So now onto the trip we took, we decided that instead of doing the Hot Rod Power Tour this year we would take our own trip with the main goal of making it to the Grand Canyon. Here is the group of cars:
So that is my cobra obviously, the '64 C10 was driven by my brothers in-laws who I've traveled with a few times in the past, Alex's '68 Mustang we did the engine install in this past winter, and the '63 Impala driven by a friend of the C10 owners. We wanted to mostly stick to Rt. 66 but had a tough time following it so drove on I-40 quite a bit as well. It was an 8 day trip total averaging 275 miles a day. The first night we stayed in Amarillo, Tx. and ate at The Big Texan. On the next days journey we stopped for a photo op at an old gas station:
That evening we stayed south of Albuquerque, NM at a town called Los Lunas, the next day was on to Winslow, Az after touring through the petrified forest. In Winslow we took the obligatory photo with the man on the corner and stayed at a cool renovated hotel as well:
The next day was onto the Grand Canyon:
Above is a partial panorama I took while standing here:
Shortly after we were almost struck by lightening while on the trail and was nearly drowned while driving. But we made it to our hotel in Tuba City, Az on the Navajo Nation. There was some pretty cool and unique scenery there as well:
The above was from when we turned to go toward 4 corners which is where the first photo came from. That night we stayed around Farmington, NM where we sampled some of the good brews at 3 Rivers Brewery which was the same place I stopped in 7 years ago on a work trip there, I still have the glass too.
The following day we passed over the Rio Grande Gorge which I hadn't seen before bit was pretty impressed:
After the Gorge we stopped in Taos for a minute and I took off to beat some rain and saw and drove on some amazing roads with wonderful views. The town of Red River, NM needs to be revisited, it looked very interesting and like a lot of fun. That night we stayed in Springer, NM where we found a couple other car fans and they wanted us to all cruise around town (pop. ~1,000):
That was the '56 Ford in front and a '27(?) Ford in the rear. The following day we saw tons of antelope as well as a herd of elk which were nice to see after seeing very little wildlife otherwise. Then we got into the Oklahoma panhandle which bored me to tears until we stopped in Slapout, Ok. where we met a couple of state troopers that were awesome and encouraged us to rev engines while they videoed for their kids and even posed for a photo with us.
It was a great trip all in all with only a few tuning issues due to altitude and one blown collector gasket due to the nuts falling off. All caught up now, back to the real world and work.
JB
