Hi Gang!
Well, I finally got access to the net again, and thought I'd tell
the story of my trip across the country in the LIC. Many thanks in
advance for those who volunteered their help on the trip, as it turned
out it wasn't needed. Though it was indeed close, as you shall see.
As with all good stories, this one has a beginning. I picked up a
1982 Fiat Spider 2000 convertible for a friend in Rockville who has
always liked them. The price was right, $500, for a car that really
seemed to be in good shape. It had been sitting in a garage for the
better part of 2 years waiting for some body work, and had about
60,000 miles on the odometer.
From the start there were problems getting the title squared away,
so I never got to take the car home and look it over much before T-day.
I was planning on leaving May 22, but things got held up at the hopefully
new job. This turned out to be fortunate, as the title didn't clear
until Wed., May 27. I went and got the plates, picked up my insurance
papers and drove a wildly smoking, nearly-out-of-gas, genueyne, Eyetalian
sports car home Wednesday night. Yeehaa, let the adventure begin!!!!
Thursday dawned clear and hot, and I was planning on leaving Wichita
about noon for the "Big City" and the "Real World" after lo these many
years cradled in the arms of academia. Wow, reality check, please....
Got the car gassed up, cleaned out the old McDonald's wrappers, and
packed my Army Surplus Duffel bag behind the seat with the cooler full
of Mt. Dew on the floor in front of the co-pilot's seat. Easily stretched
my garment bag out in the trunk, donned my floppy brimmed hat and faux
Wayfarers and I was ready to go. Except that I didn't actually have a
real job yet. Oh who cares, I'll deliver the Fiat anyways, and if the
job falls through I'll get a job at a Jiffy Lube. No sweat.
Then, just as I'm packing the last stuff in the car, the phone rings!
None other than Paul Gilders, SOL'er and nice guy (hi Paul). Paul kindly
extended the offer to call he and Scott Paisley and Dean Zwickey when I
got to Rockville. What a deal, here I am about to drive across the
country and there is already a cold home-brew in the fridge waiting for
me. I love this place!
So off we go! One of the goals of this trip was to stay off the
interstates as much as possible. This would serve two purposes. One, I
would get to see parts of the country that usually flash by in an 80+mph
blurr when I travel. Second, and more important, I wouldn't have to attempt
to push a completely unknown vehicle much faster than 55mph, at which speed
I feel confident I can deal with things like tires, etc. falling off. ;^)
To accomplish this I chose Route 54 from Wichita to Missouri, where I
planned to just meander through the hills and twisties towards Illinois.
This would be the part where the foreboding music plays for a moment...
The first leg of the trip began at 2:00 p.m. cst. later than I planned,
but I just couldn't stand to wait any longer. East out of Wichita
(affectionately known as Doo-Daa among the locals) across the flat south
central edge of the Flint Hills. The car running smoothly, the sunscreen
doing its job, the radio pla... oh yeah. I forgot. No Radio. Want to
get in touch with your inner self? 1400 miles and no radio. Trust me.
Anyways, just cooking along through the 90 degree Kansas sun. It still
amazes me that people actually walked across this place. It is huge.
About 100 miles from Wichita noticed an occasional miss and a slight
fluttering in the tach needle. Still seemed to be running o.k. in general
though, and I decided to press on.
Stopped in a little town just east of the KS/MO border for lunch and
noticed one of the lower radiator hoses was quite swollen. Stopped at
the local parts place and bought some clamps, anti-freeze, and a hunk of
hose, just in case. Figured I'd just drive it until it stopped, ;^) and
fix it when necessary. Meandered on into the hills of Missouri. By
nightfall I was thoroughly baked and ready for a beer. Stopped in Osage Beach,
Mo. and got a room and a burger and a couple of brews and turned in.
I was not quite half way across Missouri and it looked like tomorrow
was going to be a long day. (More foreboding music....)
Friday began on an upbeat note, with a smooth morning's drive down a
highway 42, a simply great little twisty two-lane that cuts over towards
Route 50 outside of St. Louis. Started to hear some interesting clinking
noises from the front end somewhere around here, but couldn't see anything
obviously wrong so I applied the previously mentioned rule of
drive-it-til-it-drops. Made it through St. Louis with no trouble and headed
down route 50 towards Indiana and Kentucky. The car was fine on the Freeway,
keeping up with ease. Actually very enjoyable, as the temp. was still only in
the 80's.
Stopped for gas and food in a little town called Lebanon, just east of St.
Louis, and sat in the shade of a little gas station while I drank a Gatorade
in a feeble attempt to replenish the electrolytes that were being sweated out
of me. The temp. had climbed to around 90 and felt like 1000. Also, that
annoying miss was back, and the tach was kicking all over the place. Now I
didn't just fall of the back of the turnip truck, and on all my previous
cars a tach like that would indicate a problem with the points or some other
ignition problem. I dutifully pulled the cap and there sat a pointless rig.
Clever people, these Fiat engineers. Hmmmm... After the car cools down a bit
it runs better. Oh well, time to move on.
Drove another 45 minutes maybe, coughing and sputtering under load, running
fine at an idle down highway 50, and was about 4 miles east of the town of
Breese, Ill. (just past the big feedlot looking place) when the poor little car
just started having fits. Out in the middle of the flats of rural Illinois,
Sun beating down, all I could think of were those signs along the side of the
trail marking where such and such baked his brains out on the way to Denver or
where ever. I managed to coast, cuss, plead, and pray my way a mile up the
road until I could park under an overpass. Ah, shade is a wonderful thing. I
then began the standard ignition system diagnosis. I checked all the plug
wires. Hmm... Those shouldn't be that loose, should they? Pulled the
plugs...Nice color, no fouling.....Pull the coil wire from the coil...Ah Ha!!!!
the inside of the coil terminal is filled with oil! This is not good. So I
cut up a sock and used it to clean out the oil, but it was no use. There
wasn't enough fire to run the little Fiat. :^( (sad music...)
(Fanfare!) But wait! A Firestone service truck pulls up behind me and out
climbs a helpful stranger! He comes over, looks under the hood, scratches his
brow, and remarks "What kind of car is that?" I tell him it is a broken one,
and he laughs and offers me a ride back into Breese to the Parts Store. I
figure Hey, beats walking, and grab my duffel bag, close the top, and off we
go. Gary (the guy) tells me how nice and quiet it is in Breese, and how they
probably won't have the parts in town, but they can probably get them, and how
that "import" fixin shop on the edge of town isn't really worth a damn, and
that there's going to be a parade for Memorial Day if I'm still stuck I should
check it out. Yep, I just may do that, I say.
Gary drops me off at the local NAPA store and I drag me and my stuff inside
and plop down on a stool. The owner, Pat (he's got a little nametag) figures
out that I must be stranded when he sees all my junk and we start discussing
options. I'm planning on replacing the whole ignition system, but he doesn't
have any of the parts on hand. Could order them from St. Louis, be here around
7:00 p.m. tonight. Hmm, I think to myself, that's a thought. Fortunately, we
don't have to make a decision until 4:30, which leaves me a couple of hours to
figure out what's up. About this time, the whole building rumbles and shakes,
kind of like when a really big jet does an afterburner take off over your
house. I look up at Pat and he just grins. "The neighbors build stock cars!"
he yells over the roar. "They've got a car hauler. Maybe they can help you go
get the Fiat!" Sounds good to me...
We went next door and there was a big-block Camaro circle tracker, parked
right next to a car-hauler. "Sure, no problem!" John replies to our
fetch-a-Fiat question. So John, Tom, and I jump in and off we go. On the way
out we discussed the intricacies of small-block vs. big-block, Camaro vs.
anything else, and what the Fiat was doing. I mentioned that we would get out
there and find the tires gone. They both just laughed. "Not around here." Tom
said. "After a couple of weeks, the cops might put a sticker on it, but you
could have left the top down and nothing would have been missing when you got
back." I've been living in the city too long. I miss small town niceness.
We got the Fiat on the truck, hauled it back and deposited it in front of
the NAPA store. I went across the street to the Quik-Stop and got a six-pack
and we all sat around staring at the engine. As it turns out, the coil is a
standard 12-volt coil, and was the only part Pat had in stock. I strapped a
new coil in and zing, it starts right up. Yea! (rousing music!) I won't have
to strip the tags and ride a Greyhound the rest of the way!!!! Many thanks all
around, load the car and head off to the east. Total time lost - less than 2
hours.
Now, here's where I should have known better. When something breaks on
anything else I own, I usually buy two, you know, a spare. I must have had a
case of brain fade going because I left the parts store without another coil.
(Foreshadowing, no?) Of course, a couple of hours later, the same symptoms
reappear. Tach jumping, etc. I stopped in Olney, Ill. at the Wal-mart and
bought all their coils (they only had two ;^) ). Had a grape shaved ice while
I changed it and on I went. I noticed that the coils were hotter than a
cerrano pepper when I took them out, so I started sticking them in the vent
window to cool them while I drove. Seemed to be working pretty well, and I
would cycle out a cooled coil every hour and a half or so. It got so I could
have the coils changed in about 10 minutes, stop to go. Not bad, I thought.
As the evening cooled off, the coil changing became less frequent, and I
decided that it must be correlated with the very high temps that day and put it
out of my mind. (Seemed like the thing to do at the time) Had a relatively
uneventful drive east, and decided to take Route 150 southeast from Shoals,
Ind. in hopes of catching up with some friends in Lexington, Ky. I must say
that this part of Indiana begins to be very nice to drive through. Hills and
twisties. All the things top-down motoring demands. I found out that in
Pauli, Ind. on Friday the entire population of teenagers cruises the main drag,
under the watchful eyes of the local constable, of course. And that if you
turn south on Rt. 34 and take the little road to Valeene and on to Rt. 64 in
Marengo, you are in for one of the nicest, twistiest, up-and-downest little
roads I've ever had the immense pleasure to drive. If you are driving through,
this road is a must.
Made it the rest of the way through Louisville and on to Lexington without
any problems, but my contacts were gone for the long weekend and so I finally
stopped sometime around midnight for a beer in the shower, then the oblivion of
a seriously needed bed. Ah, the joys of immobility after spending 16 hours on
the road.....
Saturday. The sun came up. I didn't want to. But I really wanted to
finish the trip so I woud be able to relax on Sunday. I was committed to drive
on the freeway for a while, until I got out of Kentucky at least, and thought
I'd reasses my decision to eschew the Interstate for the "experiencing America"
thing. The car handled freeway speeds with ease, and each minute it worked, I
was a mile closer to my goal. Of course, I was the only vehicle travelling
anywhere near the speed limit and even got passed by a Geo Metro convertible.
That was embarassing ;^).
I'll say one thing about the difference between the two types of road. On
the two-lanes, everyone makes eye contact and you feel like you are a part of
the life of the society. Delivery trucks, school buses, little Italian cars.
Everyone is a part of the flow of people and goods and ideas. It completely
changes the feel of the travel. I was as much a part of the road and
countryside on the little roads as the people who lived there. But when you
get up on the Interstate, everything changes. There is no eye contact, you
could be shot for such an intrusion. There is no contact with the surrounding
area, you are just passing through. The only thing that matters is the
destination, not the journey. Unfortunately, like everyone else, I find myself
a prisoner of self-inflicted demands. Usually, when I'm a road trip, I'm just
like the rest of the nameless, faceless drivers. I just want the trip to be
over. Hmmmmmm.
Oh well, back to the trip. It was shortly after entering West Virginia
that Karma tapped me on the shoulder and as I crested a hill I saw a motor home
lifelessly hulking on the shoulder of the road. A half mile up, there was a
guy walking dejectedly along the shoulder so I stopped and rearranged stuff to
make room for him and gave him a lift to the next exit. We got up there and
there was an Exxon station with a phone for him and a bunch of Boy Scouts
washing cars to raise camping money for me. As a veteran of many such business
endeavors to support weekend trips, I thought it only fitting to help them on
their way, while I could continue on mine in a clean Little Italian Car. The
only catch was that they had to clean the outside while keeping the inside
mostly dry. This was accomplished in short order and off I went. Next stop
Maryland!
Through all of this the coil demons had been asleep and the drive through
the mountains was gorgeous. I understand why people write songs about this
place. It was grand. I also understand a bit of why it took so much to cross
the mountains and settle west back in the old days. Wow, what a road. I soon
found myself crossing into Maryland. The car was running well, and on the map
it looked like I was almost there. What an illusion (delusion?) that was.
Maryland stretches longer than a cat after it wakes up. It felt like I was
driving in a big wheel made of mountain-like hills and roads. Kind of like a
gerbil wheel for little sports cars. Finally, though, I came out of the
mountains and made my way down towards Rockville. Oh yeah, the speed limit in
Maryland is still 55 on the freeways, but traffic was flowing at a brisk 70 and
I was being passed at 65 like I was parked. Welcome back to the big city.
I pulled off the freeway at the Rockville exit at 8:00 p.m., Saturday, May
29, 1374 miles from Wichita in three days, only put the top up at night, and
managed to see new roads, meet new people, be rescuee and rescuer (I prefer the
latter ;^)), and get about 28 mpg overall. Not bad for a $500 dollar little
Italian car. I found my new digs without incident and called Paul and Scott
for directions to their place. Went over and had one of the sweetest tasting
brews in recent memory, Scott laughed at the Fiat, we finished the brews, and
then I went back to the house and slept like a log. In a way, it was kind of
sad, but the Great-Eyetalian-Car-Adventure-93 was over. Or was it? Only time
will tell....
Epilogue: I've been here for three weeks now and the Fiat still runs and I
think I may have actually solved the coil problem. We'll know for sure this
afternoon, as it is supposed to get up in the 90's here. I have met SOL'er
Dean Zwicki, Autox'er Chris ?, and have generally been adopted by Scott's
wife's family. I consider it a great triumph over the evils of a nameless,
faceless society that we can communicate effortlessly through the etherspace,
and that with the drop of a key it is possible to meet good people anywhere you
end up. SOL'ers rule.
Arlie
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