Things I wanna know before I kick the bucket!

[GHT]

Oh, no no no. I've never made the trip myself, but I've heard stories about Route 66 specifically regarding it's lack of maintenance.

Thanks for the heads up.

Something to consider before doing it in a vintage MG.
For daily driving, it's fine. Not for long-distant across the US.
I drove an MGB from San Antonio to LA.
I had to add a board to the gas pedal to prevent my right foot from cramping.
The piece of wood enabled me to rest part of my foot on the floor board.

The car broke down outside of El Paso. How much to fix it I asked. Water pump:$400, not including the labour charges.

Thank you both for the warning. The US road trip is just a fantasy, inspired as I said, by Billy Connolly.
What we will do if we have the time and money is to do a European run first, then when we are back home we would assess the reality of a US tour. At today's prices, it's about £3000 to ship and return a car from the UK to the US so a lot of thought has to go into it. And as for covering the possibility of a potential breakdown, I really am not one of those, so smitten by the letters MG, that I would risk travelling the entire distance in a vintage model.

 

[2jakes]

Thanks for the heads up.

Thank you both for the warning. The US road trip is just a fantasy, inspired as I said, by Billy Connolly.
What we will do if we have the time and money is to do a European run first, then when we are back home we would assess the reality of a US tour. At today's prices, it's about £3000 to ship and return a car from the UK to the US so a lot of thought has to go into it. And as for covering the possibility of a potential breakdown, I really am not one of those, so smitten by the letters MG, that I would risk travelling the entire distance in a vintage model.
View attachment 115982

That's great about doing the European tour first.
You will know how much the body can endure on long trips.
But realize that US tour may be different
in many aspects. Can you check with folks who have done the US tour?
It'll give you an idea of what to expect.
Good Luck!

 

[vitanola]

"I rather fancy recreating Billy Connolly's Route 66 road trip, the one he did on his three-wheeled-Harley, only I fancy doing it in a vintage MG."
View attachment 115929

Something to consider before doing it in a vintage MG.

View attachment 115925
.

One nice thing about is Flivver is isys lack of a water pump. More room between the pedals, too, and no accellerator, just a hand throttle.

Repairs and adjustments, though frequent, are easy and inexpensive.

35MPH is just about the.perfect speed for seeing the sights in the countryside.

 

[2jakes]

One nice thing about is Flivver is isys lack of a water pump. More room between the pedals, too, and no accellerator, just a hand throttle.

View attachment 115983

Repairs and adjustments, though frequent, are easy and inexpensive.

35MPH is just about the.perfect speed for seeing the sights in the countryside.

I'm a fan of 35MPH especially on my
'39 Ford Panel.
But the only area I can do this speed is
on the access roads.
Luckily I know where they are located
in my neck of the woods.

I know that touring the sights over
the country requires taking the freeways.
Not sure if I would feel comfortable doing
35 on the highway where the minimum speed is 55MPH and is 65-70MPH in most freeways.

 

[Zombie_61]

...I know that touring the sights over the country requires taking the freeways. Not sure if I would feel comfortable doing 35 on the highway where the minimum speed is 55MPH and is 65-70MPH in most freeways.

You definitely wouldn't feel comfortable doing that in southern California. Most people here treat driving laws and speed limits like suggestions rather than mandates.

 

[2jakes]

You definitely wouldn't feel comfortable doing that in southern California. Most people here treat driving laws and speed limits like suggestions rather than mandates.

Sad...but southern California is not the only place.

 

[1mach1]

Why do tolls exist on the most traveled interstate in the US, I-95? The south quit tolling 95 in the 80s, but it costs a fortune to travel north of Baltimore. Really? Tolls on a major interstate that creates massive delays on an already conjested highway? Come on.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In some cases it's because pre-existing turnpikes were simply absorbed into the Interstate systems. Our dear old Maine Turnpike opened in 1948, when Eisenhower was still a college president and "Interstate" was the name of a company that cleaned septic tanks.

 

[Zombie_61]

Why do tolls exist on the most traveled interstate in the US, I-95? The south quit tolling 95 in the 80s, but it costs a fortune to travel north of Baltimore. Really? Tolls on a major interstate that creates massive delays on an already conjested highway? Come on.

Hey, someone has to pad the retirement accounts for the Governors in Maine, and New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, and...

 

[tonyb]

That's absolutely true. I've lived in California, and I've visited various parts of the South, and it really did seem like I was visiting foreign countries -- in the South, especially, I was acutely aware at all times that I was "the other." I've never felt that just traveling around the Northeast. Even in Boston or New York I have that sense of being "home" that I don't have in other regions.

I think the real problem is when any one particular sub-America gets up on the platform and starts honking and quacking about how it's "the Real America." No particular region or group of people has any claim whatever to being "the Real America," because the reality that there is no one "Real America" is itself "the Real America."

I've touched the corners and made my way back across homeplate here in thelandofthefree on a few occasions, and did most of it from ground level, which beats the hell outta flying for conversing with the locals.

I felt more at home at the furthest reaches within these borders than I did on those occasions when I took that two-hour drive up to Vancouver. I'm an American. Ain't proud of it. Ain't ashamed. But I am indeed an American.

There's benefit to some in talking up the differences among us, making more of them than is really there, and having us looking upon the other with suspicion. These people are hardly patriots.

 

[Edward]

"Patriot" is a highly subjective term at best; ultimately, all state boundaries and identities are to some extent artificial. Interestingly, the concept of nationalism/patriotism/love of country distinctly post-dates the arrival of the nation state.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"This piece of dirt is better than that piece of dirt because I happen to be standing on it."

 

[2jakes]

"This piece of dirt is better than that piece of dirt because I happen to be standing on it."

Reminds me of this:

"This is my country, and I belong here!
Yes,...my dirt.
It's no good, but it's...it's mine, all mine."

Charlie Grapewin as grandpa in “Grapes of Wrath”. 1940

 

[Fading Fast]

France, for example, has a long history, many traditions and a culture that are different, than, say Germany's long history, traditions and culture. I can see how someone who grew up in one of those countries - again, just using those two countries as examples - perhaps their family has lived in one of those countries for five or six generations, would feel a genuine and defendable connect to, pride in and sense of community with their country.

How that manifests itself and what it means can go off in many directions (and leads to trouble here at FL with our no-politics policy), but I think it is not political - or a major tripwire - to say that I can understand why people feel special and warm - or angry and embittered - toward their country and how those feelings have defendable currency and aren't just empty emotions.

 

[2jakes]

^^^^^
I can relate to that aspect with regards
to pride for home/country that many workers which I come in contact at my
place of work talk about.

I usually am a "live & let live" or
"to each his own" type.

Although at one time after a stressful
and tiring day, I lost my patience
when I told them...
"If it's so great where you come from and you feel like the US sucks...
then what the "heck" are you doing here?"

I felt bad later for saying it but
at the time I was not in the mood
to hear it especially when it was
mentioned all the time.

 

[Zombie_61]

Reminds me of this:

"This is my country, and I belong here! Yes,...my dirt. It's no good, but it's...it's mine, all mine."
View attachment 116798
Charlie Grapewin as grandpa in “Grapes of Wrath”. 1940

 

[LizzieMaine]

 

[tonyb]

I've long maintained there is more than a whiff of mortality denial in our concepts of nationality and land ownership.

I got a taste of that recently when the sole offspring of my brother, who died in '07, and his wife, who shuffled off herself in '16, sold the house she grew up in and which her dad bought for next to nothing 43 years ago. That structure and the land on which it stands proved much more permanent (or, more accurately, less impermanent) than its occupants, so I attached to it because the people are gone. It's what's left. And now it's someone else's.

 

[TimeWarpWife]

I've long maintained there is more than a whiff of mortality denial in our concepts of nationality and land ownership.

I got a taste of that recently when the sole offspring of my brother, who died in '07, and his wife, who shuffled off herself in '16, sold the house she grew up in and which her dad bought for next to nothing 43 years ago. That structure and the land on which it stands proved much more permanent (or, more accurately, less impermanent) than its occupants, so I attached to it because the people are gone. It's what's left. And now it's someone else's.

I came to the realization over the last year that even though we "paid off" our mortgage, we're still renting our home from the county via real estate taxes. If we fail to pay the taxes, at some point our house would be sold to pay them. I find myself buying less stuff thanks to this little epiphany.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Ownership" of anything is a pleasant fiction we tell ourselves -- you come into the world naked, and you're leaving it the same way. Someone else is getting all your stuff, and eventually nobody will remember that you ever existed. The book of Ecclesiastes, right in there in the middle of the volume between Proverbs and the Song of Solomon, is an excellent philosophical rumination on the truth of that point. "All is vanity, and a striving after the wind. "