I played “what’s that noise”. When you drive a 40 year old car, you imagine you hear all kinds of things (noises). Most of the time it’s nothing, perhaps only your imagination. Well, today, when we pulled off for a potty stop I did hear “the noise”. Turned out it was the bearing in the alternator. We were in the middle of the “pucker brush” so we had no choice but to continue on towards Gallup, NM. At Gallup, we caught up with the group, as it was the lunch stop place for the day; however I spent lunch finding an alternator and getting it installed. Actually I got lucky, and the whole process only took an hour and a half, and while it was being installed we ate lunch – but when it was complete I still needed to return the core and gas up before we could leave town so we once again left 30 minutes behind the caravan.
  
Ultimately we caught up with the group in Santa Rosa, where we spent our last “quiet” evening. From now on there are lunch and dinner activities for us to participate in.
Day Four found us running with the pack – all day. We even ran up front with the big dogs for a period of time. What fun! Nothing but Mustangs as far as you can see in front of you and behind you. Lunch today was hosted by the Amarillo Mustang Club and Bob Chandler Ford. The Ford dealer had cleared out his lot and we all drove in, parked on the lot and ate lunch in the new car showroom.
The treated us like kings. I mentioned to the owner of the dealership what a nice thing he was doing, that while we were there he couldn’t really sell any cars, and he said to me that it was just as well as he couldn’t afford to give us what our cars were collectively worth as trade in’s if we were to buy a car.
Our first police escort occurred in Amarillo – the PD assisted us in leaving and merging onto the highway after our lunch stop.
   
Next we stopped in Clinton OK, at the Route 66 museum. That was a sight, 150+ Mustangs all parked at this 40’ / 50’s museum. Then we continued on to Mustang Oklahoma. Along the way there were people parked along the highway and standing on the overpass’s waving at us. Seems that it was on the radio that morning that we were coming to town and these people had nothing better to do than come our and great us. It was a thrill to be greeted that way.
Now that we are down to a normal elevation, and relatively level, we manage to average 18MPH and are not using any more Mobil One.
Once we checked into our motels, we again formed up for a police escort into Mustang, where the local club and town hosted us to a barbeque dinner at a local park, complete with blue grass band.
Day five took us from Mustang Oklahoma to Little Rock Arkansas. Up to today there have been very few bugs on the grill or windshield – I guess that they don’t live in dry arid places – but Eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas are green, and full of bugs.
We traveled for the most part as part of the caravan today, and the trip was uneventful – that’s good!
This evening we were hosted by North Point Ford and the North Little Rock Mustang Club to another barbeque at the Ford Dealership. Again, we had the police escort from the hotel to the dealership, and a great evening of Mustangs and food.
We departed in the morning, for our final day on the road, from the Ford Dealership. We met a 7AM, only to be told that the police didn’t want us to leave until 8AM because of commute traffic, so we had a long leisurely drivers meeting and coffee break.
We are now 250+ cars long and it is an awesome sight to see. We stayed together as a group for the whole day – almost like none of us wanted the Mustangs Across America caravan to end. We had a nice leisurely lunch in Memphis, then qued up again for the final leg into Nashville. Tennessee is a beautiful state and all the dogwood trees were in bloom. It was a beautiful drive, until we got to Nashville, where it was the beginning of commute time, and our driving instructions were less than accurate. Many of us got lost - yes, we did - but we finally found the Marriott where our group was staying. There was a hospitality room set up for us to meet, have a drink and some finger food and just kick back and talk about our experience.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday were spent out at the Nashville Speedway at the MCA 40th Anniversary Celebration. There were 300 concours Mustangs and 3000 cars like mine. (well, make that 2000 cars like mine and 1000 really nice Mustangs) Friday morning was spent cleaning the car only to find out when we got to the show that we were parked on gravel- dusty gravel. Boy were we upset! Oh well, we were all in the same boat, and we all had come a long way, so live, let live and enjoy.
Sam and Mustangs Across America, had everything very organized. The Mustang Clubs along the way, hosting meal functions, added a lot to the experience.
I was somewhat disappointed in the MCA activity. Registration was very organized, a drive through affair, but things quickly went downhill from there. They were way understaffed for the number of cars they had attending. We were supposed to park by year of car; however they were so overwhelmed that they told us to “just park anywhere, we don’t have a clue of where you should be”.
We saw a lot of really nice Mustangs; cars that were driven everyday, or at least on the weekends, and we saw a lot of nice concours cars – cars that are never driven. If I came away with anything with me from the show it was the thought “why have a car just for show, just as a possession – I want to have fun with my car, and to drive my car – not sit a and look at it”. Guess I’ll never have a concours car!
Frank and Esther went on from Nashville to Branson Missouri, and then they drove home.
We had our car trucked back to California while we took a Southworst Airlines flight home.
The drive east was wonderful – the best vacation I have ever had!
Would I do it again? You bet – in A New York Minute!
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