DAY 1 Solo Drive Spartanburg SC. to Los Angeles, CA

So as many of you know I drove the chase car for John Nikas (1953 Austin Healey) and Drive Away Cancer from Los Angeles to Spartanburg SC, last week. And while that was adventure in itself, I would like to write something about my interesting solo trip back to Los Angeles.


DAY 1: 848 Miles. - 8/15/2011

The first day on the road consisted of driving to meet John about an hour or so south of Spartanburg SC, on Rt. 26 to drop off the tools and spare parts for the Austin Healey in Columbia, SC. After that I jumped on Rt 20 west  (Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi) to Rt. 78 West to Memphis (Mississippi, Tennessee) to catch Rt. 40 West (Tennessee, Arkansas).

Rt 20 had two things that made the first leg bearable, first off I see a BLIMPIES sign, BINGO, one "Blimpies Best" to go please thank you very much.

Than I stop to get gas and the name of the station is S-Mart (Shop Smart Shop S-Mart)

Now I wonder if this name was around before 1991 when I worked on the movie "Army of Darkness" aka Evil Dead 3, that is the name of the same store that Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) worked at before he was sucked into a vortex back to the middle ages to battle demons and witches.

So now I leave with a smile on my face and hit the road, I then realize that Rt. 20 kinda goes more southern than I wanted to go, so I decide to cut up on Rt. 78, in Mississippi.

Now Rt, 78 begins as Rt 5, which is a highway full of stop lights, which sucks, but then it finally does open up. No one is on this highway except me, the stars,  and I saw a couple of shooting stars also. But this road is desolate, really really dark and kind off down right spooky. It's a 6 lane roadway and nothing there but me. I was waiting to see a Bigfoot, a Chupacabra, an alien or even a Ghostly Hitchhiker on the side of the road. Then this song comes on the radio, so a gunned it.

Finally I make it to Memphis and Rt. 40, ah civilization. I am now starting to get tired, so I sing whatever songs I can find on the radio, and believe or not on the whole trip they played nothing but Pink Floyd, The Who, The Doors, Rolling Stones, or some country song called "Remind Me", which is on constant rotation.

I finally made it into Arkansas and decided to call it a night. I went to look at a few Motel 6's around Little Rock, but you know the first area maybe iffy when you see gang bangers walking with a swagger, at 3 am. PASS. So went to the next one in town, I pull in and hear people screaming at each other and guys drinking forty's in the parking lot. hahaha PASS again.

Motel 6 in Conway, Arkansas

So I get back on the highway, check the GPS and up pops Conway, Arkansas. To which I head off to saying that I am tired and I'll stop there no matter what. I find the Motel 6 right off the highway, go to the clerk get a double bed room, for the price of a single, because they were fully booked. Well this might not be weird to me, but to some people it would have been, you see the clerk had a full size hand where his elbow should be. But he was very cool and friendly and let me know where to get anything I needed before I took off in the morning.

So after 14 or so hours on the road I got into my room, it was pretty , ehh no it wasn't, fell into an immediate deep sleep and still fully dressed.  In the morning walked to the car, didn't even realize that a Wal-Mart was right next door, and the parking lot was full already. I grabbed a Starbucks before hitting Rt. 40 and headed west.

Day 2: Coming Soon