18,168 km - Thumbs up after 10,000 km

You know you’re in trouble when you start fast-forwarding your own iPod. Time to call it quits.

It was at a rest stop in Ohio, where both the traffic and the driving standards were the worst I’d seen, that I figured out times and distances and decided I could make it home in one shot. And, as always, the Accent didn’t let me down.

I’d had a conversation in the morning with the server at a diner outside Nashville where I’d had breakfast:

“Where you headed, hon?”

Toronto.

“In that little thing? Where you comin’ from?”

L.A.

“In THAT dinky little thing? Let me get you more coffee.”

Hey, don’t call my car little (no, I didn’t say that to her). It’s physically just not bloated. And don’t anyone ever call it cheap. You can say it doesn’t cost very much.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve grown very fond of this diminutive but big-hearted critter. It’s uncomplainingly done everything I’ve asked – taken me over mountains, through deserts where the temperature topped 40, and into the thick of Los Angeles traffic and out the other side. All the while, sipping gasoline with the delicacy of my supposedly teetotal grandmother when she nipped at the whisky flask she carried “just for my health, you know.”

As a climax to the trip, it cheerfully carried me on a 15-1/2 hour, 1,472.5-kilometre marathon to get me home right on midnight. And when I looked out of the window this morning, it hadn’t turned into a pumpkin.

A couple of weeks ago, it took two interrogative hours to get across the border at Sarnia into the United States.

It took me two minutes to get back into Canada over the Ambassador bridge linking Detroit and Windsor. It would have been less if the Canada Customs agent hadn’t been so interested in the Accent. She’s in the market for a new car and this one is now high on her list of possibilities. She even said she’d look up the blog.

So if she IS reading this: Hi!

I’ve discovered that the Stromberg 97 carburetor coffee mug I bought in L.A. is not great for drinking coffee. To start with, you need a long spoon to stir it. It looks good but for once that’s not enough. It’s going on a shelf.

By my reckoning, I’ve driven 10,005 kilometres. I’d hate to make a guess at the average gas mileage. But 6.6 litres per kilometres on the highway was what I came to expect if I didn’t have the air conditioning on.

All that remains now is to fill the tank one more time, say “yes” to the optional car wash and turn the Accent back in.

I will absolutely miss this car. I’m very fond of my Subaru Outback but Hyundai has a gem here and I’d buy one in a heartbeat. I never once climbed out of the driver’s seat feeling fatigued.

Finally, a reminder that everything goes in circles. I just went outside and I have another freakin’ $30 ticket for parking overnight on my street without a permit.

This is where we came in.

17,611 km - Empty in Nashville

Nashville was out of gas. Almost literally.

After more than 2,700 kilometres on Interstate 80, I was more than ready for the sign directing me to I-65 north. The Accent’s gas gauge was nearing empty so I pulled off only to find four gas stations – all dry.

I didn’t know when the next chance to fill up would be so I back-tracked eight kilometres to the previous off-ramp. Two stations were deserted and there was a long line-up at the third. I joined it and paid 40 cents a gallon – $4.25 – over the usual price.

“Pure gouging,” the station owner agreed cheerfully as he directed traffic.

The blame was being put on Hurricane Ike the previous week which reportedly shut down a bunch of oil refineries. But it seemed odd that only Nashville was affected. I’d had no trouble finding gas the previous day and, once I’d crossed in Kentucky not too far up the road, there was fuel in abundance.

The Texan at the next pump declared it bull. . . feathers. Hear, hear. But, as always in this kind of situation, we all bonded as we waited and exchanged stories about limping in on fumes. The two women ahead of me were from Kitchener and had driven as far as Bowling Green, Kentucky, when one of them realized she’d left her purse in Nashville. They weren’t happy but they smiled anyway.

The station didn’t have anything but regular – which was fine – and the pump was sloooooow. It didn’t shut itself off either when the tank was full so I got an expensive half litre on my foot before I noticed.

As I went from I-80 to I-65, I got too close for comfort to Nashville’s dumbest traffic cop. He was sitting on the shoulder and, as the fairly heavy traffic sorted itself out, suddenly shot into the middle lane and sat there, lights flashing, at 40 km/h.

Everyone slammed on their brakes to see what he’d do. He picked out a Mustang in the left lane – who didn’t seem to be doing anything, certainly not speeding – and shepherded him back to the right shoulder. More hard braking. If there’d been a pileup, the cop would have been to blame.

More heavy police action north of Nashville, including a couple of drug taskforce SUVs pulling people over.

No need for air-conditioning now with fall, newly hatched, already painting the first of the leaves. The morning sun glowing through a shroud of mist made a picture I’d love to see someone paint.

I drove by the Corvette museum in Bowling Green without a second glance. ’Vettes have never done it for me, with the possible exception of Jim’s daughter Olivia’s customized ’03 model.

As I got close to Cincinnati, I spun the radio dial but there was no sign of WKRP. The traffic between Cincy and Dayton, though, was like the 400 between Toronto and Barrie on a bad day.

Ohio, I have to say, threw the worst traffic and the most ill-mannered drivers of the trip at me. They seemed to take the smallness of the Accent, and the fact that it was running with the best of them, personally. Or maybe they just tailgate everyone.

Did I want another day of this? I pulled into a rest stop – that’s the mileage figure at the top of this blog – to do some thinking. . .

16,695 km - Off beaten path into land that time forgot

Yes, they DO still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse. . .

That’s a line from an old Merle Haggard country ’n’ western hit, “I’m Proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,” one of the all-time great anthems to unalloyed redneck pride. Other lines include: “We like livin’ right and bein’ free." . . . “white lightnin’s still the biggest thrill of all.”

So, in keeping with what I said yesterday about doing my own kind of sightseeing, when I saw a sign on Interstate 40 for Muskogee, I decided to go and see for myself.

I t’s about 35 kilometres along the Muskogee Turnpike, $1.25 each way – money well spent. Not that it’s a town of any great distinction, though the Ed Edmondson United States Courthouse is a handsome edifice (it makes the flag seem a little puny). But you don’t get the chance every day to chase down a cultural reference. I just wish some enterprising store owner had thought to stock “Muskogee Pride” T-shirts. I’d be wearing one right now.

Right across the street from the court is Charles Smith Bail Bonds: “We Never Sleep.” I wonder if he pays extra for the location.

I’m sure there’s another cultural reference in the star-spangled guitar outside the municipal building, with the words: “Serving with Pride, Those Who Proudly Served,” but I couldn’t find out what it was. I couldn’t even find someone to tell me how to get back to the turnpike.

The mail carrier outside the courthouse sent me the wrong way and then the clerk at a gas station put me even farther astray. I had to figure it out for myself. The one police car I saw – “To Serve and Protect;” same motto as the Toronto police – was moving too fast for me to flag him down and ask.

Muskogee more than made up for a dubious start to the day. It was very misty and I was chased out of Oklahoma City along the Freedom Freeway by black rain clouds that never quite caught up. Had the weather looked more promising I’d have stopped at Tinker Air Force Base for a closer look at their tremendous line-up of historic bombers, from World War II on up. And to ask why the base is named after one of my cats. It’s not very martial-sounding.

I’ve fallen into a frustrating pattern of hitting big-city limits right on rush hour. At the Arkansas/Tennessee state line, I came across a bridge of green girders over the Mississippi (better than the sad concrete span linking Illinois and Iowa) and suddenly I was in the thick of Memphis evening traffic. The Tennessee highway patrol has some unmarked black SUVs with blacked-out windows. Highly sinister.

The Accent’s mileage held steady (no air conditioning) at around 6.8 litres per 100 klicks. In fact, the second tank of the day seemed to be doing a little better; probably 6.7 or even 6.6. I’m in Jackson, Tennessee, for the night. The desk clerk was watching the Andy Griffith Show on TV, which seemed a little bit of a southern cliché.

Tomorrow, I’ll finally be getting off I-40, just short of Nashville, and on to 1-75 toward Louisville, Kentucky, and starting the long northward slog. The homing instinct is kicking in.

About 1,500 kilometres to go. Two more sleeps. . .

15,688 km - Highway route interesting. Really!

Billy the Kid isn’t going anywhere. So I can see his grave another time. I almost made a side trip to Fort Sumner to see his last resting place but it would have added close to two hours to my day and I was anxious to get as far as Oklahoma City.

If I do any “organized” sightseeing on this trip, it’ll be in the next day or so – Memphis and/or the Shiloh Civil War battlefield. I’m interested in both.

But not terribly optimistic. Places that get a lot of visitors often are reduced to little more than a serious of sales opportunities, which is what many visitors want. I did a travel story once that involved an 8-day bus tour (I think I was being punished for something) of New Mexico. We saw great wonders but most of the people on the bus looked first for a gift-shop. Why look at a place when you can buy something emblazoned with its name?

So Mark Richardson and I have had very different trips – apart from the number of wheels that are carrying us. He’s been taking back roads and making detours to look at things. I’m sticking to the highways and have found them to be both quite rewarding and quite surprising in what they’ve shown me.

The late CBS journalist Charles Kuralt was absolutely wrong when he said: “Thanks to the interstate highway system, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything.”

Today, for instance, crossing New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle into Oklahoma, I’ve seen:

* A sign for the Continental Divide, separating the Pacific and Atlantic watersheds. I don’t suppose the Divide itself offered much to look at, other than a T-shirt store.

* A casino that offered “chops and eggs” for $5.95; hourly day-care for gamblers’ children; cash incentives to get truck drivers to visit; and “the loosest slots in New Mexico.” That’s almost on a par with the places in Las Vegas that give you a free breakfast if you cash your welfare cheque there.

* A shocking (in more ways than one) pink Camaro. Bad choice, feller.

* A motor-home towing, not a car or an SUV (very common) but the wreckage of a car. Someone will have a tale to tell when he or she gets home.

* A restaurant offering fried rattlesnake (I’ve had fried snake; it’s much better than it sounds, if somewhat bony). Or you can have a 72-ounce (4-kilogram) steak – free. All you have to do is eat it at one sitting without help.

* Elk City, Oklahoma, which proudly proclaims itself the birthplace of Susan Powell, Miss America 1981. Nothing much seems to have happened there since. But, by coincidence, I covered the 1981 Miss America pageant and I’ve met her! I don’t suppose she remembers so I didn't stop to look her up.

* A junkyard with a lineup of ’30s through ’60s cars, some of which looked salvageable.

* Outside Weatherford, Oklahoma (home of Thomas Stafford, one of only 24 astronauts to have been to the moon), a semi-trailer on the shoulder with a pair of wheels denuded of rubber. It’s not uncommon to see retread tires that have come apart on the highway lying there like dead snakes. But I’ve never been a couple of hundred metres behind a truck that had two tires disintegrate and had to swerve around the still-smouldering gobbets of rubber. A new experience. Not to be repeated, I hope.

* A transport truck with a proselytizing message on the back.

Okay, so none of this is the Grand Canyon (been there, done that last year so I ignored the signs for that today, too) or even Billy the Kid’s grave. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I had a fine time. I liked the junkyard enough to leave the highway and double back for a closer look.

On a more mundane note, I kept the air conditioner off as much as possible. What a difference that makes to the gas mileage. About 6.8 litres per 100 kilometres today. I’ve also just found a web site – www.convert-me.com/en/convert/fuel – that puts miles per gallon into litres per 100-k, and vice-versa. Very cool.

14,589 km - U.S. Southwest hard on the Buzz Bomb

Ouch!

North Hollywood bit me just as I was about to leave.

Bit the Accent, anyway. Last night, when I filled the tank so I could get an early getaway today, there wasn’t a mark on it. This morning, when I went to pack my stuff in the trunk, there was a big scrape on the offside rear wheel arch where someone either parking, pulling out or passing misjudged completely.

There’s no dent and I don’t suppose it’ll take much fixing. It’s really annoying, though. The only comfort I can take is that I didn’t do it. I’d never hear the last from Jim if I had.

Anyway, in the immortal words of Jack Kerouac, “Well, lackadaddy, I was on the road again.” But not without taking a picture of the car with the big Hollywood sign in the background. I’m SUCH a tourist.

Driving into L.A. is daunting – making your way from one freeway to another and ensuring you don’t miss your final exit. And this in the face of don’t-give-an-inch traffic that all seems to know exactly where it’s going.

Leaving is less so. You’re seldom more than a few blocks from an on-ramp and you can then skip from one freeway to another until you hit the one you want to take you out of town. In my case it’s Interstate 15 to Barstow and then on to the start of I-40 which would, if I so wished, take me 4,110 kilometres to Wilmington, North Carolina. Thanks, but Memphis will do.

Across the state line at Needles and into Arizona and a change of time zones. These are acting against me on the return trip. Coming out here, I picked up an hour a day. Now I lose an hour. But I made it to Gallup, New Mexico.

Fuel consumption to Needles took a beating – it’s uphill pretty much all the way, I had the air-conditioner on and I was pushing the Accent along at between 130 and 140 km/h all the way. I was getting no better than 7.7 litres per 100 kilometres. From Needles to Gallup, though, it fell to about 7 litres per 100 klicks.

Passing trucks don’t much bother the car but there were some hefty crosswinds blowing from the south that once in a while gusted strongly enough to make themselves felt.

For 100 or so kilometres, we ran in convoy with a Porsche – honestly – from Quebec, before he peeled off toward Phoenix. Obviously, he wasn’t trying. There again, nor were we.

The buzz-bomb effect is back. I don’t so much notice it in the car as at the end of the day. For a while my whole body feel as if it’s vibrating. Maybe there’s a way to market the effect – the All-New Accent Audio Massage. . .

13,617 km - Cruisers getting old like their cars

Ah, La-La-Land. We went out for breakfast in Studio City this morning and standing in line to order was a guy in full Johnny Depp “Pirates of the Caribbean” getup. No one but me gave him a second glance.

We headed over to Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank (aren’t you proud of me for not saying “Beautiful downtown. . .”) for the burger joint’s weekly Friday night hot rod cruise. Even at 3:30 p.m., the prime spots in the parking lot were all taken and we couldn’t slot the Accent in next to anything wildly exotic.

The machinery may be sexy but a lot of the guys are getting old. I don’t remember the last time I saw so many big guts and bad hairpieces and smelled so much cheap cologne. I guess they put all their money into the cars.

Modest as the Hyundai is, the Ontario plates did draw one or two second looks. No one took any pictures, though.

I’ve been looking twice all week at the swoopy streamlined buses that run on a dedicated “busway” between Universal City and Woodland Hills, about 25 kilometres. With their elegant lines and shrouded rear wheels, they wouldn’t look out of place at Bob’s Big Boy. Except they wouldn’t fit.

I’ll be hitting the highway north and then east first thing tomorrow, trying to make Gallup, New Mexico by nightfall, so I treated the Accent to an oil change. It seemed like a good idea. I’ve put more than 5,000 kilometres on the clock so far, probably with as much again to come before I get home. I'm gassed up and all set to go. Mileage around the city has been about 8 litres per 100 kilometres. No complaints.

Meanwhile, something just occurred to me: Art Arfons’ Green Monster land-speed-record car is actually red, white and blue. I’m a trained observer but sometimes it takes a little while to kick in.

13,559 km - California Nash Metropolitan graveyard?

We took the Accent off-road today (relax, guys – no rough stuff), driving to Vasquez Rocks Park at Agua Dulce. It’s a mountainous/desert area where a lot of old westerns and at least one episode of Star Trek were shot – Captain Kirk stumbling over the rocks on an “alien planet.” But it’s still within Los Angeles and you can see the highway in the distance.

Along the way, we passed a spread with Texas longhorn cattle, the first I’ve ever seen.

Jim distinguished himself by falling backwards into a bush. If the picture’s a bit blurred it’s because I was trying not to laugh out loud.

We came back across the hills, probably the steepest climb the car has faced. But it just hunkered down and did it, not even needing to drop down into second at any point. There are signs saying “Icy” as a warning that winter in southern California at this altitude can mean snow and ice. Hard to figure out gas mileage because the fill-up I got in Baker on my way here is only half drunk. So it’s doing pretty well.

Just around the corner from where Jim lives is a tiny museum/store dedicated to those pretty little Nash Metropolitans. There are half a dozen on display, including a prototype wagon version that never went into production.

There’s also a plague of El Caminos out here. The Chevy pickups – which, depending on the model year, can be the most elegant of trucks – are supposed to be rare. But in three days we’ve counted close to 40, from mint condition to “this mule is no longer fit to work.”

I’ve found a new gizmo to hold my GPS but it’s very clunky; a Rube Goldberg device that’s supposed to be “universal” but doesn’t really fit anything properly. I may go back to my green rubber band.

But for the moment, I’m doing laundry. Let’s see – four quarters for the wash, three for the dryer. . .

13,390 km - Accent goes Hollywood

Hollywood has many accents and today it had the Hyundai. We cruised Hollywood Blvd. and then parked and got out to look at all the sidewalk stars and the assorted freaks, weirdoes and examples of wretched architectural excess along the boulevard of broken dreams.

We may even have starred in a little movie of our own. An L.A. Police Department cruiser stayed on our tail for longer than seemed necessary and then came alongside. The cop gave us a visual going over before he pulled away into the traffic.

I imagine it was the Ontario plate that sparked his interest. Jim tells me a lot of police cars have video cameras mounted in the grille so they can run an instantaneous computer check. Or maybe the guy was just captivated by the Accent which, though it has a lot of highway miles on it now, seems unnaturally clean. There are squished bugs here and there but no real grime.

We also took in the Petersen Automotive Museum but didn’t enjoy it as much as the Nethercutt Collection. That’s apart from the striking presence in the parking garage of Art Arfons’ jet-powered Green Monster landspeed-record car. Arfons held the world record three times, topping out at 576.533 m.p.h. (927.84 km/h). Sticking his ride next to a “speed limit 5 m.p.h.” sign seems like a needless comedown.

To cheer us up, I bought Jim and myself coffee mugs from the gift shop that are replicas of an old Stromberg carburetor. Jim thought at first it was modeled on a toilet and was inclined to be vulgar – something to the effect of, “My coffee’s not THAT bad.”

Actually, it is.

13, 321 km - Nethercutt museum sends heart aflutter

I just had what passes for me as a religious experience.

Instead of going to the drag racing museum, we went to see the Nethercutt Collection of more than 100 classic cars, dating back to the very early 20th century and including six Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance winners. It’s in the suburb of Sylmar.

First, we stopped in Covina to see Jim’s daughter Olivia and her gorgeous 2003 Corvette, with custom 19-inch wheels and Lamborghini-style doors. I suggested pink flames as the finishing touch and her eyes lit up at the thought. Jim's did not.

From there we drove across the stunning Art Deco bridge, part of the original Route 66, spanning the Arroyo Seco canyon.

Then on to the collection that was the life’s work of the late millionaire philanthropist J.B. Nethercutt – founder of the Merle Norman cosmetics empire – and his wife Dorothy. It’s an amazing assemblage of machinery. Amazing, too, to see how big many of these beasts are. There are also a couple of the forerunners of jukeboxes, including one that still works. You put in a nickel and it plays a violin. A real violin; a little masterpiece of engineering. The whole place is magnificent – though the somewhat garish carpet could use a talking to – and entrance is free.

Best of all for me, though, were the two old Hot Rod magazine cover cars – these were creations that I gaped at open-mouthed when I was 11 or 12 in England and buying rodding magazines wherever I could find them, never dreaming I’d one day see the cars in the flesh: Dick and Bob Pierson’s 1934 coupe that made 150 m.p.h. (240 km/h) runs at El Mirage dry lake six decades ago, and Bob McGee’s seminal “Deuce Hiboy” fenderless 1932 Ford roadster from the '50s.

If I do nothing else but laundry on this trip, I’ll still be a very happy man.

13,251 km - '67 Pontiac GTO ragtop - Woohoo!

Finally, I’ve found a fault with the Accent – you have to grope behind you to find the seatbelt. It’s a small thing but it’s been becoming more of an annoyance. I’m almost happy to have it, though – I was beginning to sound a bit Pollyanna-ish about the car.

It’s met its “cousin” – Jim’s ’67 Pontiac GTO ragtop, which is booked in early next month to be put back into running condition. It’s all there, though, and the 400-cubic-inch motor is looking good in the correct metallic blue paint with chrome rocker covers and air-cleaner.

Jim has put in a fatter front sway-bar and quicker-ratio steering box which he says transforms the handling. That’s when it’s up and running.

Even sitting dustily in the garage, though, it makes the Accent look like a snub-nosed runt. But the Hyundai makes far more efficient use of space.

Mark Richardson has caught up with me once again. And, before it even appeared on the website, he read my previous blog in the computer system and has upbraided me for spelling “tires” with a “y.”[Ed. note: "tyres" never made it into print, umm, until now.]

Ignorance of the law – and the Star stylebook – being no excuse, I guess I have to plead guilty as charged. But, in my own defence, I should plead that I was still a little drunk on Malibu sun and surf (and no, that’s NOT an exotic West Coast cocktail; it’s weather and water).

Today, I think we're going to pop out to the drag-racing museum at Pomona.