Hawk's Cross Country 70 Road Runner Trip

[satman72]

I hope this thread inspires others to go on a road trip with the old Mopars.

 

[Midpenmopar]

 

[HawkRod]

We finally got our "bookend" picture with the car at the coast. Then we headed to San Francisco and drove the Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard Street and finally stopped by at Stu's house. What a great pleasure to meet Stu and his family. He is a true car guy with an AWESOME man cave!

Here are a few pictures:

Here are two of us with the car at the Pacific Ocean - We made it all the way across country!!! We have had almost no rain our entire trip, but when we came to the San Francisco area it rained in the morning and pretty well trashed the car again. Oh well, so it's dirty...




We then drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and snapped a couple of pictures:




Finally, although we was nervous about dealing with center city San Francisco Traffic, we figured we had to get a picture of the car on Lombard Street - so we did!






To top off the evening, we arrived at Stu's house (midpenmopar). What a gentleman and true car guy he is! He treated us to a great dinner, and we got to check out his Road Runner. Some really cool custom graphics on the car with a hand painted Road Runner too.


His garage is a "man cave" extraordinaire. WOW! Now I know what I need to aspire to do with mine. What a great place to hang out with friends - and we met some new ones this evening!



Finally, as you can see from Stu's pictures, he gave me a spare tire with a limelight painted rim that was left over from when he had his car. Very cool - although we still need to negotiate some on the price. Stu is trying to plan a car trip (maybe not cross country) so I will try to help him as much as I can.

Great time - THANK YOU Stu!

 

[Midpenmopar]

You are most welcome Hawk and the pleasure was all mine! What a fun time and thanks for the road trip book and the Rum ( Thanks to Dennis Harris too for that) Enjoy the spare tire and wheel ( as much as anyone can enjoy something like that. lol) Next trip out you get to take back home the used NASCAR slick too

 

[440+6]

Great achievement Hawk, I'm proud of you.

 

[440roadrunner]

This remains.................."COOL"

 

[hawkswife]

Just kidding! No lists waiting for you
You guys did it! The car made it! Although that's no surprise - over the years, I've learned that anything you and Barry put your minds to, you will complete... and it'll be done awesomely :toothy4:

 

[satman72]

Conratulations Hawk.

 

[tallhair]

I'm really sad it's coming to a close but look forward to the shipping the car pics and story and the after trip pics you weren't able to post Hawk

 

[zyzzyx]

Hawk and Barry, My Wife Jan and I congratulate you on your successful Cross Country Trip! Glad you had the time to do it, and glad we had a chance to meet you guys.You've been friends for a long time, and now you have something to remember for a long time. I'm having a beer right now and I'm toasting your friendship!Thank's for taking all of us on this great trip with you. I know it wasn't easy to post pic's after a long day on the road.

 

[NJRR]

Congrats Hawk!!! You achieved a trip of a lifetime and accomplished something most of us can only dream of. You've added something to all our lives by sharing it with your friends on FBBO. It's what makes this the best damned forum on the web !!!! Thank you.

 

[MT_Mopar]

Wow Hawk, that's awesome. I recall not long ago you were worried about maybe having to cancel the trip from your FAST debacle. Well, things sure worked out for the positive and you got to take your Mopar trip.

Very cool, looks like you had a blast and I am jealous you had so much fun. I am going to have to get away from my job and do something similar.

Thanks for sharing all the places you visited and the nice pics.

Fun!

 

[747mopar]

Congradulations hawk!!!!!!! Bet I can guess what the first thing you'll do to the RR when you get it home is.......... Enjoy and thanks for the cool trip.

 

[conv67bdere]

Very cool trip, and nicely documented with some great photos !

Thanks for letting us "enjoy" the trip with you vicariously ! ! !

 

[Hemirunner]

Great trip and great photos! So now do you just teleport home?:grin:

 

[Midpenmopar]

Hello Hawk, here's the art work i had done of my road runner and it looks very similar to yours!
Stu

.

 

[Darius]

So I went to Rich's house (Coronet Darter) this morning at 7am to meet Hawk and Barry. I couldn't let them get this close on such an epic trip and not go say hello.
Great guys and they held up nicely on the trip. The car is in really good condition also considering the final mileage tally was north of 5000!
Congrats to the two of them for making a plan and staying with it. A lifelong memory for sure!

 

[Riverdawg]

It's been such a pleasure being able to watch the thread and travel along on this cross country adventure. Thank you Hawk & Barry!!!

 

[HawkRod]

Great trip and great photos! So now do you just teleport home?:grin:

We have now safely teleported home! :grin: Actually, Rich (Coronetdarter) and Maria were kind enough to drive us to the airport and we flew home and arrived home around midnight. The car will be shipped back from their house.

Here are some pictures from the final day and morning of the flight:

As a final car picture, we had to get a shot of the car in front of an In-N-Out burger place. These don't exist in the East, so we needed to "document" that we had been by one of these as well!


Coronetdarter (Rich) and Maria were wonderful - just incredible people. They threw on a big slab of meat on the grill (how can you beat that?!?) and a couple of their car nut neighbors came over. Here are a few of us laughing over a beer (maybe we had just busted on Rich about his car here?!?). Rich is restoring his car, and it is coming along nicely. Like any true car guy, he has car parts all around his house. He also has a new Fuel Injection system that I am curious to see in action...


Darius was kind enough to come by in the morning before we left. He has such a cool car; it was fun to see it in person.


Notice 3 cool B-bodies in this picture!




So this officially concludes our epic trip. It is a bittersweet moment. It is sad because it is done, and the mess Barry and I will have coming back to work tomorrow will be rough. But it is sweet because we have had SO MANY cool experiences along the way. Besides the neat places we have seen, one of the best aspects has been all the wonderful support from FBBO members and their extended family. So many people have supported us in so many ways: Mark, Jeff, Steve, Paul, Bryan, Dennis, Stu, Rich - just to name a few; but then also so many providing support and encouragement just by replying to the thread. It was a bit of a pain sometimes keeping up with posting, especially with poor WiFi and/or busy schedules, but I hope you all enjoyed it.

In many ways, the entire FBBO community made this trip possible: First with knowledge and expertise to help me restore the car, then with fantastic support throughout the trip. It was truly comforting to know that there were a large group of FBBO members willing to help. When you are thousands of miles away from home with a car problem, trust me, you start feeling very lonely!

All in all, we traveled over 5,780 miles with the car. I will document how I liked various systems in my car in my restoration thread in the next week or so. Overall, I am extremely happy with how the car turned out.

I encourage other members to take their car for a drive. It doesn't have to be quite as extensive as mine was, but it is so much fun to actually drive and experience these cars. Give yourself an adventure and go for a few days! People thought I was crazy to take a beautifully restored car out and put almost 6000 miles on it, but it held up well. I also encourage continued FBBO support for those members who take these trips. Not only does it provide a support network, it is also a great way to meet some new friends. I know we made a lot of new friends on this trip!

THANK YOU FBBO!!!

Hawk and Barry

 

[Derwud]

What size t-shirt do you and Barry wear? I will make my way to the In-n-out store and get you a shirt with a Road Runner on it.. I will post a link in a minute..

- - - Updated - - -

https://shop.in-n-out.com/t-shirts/adult-collector-shirts/2007-looking-back.html

My favorite, Pasadena store (oldest In-n-Out now) and I like to think, that is my Charger in line.
https://shop.in-n-out.com/t-shirts/adult-collector-shirts/millennium-t-shirt.html