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

My open letter to BLIMPIE Sub & Sandwiches

Dear Blimpie,

I just wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know how much I enjoy your hoagies.

I live in the Los Angeles area, but originally from Northern New Jersey. So I was very happy to see that there were Blimpie shops out here. When I went to you store on Sunday I bought 7 large Blimpie Bests with all the trimmings for my friends to eat during the April 1st Mets game. They are also from New Jersey, and were surprised because they didn’t even think there was a shop out here.

The owners of the downtown store by the way, are awesome, very friendly and treated me like a VIP for traveling from the valley.

I would go more often, but the problem is the locations of the stores. I live in the North Hollywood/Burbank area of  L.A., and the closest shop to me is approx. 8 miles away. Now technically this would not be a bad thing, but that location is in the middle of Downtown Los Angeles, During the week it takes around 2 hours to get there and back, due to the horrendous L.A. traffic. Also the store is closed on the weekend and also closes at 3:30 pm during the week, because the area becomes empty after that, also next closest shop is in a Calabasas gas station 20 miles the other way.

My question to you guys is, “Why isn’t there a Blimpie in my area??”. There’s a Subway, on every block but they are horrible, and everyone out here knows it.

I live literally blocks from all the major studio, Universal, Warner Bros, and Disney, and this would be a perfect area for one of your stores. If you look up this area on your store map you’ll see it is just an empty space. Google my address and you will see what I mean.

Trust me, including myself, you would immediately have a following. People from this area that are from the Northern East Coast are always nostalgic for the food they left behind. Sorry to babble on so much but I think you should really consider opening up a shop that is convenient and near the film studios.

Example: There is a cheesesteak shop out here called “Philly’s Best” they are constantly packed with people from back east. They carry only Frank's Soda, Wise Products, and even the bread is from back East. They are the best cheesesteaks out here, and anyone that says they are not, usually means they are from the West Coast or they're idiots.

Sincerely,

Ed Stalter
originally from Coytesville NJ