We must be insane.... My wife's parents left Minnesota (Ely, to be exact) about 10 years ago, and landed in Georgetown, SC. They recently bought a house down there. We've tried to see them occasionally over the years, but now that we have a daughter, it's higher on the priority list. With the cost of flights, and the pile of gear that we bring, we decided to drive down this year. My wife and I took a week off, made sure our '04 Outback VDC was in top shape, and set off. Our Chariot, I tinted the rear door windows for our daughter's comfort, but the rear quarters didn't happen.... 20180401_115200 by Numbchux, on Flickr The route: Trip by Numbchux, on Flickr We set off on a Friday, basically right from work, and drove to my parents' house near Minneapolis. We've made this drive hundreds of times. Woke up Saturday morning, 3 inches of snow on the ground. Great. Luckily the temps were warm enough, and we pushed our start time back a couple hours so that the main roads were merely wet, and we were able to make good time. Southern MN and Iowa are not terribly interesting places to drive, and our progress was equally not-interesting. Getting into Missouri gets a little more interesting, as 61 has a little more texture to it, and the occasional glimpse of the Mississippi River. A very good friend of my wife lives on the outskirts of Eastern St. Louis, as her husband is stationed at Scott AFB, so we had an excuse to see them, and a place to stay. We came in through St. Louis about 8pm, driving through town was a little interesting, but driving across the Stan Musial Bridge at night was VERY cool (photo credit and more info: Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge - Traylor Bros., Inc.). Then Sunday morning, across southern Illinois, across Kentucky, towards Nashville, TN. This is another particularly uninteresting drive. My wife and I were laughing to the point of tears at a podcast we were listening to (Free Beer and Hot Wings show), but in hindsight, I think the drive was making us a bit crazy... We did some searching, and looking on the map, and decided that since we had, so far, been able to make good time. The decision was to stop a bit earlier than we needed to in Knoxville, with the plan of getting an early start, and driving the Tail of the Dragon early Monday morning. Well, traveling with an infant, we did not sleep well Sunday night, so we axed that plan, and took I-40 through the Smokey Mountains, and into the Carolinas. The drive from Knoxville, TN to Columbia, SC is kind of cool, but after Columbia, the landscape got pretty flat, and our route left the beaten path. But by the early afternoon on Monday, we had made it. At some point in this day, something in the exhaust began to fail. We spent our days there primarily just hanging with family. We did get up to Myrtle Beach on Tuesday for a bit, with a visit at Brookgreen Gardens. Then on Wednesday we drove down to Charleston, and visited Patriots Point. It's a fairly simple display, nothing terribly impressive. The USS Yorktown aircraft carrier's big claim to fame was that it picked up the Apollo 8 spacecraft, so there's a display on that. The USS Clamagore, which is a Balao-class Submarine, the only one left with a Cold War GUPPY III conversion, and is scheduled to be sunk near Palm Springs to be an artificial reef this summer. While there, I got out my floor jack and small tool kit, and took a peak at the exhaust condition. And a couple patio blocks under the tire as a makeshift (not recommended, but better than nothing, I left most of the weight on the jack) stand: 2018-04-04_08-36-22 by Numbchux, on Flickr The noise immediately seemed to come from the left side of the engine. I had this manifold off doing spark plugs not too long ago, so my fear was a blown out gasket, or worse, stripped thread in the head. Nope, the flex section in my OBX header was torn. I stopped at the local AutoZone, and bought a couple large sections of Versa Chem Tiger Paw muffler tape. This recommended using some tin foil for hotter areas, so I wrapped the flex section with foil, and then with the muffler tape. A couple zipties to hold it tight while it cured....good to go. 2018-04-04_08-41-17 by Numbchux, on Flickr Fired it up, and heard another leak. Sure enough the pipe right behind the rear resonator was cracking and leaking. Oh well, that's going to be much harder to fix, and this is so much better. Thursday we began heading home. I talked with my in-laws, and they said that they frequently go through Atlanta, and cut up from there to avoid the mountains so much. I decided to save the wear on our transmission and my nerves, and do the same. Route: Trip return by Numbchux, on Flickr We went through Atlanta at about 5pm, I-75 on the NW side was slow-and-go traffic for about 20 minutes, but other than that, we sailed through town. We got a hotel in Cleveland, TN (just outside Chatanooga) with a fantastic view. Friday morning's plan involved getting on the road fairly early, and using the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY to break up the day. But while the day got off to a good start, we barely made it out the other side of Nashville before our youngest passenger needed a break. The delay left my window at the Corvette museum down to an hour, but I decided I still wanted to go, so we pressed on. About 10 miles outside of Bowling Green.....disaster. Hit a bump, and the car got SO much louder. That crack behind the resonator broke off completely. Of course, there are no decent places to stop near the freeway until you are in town, but that meant I could drive right to an Advance auto parts, drive the front wheels up onto a curb, and take a peek: 20180406_130736 by Numbchux, on Flickr I borrowed a tape measure, and then bought a 2 1/4" ID to 2" OD reducer and 2 1/4" muffler clamp. I unbolted the flange at the donut gasket (luckily I used new hardware when I put the headers on about a year and a half ago, so it came apart), pounded the larger end onto the pipe on the rear, and clamped it down. Then I slipped the resonator over the smaller end, forced it back onto the donut gasket, and put the bolts in. 20180406_133601 by Numbchux, on Flickr There, I fixed it! It still leaked, but worlds better. Now we had about 15 minutes for the Corvette Museum, so we skipped it, and got back on the road. That's when we realized that Kentucky doesn't like to number their interstates. They like to use names, big, long, names, that are difficult for a driver to interpret from what a navigator is saying, and what's written on a sign while traveling at interstate speeds. But, after a moment of confusion between my wife and I, we got on the William H Natcher Parkway, and headed North towards the Western Kentucky Parkway. We crossed over the very high waters of the Ohio River at Owensborough, KY, and through a corner of Indiana, and across Illinois back to our overnight stop near St Louis. We headed North again on Saturday morning, using the same route as our trip out (for a change) through most of Iowa. We decided instead of cutting over to I-35 at Waterloo, IA. We'd head north through Rochester. We spent the night at my parents' house in Minneapolis again, and had a fairly normal schedule on Sunday, traveling the 2.5 hours or so home during our daughters "normal" nap time in the afternoon. It was a great trip, and the car ran fantastically. All things considered, an exhaust leak is pretty minor.
Awesome looking journey Matt, thanks for sharing! We travelled by plane to New Orleans in February with our two little ones. Traveling with kids is so hit and miss. It’s all based on how they’re feeling and what they’re dealing with at the time. Was she pretty good most of the time? And what was the “go to” route of keeping her occupied? We are making a similar journey to Montana in a couple of months in our sweet Dodge Caravan. Lol. At least it has a DVD player!
Did something similar. Drove to Pittsburgh with a 9 month old. Worst part was she doesn't like to sleep in unfamiliar surroundings. Otherwise she was a trooper until we were on our way back, going through Eau Claire. She had a huge blowout (which was interesting to take care of at a rest stop) and even cleaned up, cried until we got to Hudson. Josh, where are you headed in Montana?
Near Kalispell Montana. http://rainministries.org/familycamp.html Let me know if you’re interested in going!
Okay, listen up noobie road trippers. From 1996 until 2013 we packed our three kids up in a Ford Aerostar extended (Eddie Bauer!), full-size Ford van (Chateau package, loved that van!) and a Cadillac Escalade ESV (Suburban sized). The getting there was as good if not better than the time spent wherever the destination was. Our farthest drive was from here to South Padre Island, Texas. Frickin brutal! We took our kids to a different beach every year for those 17 years. We flew to Boston (Maine beach), Atlanta, (Sullivan Island) and LA (Seal Beach) otherwise it was road trip time. We have been chased out by four hurricanes. (Yes, we have a special gift on our ability to pick hurricane landfall locations) I can relate to some of @Chux fixits. I had to replace both front wheel bearings on our big Ford Van in the parking lot of our beachfront condo in Gulf Shores Alabama. I misdiagnosed the side I thought was howling...ended up doing them both! I know, I know. Keep road tripping as there really is no better substitute for family fun time.
Wow. My kids could barely take the trip from the Twin Cities to Wisconsin Dells. Thank God for dvd players. Way to go!
I sometimes call Chux “Matt-gyver”. He’s a think on the fly kind of guy. At the ice races, he probably would have used the snowbank as a jack, if he was in a pinch.
Very true. I did a lot of searching for advice, and the consensus was basically to take your time. Be prepared to stop if needed. We brought a lot of toys, munchies, etc. We put her on the driver's side, so that my wife could reach her from the passenger's seat, which was helpful. It made my seating position a bit cramped, but worth it IMHO. There would typically be about 2 hours between when she woke up (inevitably before we did), and we got to driving. By the time we got everything packed, everyone fed, etc. She would typically sleep for 2-3 hours at this point. When she woke up from that nap, she was in a pretty good mood, so some snacks (we brought veggie straws, string cheese, as well as an inverter so fresh milk was on the menu as well), and a toy or book would keep her happily playing for an hour or more. At that point we'd been on the road for awhile, car probably needed gas, and all of us needed to get out for a few minutes. She's coordinated enough to walk, but too cautious to do it on her own (kind of nice....), so we'd take her hand, and walk around a department store for awhile to wear her out. This would usually buy us a couple hour nap in the afternoon. But when she woke up from that, she was pretty much inconsolable. It took a constant effort to keep her from completely freaking out. Almost every day we had a half hour or so of this, too. This pretty well capped us to 6-7 hours of car time a day. Which was fine, we were sort of expecting that. I had the Priceline, Kayak, and Expedia apps on my phone, and when things started to deteriorate, one of us would find and book a hotel.
Drove my 1.5 year old and wife to Rocky mountain national Park, an hour or so Northwest of Denver last summer. My 04 Chevy venture was worth every penny of the $1800 I paid for it. So much space... Infotainment setup is handy, right up until the 4th viewing of finding Nemo.
