20,976 km - Accent on Niagara

I took the bus from Niagara to the hallowed halls at One Yonge today.

It’s been a long time since I’ve travelled down the highway in a coach bus, which is probably why , while I was en route Husband took great delight in texting me the lyrics to The Guess Who’s Bus Rider.

Hopped off the bus and hoofed it over to the Star (“Places to go, important people to meet”) where the Wheels bosses handed over the keys to the Accent and I turned right ‘round again and headed back to Niagara.

Made it back home in time to drive Youngest Son to hockey practice. While the Accent’s hatchback does have a fair bit of room, for easier access we flipped down half the back seat –- always a nice feature.

For the record though, the kid’s hockey sticks did not fit sideways in this car. And there’s always the small issue of odour when stowing hockey equipment in a hatchback -- the stink tends to permeate the entire car, which is why I prefer to use the pickup truck for hauling hockey players.

Youngest Son was immediately annoyed by the way-too-cheery seatbelt chime, and I agree, the thing goes on about three ding-dongs too long. Hey, it’s those little things that’ll drive ya nuts. And speaking of which... I have never ever bought a steering wheel cover before but that cold, hard, moulded plastic is just begging for one.

Okay, so, when I first stepped on the gas and shifted through the gears, I figured the little growl the car let out made it sound kind of sporty. “Sporty,” as in the “20-year-old driver zipping around town” definition of the word, which fits because this is a cute, little $10,000 car that I picture being driven by someone young and single.

But obviously I am neither, and granted I am a bit spoiled by my regular ride, but I’m not sure I can tolerate the loud, steady drone that envelopes the Accent once you hit the higher highway speeds.

Good gas mileage is one thing, but there’s also something to be said for a quiet ride.

18,261 km – Handover to Steve Bond

Took the GO train in from the burbs and picked up the long-term Accent at Star Central Command in downtown Toronto. Even though my 92 Cavalier is the only four-wheeled vehicle I’ve ever owned with an automatic transmission, it’s somewhat embarrassing that I can’t find reverse to even get the Hyundai out of the parking space.

Tried pushing down on the lever, and then pulling up before discovering the vinyl boot on the shift lever contains a ring. Pull up on the ring and we’re in reverse. So simple, even a motorcycle journalist can do it...eventually.

Back home in The Shwa and first impressions… tight little package, clutch is very light, steering is quite direct with no free play and, even with hands off on the 401 it doesn’t pull to either side. I can feel a bit of vibration through the wheel at (ahem) 401 ambient speeds but at 100 to 110 km/h, it’s smooth as a frog’s bottom. Lots of legroom and headroom for my 6-foot-3 frame and I haven’t even begun to play with the other seat adjustments yet.

Shoulder checking when changing lanes reveals pretty good visibility to the right but not much to the left as the side pillar is fairly thick and the widow small from the driver’s seat angle. Nice attention to detail in the turn signal switch – there’s a curved cutout that nicely accommodates a finger. Other controls seem fairly well placed and easy to figure out.

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.

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.

13,390 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.

13,236 km - Surf's up!

We just took the Accent surfing.

Not literally, of course, but to watch surfers off Malibu Beach. We ventured along Ventura Highway, too, as immortalized in song by the band America: “Ventura Highway in the sunshine, where the days are longer, the nights are stronger than moonshine. . .” Ah, they don’t write ’em like that any more.

But first I made Jim whimper. We drove from his place in North Hollywood along Topanga Canyon Blvd., which would be the perfect road for a competitive hill-climb – steep with S-bend after S-bend. Picture an Alpine road without the snow.

The Accent was happy enough to do it in fourth but there was no traffic so I dropped it into third and started to press on just a little bit. The car loved it, went where I pointed it and would happily have gone faster. Jim, on the other hand, hated it and would happily have gone slower. I tried to tell him I wasn’t even trying, just letting the Accent spread its wings a little and not even getting a chirp from the tires. But it’s hard to talk to someone who’s gone rigid in the shotgun seat.

The Malibu coastline is lovely. Pepperdine University is there and has a lovely display on its perfect lawn, though for tragic reasons. The 3,000 Stars and Stripes flags arrayed in rows memorialize the victims of the 9/11 attacks.

 

10,820 km - Midwest America under rain cloud

Did I say Denver? Not even close.

Well…. fairly close. I think about 250 kilometres. And I was pleased with the 1,100-plus klicks I racked up today, given that it rained all the way, sometimes torrentially. I didn’t see a whole lot of Iowa or Nebraska because of the weather.

I’m in North Platte right now about an hour’s drive from where I’ll get off Interstate-80, that shoots due west across the flatness of Nebraska, and on to I-76 starting to edge south. I should certainly get well into Utah on my next leg and I’m still aiming to make L.A. on Sunday.

I had an email from my friend Jim there, who says I missed my great opportunity when I was given the third degree at the U.S. border to utter Oscar Wilde’s famous (and probably apocryphal) line: “I have nothing to declare but my genius.”

Yeah, right. I would still have been there. Either that or back in Canada.

I’ve gone from liking the Accent to respecting it, too. When I’m in it, I now think of it as a small car. It’s perfectly happy at highway speeds – Nebraska’s limited is a sensible 120 km/h – and sits four-square even when a transport truck hammers by. It feels as solid as a rock.

It’s nice to have my iPod going with no one in the shotgun seat fast-forwarding every other tune and dissing my musical tastes. I’ll have that to come in L.A. Apropos Jim Kenzie’s remark that even Bentleys don’t come with the iPod hookup that’s standard in the Accent,  my wife says, “If I had a Bentley, I wouldn’t want the chauffeur listening to his Shuffle.”

Confession time. I stalled the car today. Just once, pulling up to the pumps at a gas station. I forgot to put the clutch in. But at least I’ve memorized which side the filler cap is on. There’s nothing less cool that driving in, getting out and then having to get back in and reposition the car.

I’m gassing up twice a day and the mileage seems to be holding steady at 6.6 or 6.7 litres per 100 kilometres. I haven’t needed the air-conditioning yet. Once I hit the desert, that’ll make a difference.

I filled up outside Des Moines. There was a sports bar next door with a monster-truck on display crushing a stock car.

That’s their idea of sport? Out back was a battered old British Austin Princess limo.

 

Nebraska announces itself but doesn’t welcome people driving in on I-80. The “people of Iowa” welcome you there, though, and their highway rest-stops have wireless internet. Along the road a piece, there was another sign, “We’re glad you’re here.” And another for a place called What Cheer.

That was after I’d left Illinois and crossed the muddy, misty Mississippi on an ugly concrete bridge, Surely such a river deserves better?

Another confession. Right as the odometer was clicking over to 10,000 kilometres, I was seized with the conviction that I’d left my laptop at the hotel, 2-1/2 hours behind me. It made no sense but there was nothing for it but to pull off and check. I hadn’t, of course.

When I was leaving the hotel in Ottawa, Illinois, a group of cyclists were preparing to start on the second-leg of a five-day ride for charity between Chicago and St. Louis. They were putting a brave face on the weather: “It’s better when it’s really wet than when it’s just sprinkling,” said one determinedly.

I liked the exchange between two of the others: “Are you a morning person?”

“It depends which morning.”

I know how he feels. I was behind the wheel by7:15 a.m. I expect the Accent’s as road-weary as I am.

Sleep well, buzz bomb.