Grizz's Redneck Express 1966 Chevy Short Fleetside RESTO-GO!

[Palf70Step]

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by flashed

What a nice Cutlass convertible and I love the orange ,I wanted to paint our 72 Malibu that color but was overruled by the boss ,her car .Still here and wanting to see more .

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

There you go guys.

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.

[flashed]

Them are some big NUTS .

[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.

[flashed]

Still here and sorry the trip is coming to an end .

[realvc]

A great trip was had by all. Thanks for sharing your American journey.

Y'all come back anytime.

[RockTonka]

Originally Posted by realvc

A great trip was had by all. Thanks for sharing your American journey.

Y'all come back anytime.

What he said^^^^

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by flashed

Still here and sorry the trip is coming to an end .

Originally Posted by realvc

A great trip was had by all. Thanks for sharing your American journey.

Y'all come back anytime.

Originally Posted by RockTonka

What he said^^^^

Thank you guys.

Vince, Phil, trust me, given a chance, I would be back again.

Problem is I have a mortgage to pay etc, so always other priorities to consider.

But I do feel welcome.

[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.

[disasterbus]

hanging in there for the final chapter in this epic tale - can't wait to find out if you got selected for the 'intimate' search

[flashed]

I have never flown so I have never had to worry about the glove treatment .

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by disasterbus

hanging in there for the final chapter in this epic tale - can't wait to find out if you got selected for the 'intimate' search

You would be there laughing too.....

Originally Posted by flashed

I have never flown so I have never had to worry about the glove treatment .

Don't need to fly to get the gloves.

[Grizz1963]

Seems I screwed up on the link posting for the plane schedules Martin was watching.

Despite the bad weather that everyone had warned us about, all flights seemed to be pretty much on time.

So we would be off as planned.




So there we were, hours early.

A long time to go before we could check in, weigh in and pay in for the extra baggage I knew I had.

Waiting.....



Eventually 2pm got there and Martin and I could wheel our bags over to the ever friendly British Airways ground staff to weigh in and make our way through security.

For the sake of all those who want to do this sort of road trip to buy spares etc, I will do a break down of the baggage and costs as I experienced it.
Martin had done this US trip a few times before with Amanda, so his learnings helped me get it right first time.

So BA gives you 23kg of "free" hold baggage.
A cabin bag, size as per protocol, we did not know, but you can take up to 23kg in it (think power steering pump) as long as you can pick it up and put it in the overhead area yourself, otherwise 10kg if you cannot manage it.
And a"laptop bag" or handbag, we both had small back packs.

Before we left the UK, we both paid for an extra bag, costing us £65.00 online for 23kg into the hold.
Then as my pile of spares etc grew, I realised I would need another bag. Thankfully Kim and Clem had a old large suitcase in their garage that I took along.
My second extra bag cost me £140.00 or $200.00 for the pleasure of 23kg
I eventually weighed in the ski bag as both oversized "sports equipment" and my second extra bag, paying the $200.00 was a 3 minute job.
Then dropping it off at the oversized baggage gate, another 3 minute job.

How easy was that all then.

From there we went through security.



Weirdly, the security personnel were amazingly relaxed, friendly and the lady I passed voiced her exasperation at a passenger ahead of my for being a bit (well, very) thick.

So my backpack and cabin bag went through the X-Rays, I went through the scanner, hands aloft.

No noises..... Phew. Made it !!

Then security asked whose bag my cabin bag was..........

Buggerr !!

So he called me over, told me my bag came up suspect and he needed to go through it.
"Is there anything sharp in the bag that can hurt me?" He asked, I heard myself say "No Sir"
Next he told me to keep my distance, not to speak unless spoken to, not to point anything out to him or touch anything in the bag or that came out of it.

I was worried...... Not a lot, but only because I wondered what had caused them concern. I certainly did not want to leave anything I packed into my 16kg cabin bag behind.

First thing he pulled out, and opened the box of (I had not opened them after collecting at LMC as they were neatly packed, was my new cab mount rubbers and mounting kit..... I think the rubber being organic is the trigger on X-Rays.
He wanted to know what they all were for and his questions were quite naive. So I replied, trying not to point or touch, describing to him what they were for. He then pulled out my new door handles and new lock sets. Once I told him what they were for, he was happy, then back to his screen and pulling out the two LED lights, his interest was even more intense, seems there is a circuit board or something inside them. Anyway, I told him and explained what it was for, even showed him a photo on my mobile of them fitted.
After that he shook my hand, thanked me for my cooperation......
Then he changed completely, from business mode he went to petrol head mode..... Yup, he wanted to know more about my truck, the lights, where they came from and why I was restoring a 1966 Chevy C10 truck.
I suspect Martin was wondering what was going on....

From here we took a walk through Duty Free, nothing of interest there.

Then we went to look for a late lunch.

Finding a place, I ordered a regular (remember, this is Texas and everything is bigger) brisket sandwich and fries plus another of those massive, bottomless drinks.



They keep some good beer as well.



After lunch we settled down to people watching, and waiting for our departure.

Boarding was trouble free.

On the plane I landed next to a super nice guy who was 1.5 times my size, poor guy was stuck in the middle seat, turned out to be a super nice guy from the U.S. who was married to an English girl. His size meant I was sat sideways on takeoff and landing. So the rest of the flight I was mostly standing up, walking and trying to watch a movie while he tried to sleep.

Landing, customs, passport control and the return to out car parking to get my car and head home were all uneventful.

So that was really the end of the holiday.


As a final comment I will post a few pics of the Internet.





Travel whenever you can, go places you never imagined, never thought possible, just go. You will not regret it.

Create a Bucket List, and tick the items off.



Lastly, this road trip delivered no over delivered every day.

I have to thank Nicola my wife for insisting I go with mate Martin who had bugged me for more than 8 months to join him for his 50th birthday party trip.

Every person who reached out and offered us accommodation, advice, friendship and took the time to speak to us.

My world is a better place and my year has been turned into the year of my life after this trip.


I will never forget this.






Thank you all for the comments on the threads I created on various forums.

You made me revisit and enjoy the whole trip again.

Looking forward to the next trip.

[flashed]

Thanks for taking us all along with you on this great trip .We love to travel in our Malibu convertible all across this great country and it seems those of us over here take it for granted .It takes guys like ya'll to make us see how lucky we are to have these wide open places to see .So far we have driven our Malibu thru some 44 states thus far and want to get to the rest someday .I still hope we get to meet in person one day but til then I will follow you as you build your trucks and other projects .
John

[65sub]

That was one hell of a trip Rian. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[White knuckle Garage]

I knew u did a lot and seen a lot but man that's a great trip Followed the whole trip

[NevEno]

Here it is!

[Palf70Step]

Great rehash of your trip. Wish I could have made it to Clem's event to see how the other side of the world does their trucks. Thank you both for the great review of the colonies.

[Ta2Don]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Great rehash of your trip. Wish I could have made it to Clem's event to see how the other side of the world does their trucks. Thank you both for the great review of the colonies.

Been on the edge of my seat for this epic adventure...

Bill, in the event you decide to make a trip north for Clem's throw down, he holds it the 3rd Saturday in October and Clem never fails to amaze...

[ibrown50]

Rian, Martin, thanks for sharing. I've enjoyed every instalment, my wife even read the Gas Monkey part!!
It's been great fun, no idea what I'm going to do in my spare time now,I'll have to get back to work on my truck

[dwcardfan]

Thanks for taking us along for the ride.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by flashed

Thanks for taking us all along with you on this great trip .We love to travel in our Malibu convertible all across this great country and it seems those of us over here take it for granted .It takes guys like ya'll to make us see how lucky we are to have these wide open places to see .So far we have driven our Malibu thru some 44 states thus far and want to get to the rest someday .I still hope we get to meet in person one day but til then I will follow you as you build your trucks and other projects .
John

Originally Posted by White knuckle Garage

I knew u did a lot and seen a lot but man that's a great trip Followed the whole trip

Originally Posted by 65sub

That was one hell of a trip Rian. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Great rehash of your trip. Wish I could have made it to Clem's event to see how the other side of the world does their trucks. Thank you both for the great review of the colonies.

Originally Posted by Ta2Don

Been on the edge of my seat for this epic adventure...

Bill, in the event you decide to make a trip north for Clem's throw down, he holds it the 3rd Saturday in October and Clem never fails to amaze...

Originally Posted by ibrown50

Rian, Martin, thanks for sharing. I've enjoyed every instalment, my wife even read the Gas Monkey part!!
It's been great fun, no idea what I'm going to do in my spare time now,I'll have to get back to work on my truck

Originally Posted by dwcardfan

Thanks for taking us along for the ride.

Thank you all for taking the time to reply.

I do appreciate it.

I am glad I could share. We do not all get the opportunity to travel. Some have other priorities and some have responsibilities.

I am fortunate Nicola makes me do these things.

For those in withdrawal...........

CLICKY LINKY:

http://www.wilddog.za.net/forum/inde...topic=106063.0

That is another bike road trip I did 2 years ago.

You may enjoy it as well.

Back to the truck soon.

[flashed]

I will check that link out later ,about to start work in a few minutes.

[Grizz1963]

Funny how life is..... Twists and turns, ups n downs.

Anyway, after winning the award for the USA road trip at the end of last year, I was approached by a contract company to work for an American company in the Non Hodgkin Lymphoma market in May, so in June I started what felt like a dream job.

Friday we were all called in and told the Americans were closing down the European and UK operation through no fault of our own. Today they confirmed we were all being made redundant and as the team was up for less than two years, there is no payout or benefit to be had. So I guess I am out looking for a new job again. Timing sucks, but hey...... Not much we can do about it.

Tonight Nicola and I decided to go see a movie, a good way to redirect your attention. Bridge of Spies with Tom Hanks. Good movie.

When we got back, I popped around to Mickeys place as there was a parcel waiting for me that was delivered through the day.

Going by the box, I told Nicola it was her Christmas present......

She was not impressed.



Remember what I always say about Random Acts of Kindness???

Well, Dennis Jones a friend from Missouri knew I was looking for a hood ornament for my truck some time ago, last week he sent me a message asking for my address.

He had found me a patina'd one and wanted to send it, along with a T-Shirt representing his business and some fire proof working gloves and other working gloves for,mate Martin and I.



You see, despite the ups n downs......



We have a great life and much to be thankful for.

Thank you Dennis, you are a kind and generous man. Karma will kiss your butt whan you least expect it.

PS. I will get back to the truck when things allow me to.

[Palf70Step]

Nicer stash.

Sorry to hear about the job. Hope you find something soon.