Martin's mi-STRESS, 1965 Long Fleetside C10 "Rebuild in ENGLAND"

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Bomp

Following along, glad to see your back at the build. Thanks for all the pics.
I may have missed it but what was the story on Aarons tatoo?

Martin said I needed to post the reply as I am the one with the photos and story telling.
I was also the one who asked about the tattoo and photographed it, because I am just like that

So in the simplest form of reducing a 15 minute, highly amusing story from Aaron......... Here goes.

Pitch fork Arrow.....

It was no15 on a list of things the world needs.

Aaron had received a 4 page letter with attached diagrams of 15 things the world needed, he ran through a few of them for us there in the shop.

He is a brilliant, and funny story teller.

So for instance number two on the list with engineers drawing attached was a Crystal pool ball, and a Lazer pointed pool stick. Thus you could see where your ball would hit the ball to be pocketed, making the game much more accurate.

The list went on and still he did no tell us exactly what the arrow meant.

At number 15 was this drawing of the Pitch Fork Arrow and it just got him right in the funny bone, so no real explanation, but if I recall correctly, it also featured on his Pikes Peak car. He had the tattoo done at some point and I am sure that for guys like me, it will always be another highlight of a good day spent with some amazingly nice and talented people.



I guess the final chapter of the story was when Aaron told us that the list and letter had actually been sent to to him by a registered, trained mental health nurse in the U.S.


The story was crazy but massively amusing.


Hope that helps for those who were interested.

[mjh1965]

Thanks Rian for posting

[Grizz1963]

I trust there are still a few of you around to watch the culmination of this trip.

We made it to our hotel late evening on the Monday, tired, really not in the mood for checking in with hassles and had to pay $100.00 deposit on our room at the Best Western outside Austin. This was the first and only time we had to pay a deposit on a room. Guess being foreigners was being held against us by the check in lady who was "American" with a heavy accent and no sense of humour.

Unpacked the car, crashed and had a good night compared to some of the nights to date.

Next morning it was breakfast and then we were off to Leander, outside of Austin to meet up with Bret Johnston another Chevy truck and multiple multi skilled guy.

He had made Nicola the most awesome turned wood rocket for Christmas last year.

Despite being a long way out of our way, Bret and wife Jennifer along with their kids were on our list of "Must do's" due to multiple shared hobbies and just because they are amazingly nice people. We had a load of Lego stuff to deliver as well.......

Before we left the hotel, I photographed a transporter with amongst other a Datsun 240Z and an early Trans Am.

I also saw this train and had to get a photo, to me it is quintessentially Texan.



We drove off through late morning traffic and both commented on how nice it would be to live around here. If only we had a job and prospects.

When we got to Bret's dads place where the family were living until their new home is completed, the first thing was swapping out prezzies, T-Shirts and Lego for Bret and his family, truck models and some super cool Hotwheels toys for Martin and I.

Then we had a cuppa English Tetleys tea, something we missed most days, seems we got Bret hooked on it as well.

His dad is an amazing engineer and artisan, so we looked at and were amazed at some of his engineering, the way his workshop was put together , clearly where Bret learned his skills from.

Then the first highlight of the day......... His dad's old truck that his sister had used to university till she got tired of it, now it had Bret's name on it.
Spotless, original...... Just gorgeous.



At this point my $100.00 indicator switchgear came out too, remember the part I ordered after buying the steering column from Clem?

And this reminded us that we needed to use some of Bret's dads tools, including the band saw to trim the packaging of the bed strips and side mouldings down to as close as possible to 2.0 meters. As that was the size of oversized baggage that was permitted on the plane.

So we proceeded to dismantle and cut down to size all the packaging and bracing.





Amazing how a Sawzall will make quick work of stuff.



once all that was done, we locked up and left for his mum in law Gladys' place some distance away.

There was more to do and see, seems this day was turning into yet another highlight.

So we drove out to where she lives. Love the entrances to American housing estates, where space is just not a problem.

This was parked on the same estate as his mum in law, Gladys lives.

Patina look on the outside, but all modern brutal business on the underside. Seems the owner has some other toys too.





That's a hood ornament.



Notice also the flying pig hanging from the rear view mirror.




We drove past many estates like this one with impressive entrances and open blue skies.




Anyway, we eventually made it to Bret's mum I laws home where Bret owns some of the garages. The main house had two massive garages, and then there was this bank of garages to the side that housed a load of cars, tools and some storage space.

Did I mention I would love to live in the USA successfully?

More in a while.

[flashed]

Im still here with you and looking forward to more .

[Ta2Don]

me too...

[dwcardfan]

Still hanging!!!

[Paul V]

Still here and reading and not jealous at all

[Palf70Step]

Waiting..........waiting..............waiting.............waiting......Come on Man........inpatient.

[53Sparky]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Waiting..........waiting..............waiting.............waiting......Come on Man........inpatient.

me too. me too!!! me too!

[Grizz1963]

Last night I did not have any photos of another part of our day.

Bret had taken his day off and swapped it out to be able to spend the day with us. Nice guy ehhh?

Anyway, from his dad's place we went via their new home that is being built right now.

It will have a nice sized family garage, and space for his woodwork machines and Jennifer's truck.

So Martin and I were walking about in the house, just amazed at how much value for money homes offer in the U.S. versus the U.K.


2015-10-10 11.31.04 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

2015-10-10 11.29.10 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

After a drive through the new neighbourhood to look at all the lovely different designs available, we took off for Bret's mum in laws place via Smokey Mo's Bar-B-Q where Bret treated us to some seriously mind expanding sandwiches and those massive gallon cups of drink.
I opted for a brisket wrap, actually the smallest one I could get and it was just a perfect for me. I have never eaten brisket that good.

It seems Mo has built up his chain of restaurants one shop at a time. And what a great job he has done.



Interestingly, a Ford Connect van as their delivery van.



I do not have a photo of the whole front of Bret's section of the garages, but suffice it to say, it is three times the size of a typical British terrace house.

Inside. There are signs of loyalties. The sort of thing I should maybe try make some time.



Awkward to get the size of these spaces into perspective.

The more we looked, the more we saw.



This road trip has been allowing us so much incredibly good quality time to spend with and getting to know good friends, establishing friendships that should stand the test of time.



While we were out in the garages, Gladys came home in her "Little car" a VW Tiguan.

After a while we went indoors to chat to her, and I found her in the kitchen with a dismantled electric chainsaw........ What a girl !!

She needed it fixed and rather than cry about it, she just got on with it.

Her dogs were all over us as well, so again it made my day.




Jay Bird, a work in progress.

This was after all a Chevy C10 road trip, so good to see another and all the work Bret has done on his full resto of this truck for Jennifer.





Last photo for now.........

This car belongs to Gladys and she wanted me to drive it when we went out later in the afternoon for a significantly long drive around the greater Austin area.

Bret spoiled me by taking me to a real Mom n Pop's shop. Something I really appreciated.

The car had been a gift from Galdys' late husband and she rarely uses it these days, but Bret looks after it.

So the question is.........

What is it??

[flashed]

Olds Omega ?
Still enjoying the trip .

[Palf70Step]

71/72 Cutlass?

Trip on Dude!

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

71/72 Cutlass?

Trip on Dude!

Get yourself a gallon of Diet Dr Pepper.



So we had lunch at Mo's Bar-B-Q and then headed out to our next stop.

The clue to the car wheel in the last photo was in the badge on the centre cap.

So this is what I found in the garage, parked up on the one end.



1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass.

350ci Oldsmobile engine with Edelbrock carb and intake.
Turbo 350 transmission.
Full Flowmaster exhaust system

It's an all original car 90,000 miles. Everything is stock on it.

So once I had declined to drive it, I actually wanted to sit in the rear and be driven around with the roof down, taking photos and looking at everything around me.
Thankfully Bret agreed to drive to his mum in laws disappointment.



We went for a long drive and Bret took us to a great old Skool Mom and Pop shop, selling everything from nuts n bolts to fertiliser and everything inbetween.

Parked up outside the store.

I love this view, and of course the number plate.





Coming to the store these BBQ's caught my eye.



Goods in and round the shop that caught my eyes.

Loads of ideas for stuff I can make in future.

I sooooo wanted to buy some of these signs, but of course we were overloaded with truck spares already.









We still had a dinner date with Bret's wife, Jennifer and the kids later in the day, so dragged ourselves away, back into the car and drove back, to get back into our boring rent-o-drive.

My back seat view.....

Another perfect day ???




Being in Austin, Texas, the football team choice had to be....






During the day we had started to discuss dinner, actually while eating at the Bar-B-Q restaurant.

The choice of restaurant was pretty easy........ Steak Please, I said.



We met Jennifer and the kids at Longhorn Restaurant.

Great food, beer and company.
Martin got to have his cake and eat it again..... Just how long had this birthday been going on??
I chose a T-Bone steak and fries plus a side salad that worked just right as veggies are in short supply in America.... Meat is king (not that I would complain about that) the meat in the USA is very much like that in South Africa, often free range reared and with added sunshine.
The meal was another highlight as was pretty much every meal we had had to date. Bret picked up the tab, which was nice of him, but to be honest, we were prepared to pay our way, still it again evidenced this incredible American hospitality we were experiencing daily. Thanks friend.

The kids I have to say are incredibly well behaved and were a pleasure to have with us for dinner. I do not like kids in restaurants in general, but would happily host a dinner party with these boys.

Martin, Bret and I at dinner, thanks to Jennifer for taking the photo.



After dinner we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.

Austin was Awesome, thanks to another great friendship and peoples absolute generosity we had just experienced another unforgettable day. A perfect foundation for an ongoing friendship that had a preamble of a few years via the Internet and shared interests.

We got to the hotel and turned in eventually, aware that this holiday was about to end, but it was continuing to peak in delivery.

Tomorrow it was back to Fort Worth, via another internet friend, Rusty Escott who works as a sound technician and roadie. He has travelled with some great bands and groups in the past.

Rock on Bucket List.

[Ta2Don]

Awesome Mate!!!

[mjh1965]

Thanks for posting Rian . I thought I'd add a photo I took of a very proud owner with her car



Once again it was great to meet up with another forum member Brett and his family . The day couldn't have been any better, great food and getting to drive around in a soft top on a warm day , with great company . This has been one of the best trips ever .

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by mjh1965

Thanks for posting Rian . I thought I'd add a photo I took of a very proud owner with her car.

Once again it was great to meet up with another forum member Brett and his family . The day couldn't have been any better, great food and getting to drive around in a soft top on a warm day , with great company . This has been one of the best trips ever .

Well said Martin.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Gladys was also an absolute breath of fresh air.

A woman with a lust for life.

Just what we needed.

Bucket List ?

Yup.

PS. Bret's garages are behind the camera, the house and more land to the right. Note how much land is down the driveway toward the street way down beyond the front garden.
We certainly live in the wrong country for sunshine and space.

[dwcardfan]

Still watching. What an awesome trip!!

[Palf70Step]

That is one nice Cutlass. Had too many friends with them back in the day to not know the wheels.

[Grizz1963]

OK

Scraping the barrel?

Nope, not really, just found more pics from Austin,Texas.

When we got to Bret's place we had some good, English tea and patrolled all the sights at his dads place with our mugs.

Martin pulled the short straw.



My $100.00 worth of switchgear for the steering I had bought off Clem in Arkansas, delivered to Bret.



Gladys worked with some pretty tough guys in her life. She also retired from the job twice, and both times they made her a trophy.

To me it spoke volumes..... The lady had super sized nuts to work with the guys she worked with.



Bret's first car, still has it, awaiting another restoration, one day.



Gladys' late husbands truck, this is a truck to want to own. ORIGINAL, low miles.



Some used English and South African plates in the rafters, including the one of my old Mercedes from 2006



When we went out to the Longhorn restaurant, they had some great looking displays. Including these belt buckles.





Simple classy wine rack, I like it.




So that was now really the end of Austin and our time with Bret.

More soon.

[Grizz1963]

Back on the road.

The next day we had a leisurely get up, then had to suffer the indignity of having our room inspected before our deposit was returned..... Did I mention this was a Best Western?
Yes, avoid it. Clean, functional, but full of carp.
The duty manager (possibly franchise owner) said we could have our deposit back once the front desk lady asked him.

There are better, possibly friendlier hotels out there, yes we experienced one the next night. So stand by.

So we left at some point, leaving Austin, Texas behind and headed for Waco, Texas............. Remember Waco??

We were going to meet Rusty Escott who is another Chevy guy I had met on the web.



It is also the home of the Texas Ranger Museum and Hall of Fame. Rusty had planned to take us there, but in the end, time changed things a bit for us.



Once we got to where he lives, after getting lost by about 50 meters, it was sweet iced tea, sit down, chat to his wife Delaina and pet his dog Lamont.
His daily driver, by choice, is a 1987 C10 SWB with 350/700r4 transmission.
Stashed away and awaiting attention is also a 1966 C10 LWB Chevy.
Rusty has worked along others and toured with U2, country singer Clint Black and magician David Copperfield. He has also done special lighting for last years American Country Music Awards at the AT&T stadium, and the Cowboys Thanksgiving shows.
So a guy who again brought such a different set of skills, experience and conversation to our visit.

Did I mention that this trip just kept on giving and giving.....?

Rusty has worked as a Sound Engineer on big productions for a long time.

He has had stage passes for some of the top acts in the world.

This is his world........



Action.... Lights....



Rusty is a truck guy too, he has a couple of them.

This is his daily, seems it is a bit faster than it looks like, always good to know.



So we set off for lunch..... Rusty in the navigating seat. The man knows Waco like the back of his hand.



Lunch was decided to be at Poppa Rollo's Pizza, an establishment with loads of interesting guests, and winner of multiple awards over the years.



Anyone know "Achmed the Dead Terrorist"
Jeff Dunham, his creator was there recently too, seems they are well known to celebrities. Turned out to be a great choice by Rusty.




Anyway, we drove around Waco and eventually got there.

What a pleasant surprise, no pretence, just honest food and a nice waitress.

[Grizz1963]

Coming down the street, I noticed the fire engine before I realised where we were headed as the same place.
Says a lot for the choice of advertising vehicle.



Other side.



Once inside, we were amazed at all the interesting stuff, including a full arcade with loads of retro games.

And some of these.



Inside on one of the walls was this angry bear.



We had ordered a massive pizza, bottomless drinks, refilled before we even asked.

The pizza was thin base, but heavily loaded with toppings.



After lunch we decided to swing by some pawn shops, as they are often a good source of used and cheap tools, however, not in Waco Texas..... This shop was clearly just a massive arms shop, run by some amazingly nice Texans.

Car parked outside and then we all marched in.



The old guys in the shop seemed to like talking to me, and I was given these to take home to England.

I like them just because.



I will leave you with this as my last photo from inside the pawn shop.



.Once we ran out of pawnshop time, we drove back to Rusty's place.

Rusty had also offered to drive two hours through to Dallas to pick up my ski bag, should the airline decide it was just too big for the hold.
He would then ship it home later.
This offer was another shining example of just how unselfish Texans are.

Thank you Rusty, you are a star.

Martin and I still needed to get to Fort Worth for the evening, and wanted to be checked in by 5pm at the latest so that we could go online to pre-book our seats, in case we would get lucky like on the inbound flight and get a pair of seats side by side.

That way we could also get some dinner and go do a bit more shopping.

Once we dropped Rusty off, we set the SatNav for our next stop, the La Quenta hotel which was 15 miles from the airport.

We set off and drove on toward our last nights destination, feeling that empty lonely feeling one gets at the end of a good holiday.

I trust we have a few of you hard core readers still here.

[flashed]

Still here and waiting for more ,even though the end is near .

[Ta2Don]

another epic chapter

[realvc]

Thanks for sharing your trip with us, Martin.

Come back anytime.

[Grizz1963]

So after leaving Rusty in Waco, we drove to Fort Worth where we had booked a room in the La Quinta Inn and Suites on Anderson Boulevard, Eastchase.
I need to mention all of this as this hotel delivered way over the top.
Clean, efficient, inviting, comfortable, staffed by a team of winners that should make the owner very proud, we were impressed, compared to the same money we had spent at another chain of hotels over 4 nights, La Quinta hit it out the park.
There is cheaper out there, but with the amount of distance we did every day, our minimal sleeping, and general self abuse...... The room had to be half decent.

This was our hotel. Looks good ehhh?



After being booked in by an incredibly efficient, friendly and just way above expectation, Britney, we were also invited to have a few beers and a light dinner free of charge on the hotel. Seems they have a free guest dinner and deserts plus drinks on a Wednesday evening so our plans to go out for a burger, pizza or other fast food went straight out the window.
In stead we had good company and food, plus the chef was as sweet and motherly as you could wish for all the way from the Deep South.
Just how good did I mention this trip got on a daily basis? There really were silver linings to our silver linings.

One of the reasons we had left Rusty by 3pm was that we could go online on the complimentary hotel computer to book ourselves in 24 hours before our flight, we hoped to get some nice seats again.
When we went online, there were no nice seats, so we ended up with a pair of adjacent aisle seats.
The hotel also supplies a complimentary printer, Internet etc...... You have to agree, this is very good service.

We had a whole hotel trolley to get all our combined treasures up from the car park to the second floor.

Our room was massive and had two King sized beds, large clean bathroom, massive telly for Martin (I tend to us them for hanging my laundry over) fridge with complimentary half dozen beers. What was not to like.



After dinner we went out to a couple of shops, including Walmart that had Gas Monkey T-Shirts for $7.50 and long sleeved shirts for $10.00, so I was hoping to get a XXL for my friend Alan in the UK as he is a massive GMG fan. No luck, so we went back to our room and Martin started to sort out his packing, getting the weight subdivided between his cases etc, I watched telly with one eye and him stressing with the other eye, but really should have tackled my cases, a fact that would come back to bite me in the butt in the morning.

Another late night, and good nights sleep, we woke up and went to breakfast downstairs.......

Fresh, modern furnishings, loads of food, including sausage, scrambled egg, muffins, biscuits, gravy, waffles, coffee, juice, fresh fruit and a load more stuff to eat. Life was certainly good.



My favourite part of breakfast....... Cereal and great coffee.



After breakfast we went up again, and it was my turn to pull out Martin's hand held scales, a must have on a trip like this. The other thing, if you have not been to the USA before, is locks that the TSA can open, so they are special ones. Get them.

The idea was to distribute the 84kg or 185 pounds in baggage and spares I had bought in such a way that I ended up with 23kg or 50 pound bags, and that they were done in a way that would not leave heavy items rocking and rolling around inside a bag, destroying other fragile parts.

Yes, it was a challenge.

Martin was clearly enjoying my discomfort at this point......... After all, the previous night he had told me more than once to get on and do this. But did I listen..??

I also had my 2.1 meter or 7 foot tall ski bag with stainless bed strips, side mouldings, my treasured Original Auto steering column bought from Clem and my new panhard rod already packed up, at close to 23kg, so the rest of the stuff had to be thought through sensibly.

I failed dismally the first three times I tried to split up the baggage.

Eventually I did have them sorted into exactly the right weight, balanced with padding, packing and in a way I hoped they would not destroy anything inside.

I chose to take my new cab mounting kit, the 24V LED lights, new chrome door handles and lock set into my hand baggage along with some bolts and heavy stuff, in order to offset my hold baggage.

Martin tried to warn me that Security would pull you over for many reasons, so anything that could be deemed a weapon, dangerous or just weird, could have the rubber gloves and drug dogs out in force.

In the mean time Martin with practiced stress and concern kept an eye on the weather and flight departure schedules as there was a bit of bad weather over Texas in the time we were there......



We were leaving on Thursday late for an overnight flight back to the UK.

Looks like we chose the weather just right to leave.



Eventually, well, by 10.30 we were packed, right down to our back packs.
So armed with the hotel trolley we went downstairs to say our goodbyes and settle up and check out.

Not included in the photo was the ski bag.



So we left and stopped at a few shops along the way to the DFW airport.

The faithfull, out of date SatNag took us straight back to Alamo car hire where we turned in the car, unpacked, almost rented a trolley each for $5.00 when a lady called Missy who was part of the check in system, offered to help us drag all our bags to the bus stop to get to the departure area. At this point we were about 4 hours early...... A $5.00 tip meant we had "rented" the trolleys for half price.



We get on the bus, made it to departures.

Then sat around, watching the world go by, surfed the net, read up on some forums and generally got bored.....

Still stressing about whether my oversized ski bag would be allowed on, whether I would get the rubber glove treatment for my 24V LED Lights or have them confiscated as undesirable or dangerous, we could only wait.

Last bit in a while.