Less than 49 hours later, I'm back home with the 2006 Mustang! I had flown out of North Carolina Friday morning and arrived in Phoenix, AZ by 1pm. The seller of the car picked me up at the airport, which was great, and we went to the DMV to get a "drive-out tag" so the car would be legal on the way home. By 3pm I was en route to Raleigh, NC. I picked up Interstate 40 in Flagstaff, AZ, about 150 miles north of Phoenix, and drove I-40 for nearly
2000 miles this weekend. I then exited I-40 and picked up I-540 less than 20 miles from my house. I'm amazed at how long I-40 is and it was basically a straight shot from A to B.
If you've ever been driving through AZ you'll recognize a view like this. I made a similar cross-country drive many times about 20 years ago in college. This time though AZ had highway speed cameras set up in and around Phoenix. I think I got nailed at one -- will have to check the mail this week and next to see. Perhaps with a temporary, paper drive-out tag I won't get a ticket... :-) [Edit: It's 10/18 and no ticket arrived in the mail so I'm clear!]
I travelled through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennesee, and North Carolina. But here's Mustang, Oklahoma! From the highway signs it appears Garth Brooks is from around there. Further up the road was Troy Aikman's hometown... (It's funny, in the car on an insanely long drive, that stuff actually sounded interesting.)
Here's the Mustang at one of the many rest stops. The seller graciously had the car serviced before I picked it up and besides being spotless it ran just great. (In the photo check out the leprechaun dancing on the roof!)
Tennessee certainly had its share of hot rods on the roads. There might have been a car show somewhere this weekend since they were traveling Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning in pairs and small groups. Cool!
SLAMMED! And this is on the freeway at about
65mph.
And keeping up with Mustang, Oklahoma, here's Shelby, Tennessee. BTW, since I was just passing through, I ended up stopping in Memphis at
Leonard's Pit Barbeque, which I had seen on TV. I recommend it if you are in the area and like good barbeque!
So the trip log looks like this: I drove about 600 miles Friday for the first (partial) day, and stopped at a rest stop in New Mexico to sleep for 2 hours around 2am Saturday. Then I woke up and started driving by 5am Saturday for another 1000 miles and actually stayed in a motel passed Memphis, Tennessee the second night about 10pm. Got up Sunday morning about 6:30, and was on the road by 7am. Arrived in Raleigh tonight before 7pm after stopping for a couple good, inexpensive meals during the 600 or so easy miles. The car got about 26mpg according to the on-board info display.
>> Check out my photo album (33 pix!)
So here are my expenses this weekend: Delta flight from NC to AZ, $160 (I lucked out on the Delta website saving about $250 for a great flight); drive-out tag at DMV, $15; food and various road trip supplies, $55; fuel, $250 (I didn't write down either one or two fill-ups on Saturday, so I added $65 for two just in case); lodging, $58 (roach on motel room wall included for no extra charge) -- making it home in two days for $538 when a (top-notch) enclosed shipper normally takes a week and charges $1450, priceless!
