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.

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, 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.