Road trip!

[35-709]

Getting Big Red ready to do a weeklong organized road rally (Freedom Road Rally) for stock or modified older cars, starting (this time) in Texarkana, Arkansas.  Leaving Vero Beach, FL this coming Thursday with two other "resto-mods", a '56 Chevy PU and a '39 Chevy PU (all of us members of the local AACA region), and meeting up with another local AACA friend out there in his '49 Chevy Fleetline coupe who is leaving tomorrow to do some other touring on the way. 
~ 2200 miles out and back and another 900 or so on the tour itself.  The kind of touring I enjoy and one of the reasons I built Big Red.  Should bring B.R.'s mileage up to about 37/38,000 since finished.  B.R. has never let me down or stranded, minor glitches now and then, but nothing that ever prevented him from getting me home no matter where we were.

The old boy has been everything I wanted or hoped he would be.  He has driven my wife and me in air conditioned comfort from Florida to the St. Augustine GN, the Boston GN, the Lake George, NY GN and the Washington, DC GN.  Big Red won 2nd place in Modified at the Washington show, not bad for a driver.  He has been to Indianapolis to see my great-grandson and then do the Frog Follies car show up that way (https://frogfollies.org/) on the way home.  Will also be doing the "Cruisin the Coast" rod run (https://cruisinthecoast.com/) next October, gotta do this stuff while I still can.

This will be the third Freedom Road Rally B.R. has been on, first was an Adirondacks tour, last year was Ohio which the organizer is repeating this year.  Missed the Branson, Missouri tour a couple of years ago. You all can check out the Freedom Road Rally at   www.freedomroadrally.com  Probably not too late to get on any of them except possibly the one coming up next week.  For those who like to drive your stock  Cadillacs, or resto-mods, these tours are great fun and learning experiences.

Big Red behind my '73 Caribou, now owned by my sister and brother-in-law, at the beginning of the Adirondack Road Rally.  The temporary signs on the side of the cars show us to be participants in the road rally.

[Carfreak]

Geoff,

Sounds like a fun time!  Drive safe and enjoy. 

Feel free to share pics when you are back home. 

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

G'day Geoff,

Nothing like a driving rally, and half the fun is getting there, no matter how far away it is.

Bruce.

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Big Red and I rolled into our driveway Saturday night (5/11) at 8PM.  60 cars in the rally and every stop was very interesting and informative.   A wonderful, no problems (for the bunch I was running with), trip. ~2880 miles, verified by two of our cars on the trip with electronic speedos/odometers.  Only 1 breakdown (not in our little group of 6); an engine fire in a Chevelle convertible with a very high performance engine.  It happened on start-up at the hotel we were at that night, it was quickly extinguished with little damage.  The owner had it trailered home and showed up the day after with another car – apparently he lived fairly close by.  Another fellow suffered some heart issues at another hotel and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, assume he made out OK but the rally was over for him.  There was nasty weather all around but fortunately we missed it all.  Light rain for a short time on a couple days early on but after that, sunny and hot.  BR developed a little growl in the rear on the way home, diagnosed this past Sunday morning as a right rear axle bearing, so both left and right side bearings will get changed this week.   
          I have always known that BR's odometer was off by 1/10th – after 1 measured mile it would read .9 but I never fussed with it because the original/restored speedometer was right on the money.  After this trip, the odo. read 2589 miles - doing the math -  it came up to 2876, in agreement with the other guys.  The total odometer miles showing now is 36,762 - again, doing the math, it comes up to 40,847 which is more in line, in my mind, with all of the trips BR has been on.  I am registered for Cruisin' the Coast in October and BR will be ready for that one.
         Showing the great unwashed what a '35 Cadillac looks like, even if it is not original underneath, many have no idea what it is.  Folks love it.