MrMopar's Great Adventure

MrMoparCHP

Old Man with a Hat
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Location
Lompoc, CA
Vacation time and for me that means Road Trip! In the past I have taken my truck or rented a car, this trip it will be with the Barracuda. So stay tuned and I’ll post updates from the road, no itinerary is being posted to keep it interesting.

Day One: 1:05 PM - 280 miles
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Loaded ready to go

Rolled out at 7:20 and just as I get going it starts raining, for the first 150 miles it it rained and as I passed through King City it stopped. I had a couple stops and detours for this leg but with the rain it wasn't worth it.
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Pit stop King City
I stopped for a gas at 208 miles with 18.24 MPG.

Just finished up lunch (Habit in San Mateo) and the weather is great.

Stay tuned.


Alan
 
Still Day 1: 4:00 pm - 165/373 miles
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I Continued up the 101 to 380/280 and ultimately the 1, once I was on the 1 I didn't clear traffic till past Santa Rosa.
Gas stop, because of traffic, 14.95 MPG

Saw a little rain a few miles back but think I shoud have time for my next planed stop.


Alan
 
Day One: End of the day.

Born and raised in California, I have been just about everywhere, I cannot believe I have never been by Clear Lake. The road in was fun, I thought I'd have a chance to test out the newly installed sway bar and disc brakes, lots of twist and turns but narrow, I wanted to enjoy the view so I moved over to let cars go by.
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Just off the 101 heading to Clear Lake, no traffic so I just stopped to take this picture.

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Just past the summit, first look at the lake.

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Wrong time of day but a cool shot none the less.

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A couple more just because.

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At a rest stop north of Willits.

If it wasn't so late I would have done Avenue of the Giants (again). Initially I was going to stay in Garberville but there is only one (decent) place to stay and no good options on food. Had I stayed there I could have done the Redwoods tomorrow, good chance I'll take the car on a trip like this again.

It got dark pretty quick and I pushed through to Fortuna, I left my notes in the car so no miles or MPG

Overall the car did great, recent rebuild on the engine with enough shakedown miles (I hope).
Limited time with a fair amount of miles to cover so not a lot of room for different visits, I didn't even know what my route was going to be till Thursday.

Tomorrow is open, no set stops but I do have a destination.


Alan
 
Day One: End of the day.

Born and raised in California, I have been just about everywhere, I cannot believe I have never been by Clear Lake. The road in was fun, I thought I'd have a chance to test out the newly installed sway bar and disc brakes, lots of twist and turns but narrow, I wanted to enjoy the view so I moved over to let cars go by.
2019-03-23_006-jpg.jpg

Just off the 101 heading to Clear Lake, no traffic so I just stopped to take this picture.

2019-03-23_008-jpg.jpg

Just past the summit, first look at the lake.

2019-03-23_009-jpg.jpg

Wrong time of day but a cool shot none the less.

2019-03-23_015-jpg.jpg

2019-03-23_013-jpg.jpg

A couple more just because.

2019-03-23_016-jpg.jpg

At a rest stop north of Willits.

If it wasn't so late I would have done Avenue of the Giants (again). Initially I was going to stay in Garberville but there is only one (decent) place to stay and no good options on food. Had I stayed there I could have done the Redwoods tomorrow, good chance I'll take the car on a trip like this again.

It got dark pretty quick and I pushed through to Fortuna, I left my notes in the car so no miles or MPG

Overall the car did great, recent rebuild on the engine with enough shakedown miles (I hope).
Limited time with a fair amount of miles to cover so not a lot of room for different visits, I didn't even know what my route was going to be till Thursday.

Tomorrow is open, no set stops but I do have a destination.


Alan
 
I love a good classic car road trip!:thumbsup:
 
Great photos. Great story. Great looking car - really like that color. Which engine?
 
Day Two:

Tank 1: 208 miles - 18.24 MPG
Tank 2: 165 miles - 14.95 MPG (lots of traffic)
Tank 3: 150 miles - 16.12 MPG (15 miles of canyons and stop and go looking around lake)
523 miles with an overall average of 16.06 MPG
I have no functioning gas gauge so I'm short pitting (200 max)

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Ready to go, lost in the crowd.


Alan
 
Takes me back to the days when all trips were dependant upon the distance between gas stations and as a driver you knew to the foot how far your car would run on a tank of gas. Even so, cross country trips through the Rockies were self insured with a 5 gal jerry can of fuel, just in case!
:thumbsup:
 
Day Two:

Today I continued up the coast on 101, first stop was for gas in Crescent City 200 miles, 17.92 MPG.
After that I continued into Oregon to Brookings where I left the highway, the alternate was about 26 miles and took about an hour, all to void a half mile of gravel temporary roadway the diversion only added about 5 miles and 35 minutes. Recently a section of highway (about a 1/2 mile long) slipped a significant amount. Initially I started looking for a different route altogether like I-5 but the reports on the slide indicated there was a bypass. This bypass was narrow and lots of twist and turns, no trucks allowed.
No complaints here the drive was fun and once and awhile the vies were good.
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Because of this I missed some cool rock outcroppings along the coast (I have pictures there of the car from a trip in 2009)

Gas in Reedsport, 166 miles, 19.3 MPG
I continued through to Reedsport where I turned inland. The road along the Umpqua River was great, traffic wasn't too bad.
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One thing I will never get use to in Oregon are the funky passing zones that aren't really 3 lane but are.
At one time in California there were highways with three lanes, the center lane was for passing, well that didn't work.
This is basically the same but priority is given to one direction (generally the one going uphill).
I'm not grossing that yellow line, not going to happen.
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I got this picture at my destination for the night, quick stop tomorrow and on to my brothers house.
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Alan
 
My dad had a similar car with a 225 he was a hypermiler before it was a thing, back in the 70's i wanna say
 
Day three:

As eluded to in my previous post I ended up in Springfield Oregon with the idea to stop by with the Barracuda and see the shop get a shirt and maybe meet them. I stopped by last night with the idea of getting a picture of the car in an unobstructed parking lot. I get there and there was a black Challenger parked out front, I park, take a picture and sit there a minute, nothing, left. If somebody was there either they were busy or didn't notice (it was Sunday, after hours).
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This morning I went by and went inside, to my surprise Allysa was at the front desk. We chatted a little bit, got pictures and chatted some more. They were busy filming so the rest were not available as were shop tours.
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(Taken through window from the office)
Allysa was very nice to talk with and seamed to be glad somebody pulled her from what she was doing, apparently her mother normally handles the front office. She like the car, loved the color, surprised to hear I had just driven 1000 miles.

From there I hit the road towards my brothers in Astoria. From the point I left the hotel it was raining, much of this route is one I have taken in the past, I did take a little bypass to go through a small town I haven't seen.
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I needed to go over a couple passes before getting to my brothers place, on the way I passed the "Snow Zone Carry Chains" sign, uh oh, just a little residue show from a few days earlier.
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As I got closer to my brothers I hear the sound of a truck desielrate and i look in my mirror to see this truck a couple hundred yard back and closing, I find the first place to pull off and let him by, well timed he was never on my bumper and I didn't have to wait for him to pass, I couldn't keep up with him. Lots of tight (20-30 mph) turns that I didn't know.
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Got to my brothers place in one piece.
I'm not sure when my return trip is or what way I'll be going. I may take a day trip or two while here, my nieces and nephew want to go for a drive.

Alan
 
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