a GPS not involved in this trek? This is December and the sun is below 40° in the sky, so it’s not like it’s overhead. That’s not helpful if it’s cloudy, but interstate highway signs are also quite helpful in telling you which towns you’re approaching…
As someone who spent a good portion of my early adult years on road trips, in questionable vehicles, transporting everything I own with me, I whole heartedly support this reporting.
It’s very nostalgic for me.
The road trip in a “bomb” is a hilarious adventure in the rear view, but when you’re in the middle of it.. very testing.
Get through it. You’ll laugh about it later. In the interim, keep up this great writing.
Oof, looks like you did the tire change in the Grants, NM Walmart parking lot. Not a fun place to be in any weather, but in this cold you must have been absolutely miserable. Was the horrible motel also in Grants? I can think of a few that fit the vibe, though I’ve never been in them.
David is just sitting there, driving the Mustang in a direction. He describes the experience of driving the ‘Stang down the highway to be similar to sitting at a desk and doing nothing at all.
[…] David is determined to drive this whole thing in dead, cold silence.
I know we worry about him, but now I wonder if we’ve focused on the wrong things regarding David’s … eccentricities.
*Worst* motel? I don’t know, it might be a contender, but there’s disturbingly strong competition.
20-something years ago, I checked into a Red Roof Inn somewhere along I-90 in Ohio. When I called the front desk to complain that there was no toilet paper, the response was “can you wait until tomorrow some time?”
WTF?! I said no problem, it’s just me & I’m not using the other bed so I can wipe my ass on those sheets tonight. Housekeeping knocked on the door about a minute later with a couple rolls.
I’m gonna have to remember that, it could come in handy!
Better than in your hand!
I’m following these fantastic recaps with horrified awe but this one left two glaring, unanswered questions: who was David speeding off to see and why the hell was Jason sitting in the parking lot in the middle of the night?
That was a thoroughly entertaining and fun read. Mercedes, you should write a road novel.
That photo of Otto trying to escape the Golden Eagle is priceless.
“That means David is just sitting there, driving the Mustang in a direction.”
The single loneliest sentence I have read in 2022.
“That means that David will be living like a caveman through the weekend and part of next week.”
Right. LOL. He is sleeping in the Golden Eagle for at leeeeast a week. Gonna take a while before this nut comes out of his shell.
I have a 24.7mile commute I do in silence everyday also, by choice. Dude’s an engineer thinkin about how to make you all more money.
$100 a night for that skeezy bedbug shack is abominable.
Living like a caveman without power isn’t so bad. I’ve camped out in abandoned buildings for free when I was homeless, and did so gladly rather than pay for motels. And unlike South Texas where I did this, California has much nicer weather, to where heating or AC will be a relatively low priority.
My recommendation? Get a battery powered lantern, a used AGM 12V car battery, and find a used 12V to 110V car inverter somewhere on the cheap. At least you’ll be able to keep your phone and computer charged, and a friendly neighbor might allow you to charge the 12V battery from their place using an automotive battery charger, or you can do it in a nearby park that has an outlet.
For David, a few days without power in a Los Angeles apartment wouldn’t be the most primitive living conditions he’s voluntarily accepted, not by a long shot. I don’t care if LA is having their worst winter ever – he’s got Kansas & Michigan winter experience, ffs!
Harbor Freight sells inverters at reasonable prices and I’ve found them more than adequate for lights – chargers and so forth
Hit up some “solar generator” company for a demo unit in exchange for a review on here. CA has earthquakes and wildfires, it’s a legit request. Then we can read up on how David cooks on an induction pad and if the unit can power a coffeemaker while PG&E royally messes up something simple and blames David for having the temerity to ask for working electricity.
Awesome! I love music a lot but sometimes it’s nice to just enjoy the drive & think, listen to the car (also can hear problems that way) & watch the scenery (even if it’s the same thing).
Dr. Thunder! Ha ha I drink it sometimes & at least it’s cheap! (Of course Dr. Pepper is the best)
Also, David is already a caveman!
Where do they even get Dr. Thunder that far west? It’s an Ahold Delhaize private label and as such basically an East Coast regional brand.
Dr Thunder is Walmart’s house brand of Dr Pepper.
Too bad y’all already passed it seein as y’all are headed West in Oklahoma but.
Just a stones throw detour South a way back could have offered you a stop in beautiful Shamrock Texas.
Home of nuthin but a few angry citizens, a “Mac Dunnolds” and the nearly inescapable Shamrock Diner. I would have recommended the taco salad. Great beef on that one seein as you can see and smell the slaughter house from the comfort of your table.
Y’all missed out.
Cosign!
I spent a lifetime in Shamrock one May afternoon years ago while on a storm chase (that never developed…).
Yussir. One afternoon in Shamrock sure can feel like a lifetime. It really disappoints me them Autopian boys ain’t stop by to lube their canooters and take a gander at my chainsaw collection.
“It really disappoints me them Autopian boys ain’t stop by to lube their canooters and take a gander at my chainsaw collection.”
Only here can this be an entirely innocent statement.
The Shamrock Diner’s pretty cool piece of architecture.
There was a bar/restaurant across? from it that the Lemons Rally stopped at a few years back, and it had kickass Rocky Mountain Oysters. 10/10, highly recommend as a noted deep-fried testicle connoisseur.
Totally not kosher, just saying, I
Honestly, Jason and Otto should count themselves lucky that David is even allowing them to stay in any sort of motel. It would be totally on-brand for him to insist that everyone just sleeps in their respective vehicles and bathe in whatever free-standing body of water they can find.
I would have rather slept in the Grand Wagoneer than the the hole they actually did sleep in.
That motel bears a striking resemblance to the current housing/rental market for low income people like me (from London to Seattle it’s the same).
It’s the absolute barest, creepily designed and decorated afterthought of a domicile imaginable for the most amount of money possible, charged to some fool trying to eek out a sad existence of starring blanky and dejectedly at the wall for hours a day before working another ten hour shift at a shitty factory (run on sentence, I know).
A great many of them are actually converted motels. Because all the apartments and houses are being snapped up by private equity to be rented out as AirBnBs.
The chair at the mirror in front of the counter is probably to make shooting heroin easier. Where did they stay? I’d like to never go there.
When you get the Mustang to an alignment shop, ask for extra positive caster . . . . +2 degrees if they can do it. That makes a terrific difference in tracking. Some shops mention factory specs, but those were developed before radial tires were in common use.
This is handy. I didn’t think that modern radial tires would make a difference in how the vehicle tracks, assuming the alignment is a constant. But it makes sense when you consider the differences in how the tires deform with weight applied onto them.
Some factory specs even on modern cars are just bad, too. I can always tell when the Lancer is set to factory specs because it tends to pull to the side for some reason. There’s a shop in town I refer to as “the Lancer Whisperer” for being able to set it straight, haha.
While I don’t know enough to second Larry C on the technical specs. I’ll vouch for the concept, having owned many cars that were originally equipped with bias ply tires there does seem to be an art to aligning them for radial tires, I’ve had some which seemed to drive well when a shop set them to factory specs, while others just needed the expertise of a shop which was willing to try experimenting with the settings a bit.
I’d love to meet them at Omega Mart while they’re in town, but I’m afraid I might catch meningitis, or tetanus, or pink eye or chlamydia from one or more of them.
It can’t be any worse than what you can get from old egg salad.
I’ll take the truck stop vending machine egg salad sandwich over that motel, thanks.
Lord, I feel every bit of this series of articles. For a year in the late 80s I lived on the road and drove cross country repeatedly for my job (100K in a year). Since I was driving a commercial vehicle (a satellite uplink truck), couldn’t stay at decent hotels often and had to stay in bottom of the barrel motels and inns. Thank goodness this is only for a few days, there is nothing worse than exhaustion from the road and then a nasty place to sleep.
“It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.”
Theodore Roosevelt
If that isn’t Autotian, I don’t know what is.
I mean honestly, having the cops roll up and ask you what you’re doing while you’re sitting in the parking lot of a fleabag motel at 1:00 a.m. is pretty reasonable LOL
It does mean the motel is clearly on their radar due to history though
Why does the last pic look like they locked Otto in the Golden Eagle because they were sick of the kid being *right* about everything? At this rate they’re going to be the first people to drive into The Backrooms and then they’ll need him to navigate them out.
“I’m not sure these guys have a price floor’
So so funny.I’m stealing that phrase!
You know for most of my life i’ve been stingey. For some of my life i even worried i might be TOO tight with money.
Eventually i found out there are people out there that are on a whole other level.Truly world class tightwads do stuff i wouldnt even have thought of !
Watching their lives is both impressive and deeply depressing at the same time.
I’d like to nominate Laura Lodge in Coalinga, CA as unassumingly worst motel ever. TV remote didn’t work and in the process of the front desk guy / owner / groundskeeper / maintenance dude troubleshooting it and checking on the TV, the TV’s mount fell off the wall. So it just sat propped up on the dresser for the rest of the night.
And my particular room was on the first floor near the ‘lobby’. So near that my room had an alternate entry door that remained locked as it led to the front office. Classy. And the floor was laminate. Because of course it was.
But I guess it also wasn’t trying to emulate a Dali painting in physical space, so Jason and David win out on that front.
On that note, I also nominate the Super 8 in Corsicana, TX which, as of the middle of this year, had a sign in the window of the lobby stating that the building had been deemed unfit for human occupancy. Luckily, I was staying in the building behiiind the lobby. Which I am sure was completely structurally sound.
I just looked up my worst-motel-stay-of-all-time motel—lo and behold, it’s gone from being a Howard Johnson to a Super 8. Honestly, I don’t trust the reasonably-priced Wyndham chains at all anymore after being in one too many that was just gross.
Americas Best Value Inn is another one I tend to avoid. The one in Decatur, TX, we stayed at for Lemons seemed to have cigarette burns in every sheet…even in our non-smoking room. Yeesh.
IIRC, I’ve had bad luck with Days Inns, too.
Honestly, I kind of like the road trips where we’ve camped out a lot the most? It’s usually way cheaper. You’re in control of everything in a tent that you pack in and pack out yourselves. If there’s bedbugs, it’s your own damn fault. Plus, it’s a road trip, so “embrace the stank” gets adopted early on.
Mrs. Hand and I stayed at a hotel in Watertown where we couldn’t sleep due to the massive mold problem. My wife was up hacking and wheezing at 3 a.m. We got out of there at 5:30 and went to the nearby Bob Evans.
That day we were supposed to drive to Syracuse for some shopping, then drive home, but I was falling asleep at the wheel by 4:30 p.m. My wife suggested that we grab dinner and a NICER hotel. I was so relieved when she suggested that.
We stayed at a NEW Holiday Inn Express that night, and actually slept.
My wife used to travel a lot for work, and got used to good hotels. Her attitude is that we don’t travel much, so we can pop for a good hotel. She is right — it’s worth it.
I’m happy they are still alive. Having done many road trips of distance, I can summarize the basic single fault behind all the misery.
It’s pointedly ignoring the fact that doing a long road trip like this is absolutely the worst time to cheap out on everything. Glad the Mustang has undercoating. But buying good tires for the 4 small contact patches your life is riding on, is orders of magnitude more important. As is correcting any deficiencies in the suspension and steering before a good alignment with the good tires. Having good heat and defrosting when driving in a historic winter storm is good too. Cheap motels are guaranteed to raise the misery level. Doing :2,000+ miles in freezing cold, horrible conditions calls for good planning, preparations and enough scratch to do it right.
This is like the Titanic leaving port with a coal bunker fire. Driving all that way with only grim determination to keep you going is flipping off the fates. Good luck guys.
If the voices in your head have enough conversation topics, the radio really isn’t essential. Or David and I are similar kinds of weirdos.
That note about bumping up from 60 to 75 confirms my theory on the previous coal rolling. Nothing environmental about it, they were just annoyed with slow people.