Gettin' our kicks... you know where

8/30:

Today we designated a “Cruise Day” – no destination, just a journey. We met up with Bryan’s longtime best friend Jack, who is currently battling cancer. We figured that a nice cruise would do him good. You see, Jack owns a brand new 2014 Corvette Stingray. And so it was that Jane and I found ourselves in very good company – the Roush and the Ray!

We took the back roads up to Globe, AZ – a little town with not much to speak of except the cool roads it takes to get in. Like I said, it was all about the journey. Jane did a pretty good job of keeping up with the two modern cars, even in the heat and up hills. Corners are always where I’ll catch people because I know Jane very well and so I’m very cognizant of exactly how fast I can take a curve. But in the straightaways… let’s face it, a brand new sports car has my vintage car (complete with lifter tick, ten tons of camping equipment, and far too retarded timing) a bit outclassed. That didn’t stop me from having some fun “floor it and go” moments on the highway with them though! I think it surprised them how well I kept up as they kept commenting on it. Bryan took some pictures / video of Jane and I but they are stuck on my phone for now - but I'm sure you all know that I was grinning ear to ear in every single one of those shots!

After eating lunch at the most disorganized Mexican restaurant I’ve ever been to in my life (it took a full hour and a half to get out the door – how is that even possible at a Mexican place?!) we took the same roads back and then stopped in Phoenix for a little bit of a photo shoot.

It’s always stricken me as odd how the dimensions of a vintage Mustang work. Beside some cars, the vintage ponies look tiny – take for example the modern Volkswagen Bug, which is inexplicably larger than Jane. But then put them next to another car and they’ll look huge! Even odder, different angles can make you perceive the car as much bigger or much smaller than the adjacent cars. I’m still not sure how that works but I’m sure it has something to do with the body lines and how they’re completely different from today’s cars. However it works, every picture I have of Jane with the other two cars creates a kind of weird optical illusion. 

After dropping Jack off in Mesa, Bryan and I had to go lengthwise across the entire city of Phoenix to get to his house on the west side. And my god, traffic was INSANE. Part of it was because it was the Friday right before a 3-day weekend, so everyone was leaving work and going on vacation. Part of it was because Phoenix is a gigantic city full of entirely too many people. Either way, Jane and I found ourselves mired in traffic so bad that it took us an hour to go 8 miles (at its worst), in 109*F temperatures! Talk about pressure to have a good cooling system. But I'm pleased to report that though I was cooking under the sun (again, no window tint), the A/C was able to stay on (thank god) and the cooling system didn't come anywhere close to overheating. It did creep up there in temps to about 215*F, but that's still quite a ways away from overheating and only 5 degrees above the upper limit of normal operating temperature. And so we sailed merrily past an overheated Miata parked under an overpass, and continued all the way home with no issues at all. I did have one offer on the car while stuck in traffic, but apparently my asking price of $100,000 was a bit too high. I'm of the opinion that a car like Jane who can handle it all is worth that price - but maybe that was just me being overjoyed about the lack of overheating.

Anyways, eventually we did finally get home and we spent the evening among friends in a nice air conditioned, shady building (which was really my only requirement for happiness at that point in time). Bryan and I had plans to cruise parts of old historic Route 66 in the morning so I didn't stay up too late. In Arizona (particularly Phoenix) in the summer, getting up early to beat the heat is essential (as I am now very aware of).

8/31:

Bryan and I took the cars back up towards Wickenburg and then headed up to Route 66 near Williams (this way we did a pretty decent job of beating the insane Labor Day traffic). There were some nice twisty roads along the way going into Prescott.  Of course I had made the mistake of telling Bryan that Jane could keep up with and even outcorner his Roush, so we got into a competition going up a mountain. And lo and behold, though his car could outrun me on the straightaways, Jane and I always caught him in the corners. Most of that is again because I trust my car and his is not so trustworthy (with a tendency to break the rear end loose and do 180's), but it was still pretty good to rub in his face (goodnaturedly, of course). My power steering pump was screaming the whole way up though for whatever reason, so I opted to keep it low key after we got to the top of the hill and had breakfast (chorizo and eggs, which I've never experienced before).

Some crazy Thoroughbred farm in the middle of the desert

He is actually from Williams, AZ so we stopped in town so he could show me around his old stomping grounds. One could almost say that we were looking to get our kicks... on 66 (ha!). Williams has the distinction of being the last town on old Route 66 before the swap to I-40. It was a really neat little place with lots of Route 66 memorabilia, so of course I had to get a static cling for Jane's windshield and a Christmas ornament for myself. We had some excellent root beer floats at Cruiser's, took some pictures with the old steam train, and headed on to Flagstaff via 66. It was really cool to be able to take so much of the old "Main Street USA", especially in my '66 Mustang! Lots of history made on that road.

Not period-correct: gas prices

I wanted to steal this decklid for Jane... really, what are the chances that someone would use a '65/'66 fastback decklid as a bench?!

Once we hit Flagstaff Bryan headed home and I stayed in town. His brother Chad owns a body shop and he opened it up to let me work on the brakes a bit. Sanded the glazing off of the rear drums and they were right as rain again! Well, more or less. Definitely more so than before. So that was good (having brakes is good).

Ended the day with a beautiful sunset over Flagstaff. Chad put me up for the night which was very kind of him! And I couldn't have asked for a much better two days of cruising. Had some awesome company, drove some awesome roads, and Jane was, of course, awesome. Tomorrow I will head on to Meteor Crater and then the Grand Canyon! Kelly signing out.