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Hawkrod 'RoadKill' Cross Country Trip 2022

HawkRod

Formerly hsorman
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Location
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So some of you may have seen me mention a cross country trip in some of my posts. I did a cross country trip in my 70 Road Runner in 2015. I tried to do another in 2020 and 2021 but Covid and other things stood in the way.

May 2nd, 2022 my buddy Barry and I are doing another cross country trip! We plan to drive for two months. As before, we will post pictures as we go along and hope to meet up with some members along the way!

History:
I always wanted to drive a classic car across country. In 2014 - 2015 I restored this
20111124_1001.JPG

to this
20171028_165548.jpg

and drove it across country in September of 2015.

For those who may be interested, those threads are on FBBO. Here is the restoration thread for my 1970 Road Runner
https://www.forbbodiesonly.com/moparforum/threads/hawk-rod-the-restoration.65096/

Here is the cross country trip thread
https://www.forbbodiesonly.com/moparforum/threads/hawks-cross-country-70-road-runner-trip.97639/

Trip Plans 2022
For this year, we will drive my 1973 Road Runner
20210905_142423.jpg


I bought this car in 1981, budget 'restored' it in the early 90's, and then my son daily drove it for 7 years through high school and college until it threw a rod out the side of the block.

I am working on prepping it to make it across country. It is a bit of a beater, so I have taken to calling the car my 'RoadKill Runner'. If interested, here is the work I have done on the car to get it ready for the trip.
https://www.forbbodiesonly.com/mopa...-hawk-rod-resurrection-roadkill-style.213411/

Next Post: Some initial trip details
 
Initial Trip Details

Similar to the 2015 trip, we actually don't want to plan too much. A rough outline is we plan to:
  • Drive South West from Pennsylvania, generally following the Appalachian mountains through Virginia/ West Virginia, and Tennessee.
  • We may touch on North West Georgia, but will make our way through Alabama and Mississippi towards New Orleans.
  • From New Orleans we will travel West, towards mid to Southern California.
  • We will then travel up towards Portland, OR
  • From Portland, OR, we will again travel East and head back along the more Northerly states like Montana, Wyoming, Dakotas, etc.
We will have a few key dates for our trip
  • 02 May 2022. Depart From Lansdale, PA
  • 03 June 2022. Barry to fly home for a wedding and my wife will fly in and replace him for a few days. This will likely be in Sacramento.
  • 7 June 2022. Wife and Barry swap places in Portland, OR. We will also be joined for a bit by my neighbor Matt who will travel with us.
In general, however, we will travel without too many plans and "make it up as we go along". Plus, who knows if we have to deal with mechanical issues along the way?!?

This thread will be dedicated to trip discussions, pictures, plans, etc. Hope you folks want to follow along!
 
Do it. I kind of did a trip like this from Columbus, Ohio to Bothell, Washington then back to North Dakota in 2006. I did it solo and was lucky enough to sleep in my old truck. Technically, I did two trips like this in 2006. The other one I drove from south of Los Angeles to Washington then from there to Indiana.
 
So some of you may have seen me mention a cross country trip in some of my posts. I did a cross country trip in my 70 Road Runner in 2015. I tried to do another in 2020 and 2021 but Covid and other things stood in the way.

May 2nd, 2022 my buddy Barry and I are doing another cross country trip! We plan to drive for two months. As before, we will post pictures as we go along and hope to meet up with some members along the way!

History:
I always wanted to drive a classic car across country. In 2014 - 2015 I restored this
View attachment 1264343
to this



View attachment 1264345
and drove it across country in September of 2015.

For those who may be interested, those threads are on FBBO. Here is the restoration thread for my 1970 Road Runner
https://www.forbbodiesonly.com/moparforum/threads/hawk-rod-the-restoration.65096/

Here is the cross country trip thread
https://www.forbbodiesonly.com/moparforum/threads/hawks-cross-country-70-road-runner-trip.97639/

Trip Plans 2022
For this year, we will drive my 1973 Road Runner
View attachment 1264347

I bought this car in 1981, budget 'restored' it in the early 90's, and then my son daily drove it for 7 years through high school and college until it threw a rod out the side of the block.

I am working on prepping it to make it across country. It is a bit of a beater, so I have taken to calling the car my 'RoadKill Runner'. If interested, here is the work I have done on the car to get it ready for the trip.
https://www.forbbodiesonly.com/mopa...-hawk-rod-resurrection-roadkill-style.213411/

Next Post: Some initial trip details


Can we get this thread pinned to the top?
 
Godspeed, watching progress. Plan on making a trip to South Carolina and back to Pa in June with my '68 Charger.
 
Looks like a lot of fun. I have driven all over the West multiple times. I read through your other trip in an effort not to repeat anything you have already seen. My suggestions:

If you are not in a hurry in CA/OR, drive up 1 from Frisco to Astoria OR. It's slow, but well worth the time. This leg alone will make the trip. There really is not much to see on 5 in most of CA except miles and miles of orchards (actually pretty eye-opening, ....just repetitive). 5 in northern CA and southern OR is a little more interesting due to the mountains, but nothing compared to Hwy 1.

When you head out of Portland go up the Columbia River Gorge on either of 84 (fast route)or 14 (slow route). If you take 14, the Stonehenge replica in Maryhill WA is a cool lookout and photo op.

Bring no-doze for most of E. WA or OR (except Blue Mtns), and MT, but enjoy the 80mph speed limit when you hit ID. If you are into racing, heading south to Bonneville Salt Flats and checking out Salt Lake City is a more interesting than MT.... but it depends on what else you might want to see. In general, 90 across the top of the US is 99% huge open grasslands. Not much to see from the Rockies all the way to the Dakotas.

Have a great time!
 
You can just drive right out there....

B_SaltFlat1.JPG
 
@HawkRod I'm very interested in watching this thread. I have thoughts of doing the same thing but my 15 Challenger has better seats, A/C, a better sound system and uses half the gas that my 74 Challenger does. Do you just stay in hotels each night? Is there anywhere along the way that the gas stations get a little far apart? I can do 200 miles with my 74 on a tank full.
 
Looks like a lot of fun. I have driven all over the West multiple times. I read through your other trip in an effort not to repeat anything you have already seen. My suggestions:

If you are not in a hurry in CA/OR, drive up 1 from Frisco to Astoria OR. It's slow, but well worth the time. This leg alone will make the trip. There really is not much to see on 5 in most of CA except miles and miles of orchards (actually pretty eye-opening, ....just repetitive). 5 in northern CA and southern OR is a little more interesting due to the mountains, but nothing compared to Hwy 1.

When you head out of Portland go up the Columbia River Gorge on either of 84 (fast route)or 14 (slow route). If you take 14, the Stonehenge replica in Maryhill WA is a cool lookout and photo op.

Bring no-doze for most of E. WA or OR (except Blue Mtns), and MT, but enjoy the 80mph speed limit when you hit ID. If you are into racing, heading south to Bonneville Salt Flats and checking out Salt Lake City is a more interesting than MT.... but it depends on what else you might want to see. In general, 90 across the top of the US is 99% huge open grasslands. Not much to see from the Rockies all the way to the Dakotas.

Have a great time!
THANK YOU! This is awesome and I definitely appreciate the tips - we will fold these into our trip planning. This part of the trip will be a bit more limited time wise, but I have loved driving between Morrow Bay and San Francisco on Route 1. We may meet some friends around Lake Tahoe (they are doing a charity bike ride on June 5th). So we will likely leave from the Tahoe region some time Saturday June 4th and find a route to head up to Portland. Since I will have my wife with me, camping will be out of the question. Are there decent places to stop for the night on the way up to Astoria?

@HawkRod I'm very interested in watching this thread. I have thoughts of doing the same thing but my 15 Challenger has better seats, A/C, a better sound system and uses half the gas that my 74 Challenger does. Do you just stay in hotels each night? Is there anywhere along the way that the gas stations get a little far apart? I can do 200 miles with my 74 on a tank full.
Sure, I have my truck or other cars which would be much more comfortable for a long trip. For me though, the key is driving an old classic car. It attracts people and you get a chance to meet lots of great folks during the trip. That simply doesn't happen with a modern day vehicle.

As far as night time: On our last trip, we stayed in camp grounds 9 out of the nights. The rest of the time we stopped at clean, reasonably priced motels. Only once did we struggle to find a decent hotel (due to some kind of conference in the area). This time, we would like to camp out more frequently. So most times when the weather is good we will try to camp. We have camping gear with us, and we always have food and (ahem) an adult beverage or two so we are always ready for a night if we suddenly need to stop somewhere.

Finally, with gas. Last time, we never had an issue with gas and not finding a gas station. We did use care and filled up early to plan for long stretches, but it was never a problem. Also, I have added an overdrive that will help my mileage a little bit. Of course, this is probably offset by the 416 cubic inch stroker 340, but oh well... :D
 
No problem finding gas in CA, affording it is another story.
True. With the Road Runner's poor gas mileage I may need to sell off pieces to afford the gas - maybe I'll be driving a smoking 2 bbl 318 by the time I get through the trip!
 
Since I will have my wife with me, camping will be out of the question. Are there decent places to stop for the night on the way up to Astoria?

A lot of the coast on 1 Frisco to Astoria is fairly rural and the places to stay are more limited than inland. There are no Large cities on the coast N. of Frisco which is actually one of the attractions! There are, however, 7 or 8 towns with good accomodations (Crescent City, Eurkea is good sized, Newport, Florence, Coos Bay.....) and many other smaller places. Since you will be going in June you should be ok to wing it a bit, ....depending on how adventurous you are. OR beach towns are busiest in July-Aug. The OR beaches are gorgeous... you won't want to drive off too soon.

Believe me: Plan to spend some time on 1 and make up for it blowing through ID and MT at 90mph stopping only for gas and pee breaks. Your spouse will be happy with that plan too.
 
A lot of the coast on 1 Frisco to Astoria is fairly rural and the places to stay are more limited than inland. There are no Large cities on the coast N. of Frisco which is actually one of the attractions! There are, however, 7 or 8 towns with good accomodations (Crescent City, Eurkea is good sized, Newport, Florence, Coos Bay.....) and many other smaller places. Since you will be going in June you should be ok to wing it a bit, ....depending on how adventurous you are. OR beach towns are busiest in July-Aug. The OR beaches are gorgeous... you won't want to drive off too soon.

Believe me: Plan to spend some time on 1 and make up for it blowing through ID and MT at 90mph stopping only for gas and pee breaks. Your spouse will be happy with that plan too.
Awesome - great advice. Thanks!!!
 
I very much look forward to following along vicariously to your journey Hawk!
Godspeed and good luck, sir. :thumbsup:
 
Leaving here in 1980 pulling a hard top camper going to Medford OR for a course regarding work, then going down 1 to LA was great. Back up through Vegas and 5 to home. Little over a month, 10 year old and 5 year old learned a lot of Dr. Hook tunes. Forgot June 26th followed snow plows on the highway to the skyway after Watertown Park.
 
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