Nissan 370Z Forum - Reporting From the Mother Road!

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Reporting From the Mother Road!

<o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com<img src=" images="" smilies="" redface.gif="" border="0" alt="" title="Embarrassment" smilieid="2" class="inlineimg"></o:smarttagtype>Touring the <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Mother Road</st1:address></st1:street> – June/July 2009 in a 370Z!

<o></o>Route 66 has been called the “<st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Mother Road</st1:address></st1:street>” and the “<st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Main Street</st1:address></st1:street> of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1>America</st1></st1:country-region>” and for good reason. It was a major factor in the building of our <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">U.S. Highway</st1:address></st1:street> system; carried tens of thousands of refugees from <st1:state w:st="on">Oklahoma</st1:state> and <st1:state w:st="on">Arkansas</st1:state> to the hope of a better life in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1>California</st1></st1:state> during the great “dust bowl” years which became the backdrop for Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”. During World War 2 it was a major factor in moving war supplies and troops and after the war, it was the canvas we used to show our nation’s prosperity and our love affair with the automobile that still exists today.

Route 66 officially doesn’t exist today – it was decommissioned as a U.S. route in 1985 but thousands of people who know and love the route and what it represents have revived interest and preserved it – the eight states it passed through have help erect signage to help folks follow in the footsteps of those who went before and to at least partially experience life the way our parents, or grand parents experienced the great American highways.
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As some of you know, I and a dear friend traveled the Route form its beginnings to <st1><st1:city w:st="on">Amarillo</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Texas</st1:state></st1> in 2007. This year, I’m traveling the route alone in my 370Z; picking it up in Amarillo and heading as far as Oatman, Arizona before heading up to Las Vegas for a couple of days and then heading back home.

<o></o>What follows is my attempt at writing down some of my experiences along the route…some pictures (currently unedited) are available in my albums for those who are interested.
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DAY ONE:
This was a very heavy travel day. After taking care of boarding my pets (Millie the Basset Hound and Max the cat); I headed out of Murfreesboro, Tennessee hitting the road at about 7:45AM headed for near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (Norman, Ok to be specific).
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For those interested in such things, the trip took 10 hours 14 minutes of driving time and covered 728.8 miles although the total travel time was close to 12 hours. Average MPG was 24.9 at an overall average speed of 71.0 MPH (in general, I tend to travel about 10 MPH more than the posted limit except in heavy traffic/urban areas where I usually keep closer to the speed limit). According to my in-car gauge; ambient temps were as high as 103 degrees although I’m not sure what the official high for the day was…as engine oil temps have been a concern for the 370Z I’m happy to report that even in slow-moving traffic due to construction, etc…oil temps never went much above 230 and even under periods of sometimes hard acceleration; it didn’t have a problem at all.

On the comfort side, the 370Z is not a bad car to travel in but long distance traveling requires stops if only to get out and walk for a few minutes…the vehicle is pretty comfortable but there are only so many ways you can stretch your legs!

<o></o>Overall all it was a pretty unremarkable day…almost perfect, if very hot, weather.
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I took the car to a local car was after I had checked in at my hotel and a couple of notable things happened.

First, a young mother came up to me just after I had pulled into the wash bay and asked if she could use my cell phone…seems her 3 year old who was belted into his car seat had managed to lock the car with him and the keys inside…she called her mother to bring a set of keys so she could open the vehicle…it was a Toyota SUV so no “On-Star”! Since the car was running and the A/C on, the little boy was comfortable until Grandma arrived.
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The second thing is that gentlemen showed up to wash a beautiful and completely original black 1965 Olds 442. He’s the original owner and has kept it absolutely perfect. We talked for a while and I found out he also owns a 350Z which he’s heavily modified so of course, we ended up talking about the 370!

<o></o>The other thing that caught my ere was there a “self-service dog wash” attached to the car wash…I knew such things existed (and there has been time when I’ve taken my hound to the dog park to play that I wished I had one available to me before putting her back into the car) but this was the first one I had ever actually seen and this one was busy!
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Tomorrow it’s on to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1>Amarillo</st1></st1:city> where I’ll actually pick up Route 66!

Very cool. One day I would like to drive it from Chicago to California. I wish it would be totally restored and become a wonderful driving heritage from start to finish. How much of your route is going to be the actual old highway?

John

Sound like a fun trip. Be safe and report in often.

<o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com<img src=" images="" smilies="" redface.gif="" border="0" alt="" title="Embarrassment" smilieid="2" class="inlineimg"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com<img src=" images="" smilies="" redface.gif="" border="0" alt="" title="Embarrassment" smilieid="2" class="inlineimg"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com<img src=" images="" smilies="" redface.gif="" border="0" alt="" title="Embarrassment" smilieid="2" class="inlineimg"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com<img src=" images="" smilies="" redface.gif="" border="0" alt="" title="Embarrassment" smilieid="2" class="inlineimg"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com<img src=" images="" smilies="" redface.gif="" border="0" alt="" title="Embarrassment" smilieid="2" class="inlineimg"></o:smarttagtype> Day Two:
Today started even earlier than yesterday; up by 6 and out of the room by 7 to go to breakfast…ate at an original Route 66 diner on the outskirts of <st1:city w:st="on">Oklahoma City</st1:city> near the <st1>Canadian River</st1>
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As with yesterday, this was a pretty heavy day of travel although not as far as yesterday’s undertaking…my plan was to travel over to Amarillo and pick up the route at exactly where we left off in 2007 at the “Cadillac Ranch”…now in case any of you are wondering, this is not a house if ill-repute; it’s 10 Cadillac automobiles buried to their dashboards “pointing’ West…an art experiment in the middle of a Texas field!
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Before getting to Amarillo, I couldn’t help but make a couple of excursions off I-40 to stop in Clinton, Ok and then Elk City, Ok to revisit a couple of Route 66 icons.
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It seems slightly cooler today although temps were still in the low 90’s and it was bright and sunny although it looked as if there were some heavy rains south of the interstate.
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I made it to the Cadillac Ranch just to the West of Amarillo and than picked up Route 66 from that point…along much of <st1:state w:st="on">Texas</st1:state>, Route 66 is frontage road mostly following the I-40; that’s because, in part, much of I-40 in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1></st1>Texas </st1:state>sits right on top of what was Route 66. However, there are some old alignments of the route with original pavement (and sometimes, original dirt of sections that were never paved!

<o></o>I stopped for a late lunch at the <st1>"Mid-Point</st1><st1>Cafe</st1>" in <st1:city w:st="on">Adrian</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">TX ( http://www.midpointroute66cafe.com/ )</st1:state>…the exact mid-point on Route 66 between <st1:city w:st="on">Chicago</st1:city> and<st1:city w:st="on"><st1> Santa Monica</st1></st1:city>. The food was good but the home-made Coconut Cream pie was the real highlight – this was the real deal; nothing machine processed when it comes to their pies! The <st1><st1>"Mid-Point</st1><st1> Cafe</st1></st1>'s" best point however are the people who own it/run it…extremely friendly and truly happy to have you as a customer; exactly the way good roadside diners were before the McDonald’s Burger Kings and Wendy’s took over!
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A lot of the Texas panhandle is somewhat uninteresting as far as landscapes go although there are exceptions…things get noticeable more interesting when you cross the border into New Mexico…it’s easy to see why so many “Western” movies have been filmed in New Mexico…wind chiseled ridges and towering pieces of land seem to sprout up out of flat land.

<o></o>Today’s destination was the Blue Swallow Motel ( http://www.blueswallowmotel.com/ ); a Route 66 original – each room comes with a garage and inside the garage are murals (and murals on much of the outside walls of the building as well. The Blue Swallow neon sign alone is worth the cost of the room. The room is definitely “old fashioned”…small but completely refurbished…everything works including the A/C and the 1938 rotary phone on the desk by the bed.

<o></o>This is not a place for those who like modern comfort but if you want to see how it was back in the day, this is the place to be.
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Stats for today – 7 hrs/16 minutes of driving for a total of 420.9 miles. Average MPG/MPH for today was 23.9/57.1 respectively.
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Tomorrow it’s on to <st1><st1:city w:st="on">Albuquerque</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">New Mexico</st1:state></st1>!

Quote:

Originally Posted by antennahead (Post 101212)

I'll be on the route from the point of the Cadillac Ranch to Oatman, NM...once I reach there I'll shoot up to Las Vegas for a couple of days before heading.

Total mileage on the route this trip will be about 820.

Subscribed. I love road trip threads.

By the way, if you get a chance while in Albuquerque, you should visit Sandia Peak. It's absolutely beautiful there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cow (Post 101228)

Subscribed. I love road trip threads.

By the way, if you get a chance while in Albuquerque, you should visit Sandia Peak. It's absolutely beautiful there.

Thanks for the tip..I'll look it up!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert_Nash (Post 101436)

Thanks for the tip..I'll look it up!

The world's longest cable tram ride is there, also. That alone is worth riding. It's fairly scary, though-- you're EXTREMELY high up.

Are you stoping in "Radiator Springs"? ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrarroyo (Post 101709)

Are you stoping in "Radiator Springs"? ;)

:rofl2:
Sounds like a great way to enjoy the Z, might have to plan something of my own.

sounds like a great adventure. have fun!
thanks again for the VPP. picked her up last night, got an awesome deal and it was such an easy process

stan

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrarroyo (Post 101709)

Are you stoping in "Radiator Springs"? ;)

I think he did :icon17:. Oh, wait...those were just the murals at the Blue Swallow Motel. Seriously, Robert, it sounds like a really excellent adventure.

BTW, if Oatman's anything like it used to be (it's been a number of years since I last visited) keep your eyes open for wild burros. Even with the bra on the front end of your baby, it just wouldn't do to have a run in with one of them. For those who think I'm kidding, see here: Oatman and the Wild Burros Video (DesertUSA) :icon17:

Quote:

Originally Posted by cow (Post 101228)

Subscribed. I love road trip threads.

By the way, if you get a chance while in Albuquerque, you should visit Sandia Peak. It's absolutely beautiful there.

agreed, i went there in the winter when I moved from wisconsin to phoenix. The unfortunate thing about sandia peak is albaquaregetyke.

<o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com<img src=" http:="" www.the370z.com="" images="" smilies="" redface.gif="" border="0" alt="" title="Embarrassment" smilieid="2" class="inlineimg"></o:smarttagtype>Day Three:

Day three started with a big surprise…60 degrees! Through most of my travels today the temps stayed under 70 and only near the very end of the day did they rise into the mid 70s…quite a change form 100+ temp I had on day one and upper 90s on day two…this was windows down weather for the most part although today did see some fairly significant showers here and there.
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My first hour of driving was perfect, cool and relaxing…I headed out about 8:30 AM (I’m now in Mountain time) and headed to <st1><st1:city w:st="on">Santa Rosa</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">New Mexico</st1:state></st1>. Breakfast was today was at the Silver Moon Café in <st1><st1:city w:st="on">Santa Rosa</st1:city></st1>; a Route 66 original. While in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1>Santa Rosa</st1></st1:city> I also stopped by the Route 66 Auto Museum – for $5 I saw some spectacular cars including an extremely impressive Lincoln Mark 2.

Just as I was leaving the museum some significant rain started but the rain today was very hit or miss. One thing I’ve noticed about this part of the country is that you can see storms from fairly great distances and it’s quite a site to see heavy rain miles away while you have none or to see clouds hanging around the hill tops…one thing New Mexico has not failed to do is impress with it’s stark yet beautiful scenery.
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A great deal of what was Route 66 is completely covered over by I-40 so a lot of the driving today was on I-40. However; the alignments of actual Route 66 that was available were great stretches of roadway. Just of I-40 is another Route 66 original (in fact it predates the founding of Route 66) called Clines Corners.
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Shortly after lunch I as off the interstate and on an actual alignment of Route 66 including a nice stretch of road called Sedillo Hill Road; an alignment from 1937-1949) which is a beautiful two lane road.
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Overall, it was a fairly short day of travel as I arrived in <st1:city w:st="on">Albuquerque</st1:city> by 4PM…after cleaning the car and eating dinner I’m ready for a good book and some sleep as I head for <st1><st1:city w:st="on">Gallup</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">New Mexico</st1:state></st1> tomorrow.
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Stats for the day: 4 hours/3 minutes of actual driving and 204.6 miles total. Average MPG/MPH were 26.1/50.6.

http://www.clinescorners.com/aboutus.htm

Hello I am fairly new to the Z community and from New Mexico.:tup: I am glad to hear that you are having a good time driving through the northern part. You sure did hit the spot on the storms, being able to see them from a distance is a nice sight. I hope the rest of your trip in New Mexico is a great one.:tiphat:

Great pics, have a safe trip. Keep the pics coming.....

Hey guys!

I've been posting about my trip in multiple forums and decided to start a blog (including links to pictures).

Please feel free to take a look and let me know what you think!

The blog is located here: Robert's Route 66 Ramblings

Subscribed. I wish one day I will be able to go on a cross country road trip like this. :tup:

I loved visiting the Petrified Forest years ago. I drove to California recently & tried to get my road trip buddies to go out the way with me to go back to the Forest, but they weren't interested.

Bums.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cow (Post 103757)

Cool, I would love to see the Petrified Forest........... bet your road trip buds don't watch a lot of Discovery HD or Nat Geo :icon17:

John

Apparently not. They were more interested in going out than seeing natural/ historical things.

I like a good bar & what not, but I prefer to strike a balance.

Robert,

This is simply a great thread!

Rep point :tup:

Quote:

Originally Posted by cow (Post 104150)

Apparently not. They were more interested in going out than seeing natural/ historical things.

I like a good bar & what not, but I prefer to strike a balance.

Amen :iagree: and the older I get, the more "balance" I seem to need :icon17:

John

Back Home - Blog Updated

Hey Guys!

I'm back home again after my 4,200+ mile trip.

I've updated my blog for the whole trip and links to pictures; please check it out here:

I'll be "cleaning up" my pictures over the next few days and posting the best ones here but for now; feel free to read my blog as well as look around the pics from my blog ( Robert's Route 66 Ramblings ).

It was a great trip...the 370 was fun and gave me absolutely flawless performance for the entire trip...I'm sure I picked up some new paint chips and I certainly have some heavy cleaning ahead of me but I don't regret taking the Z for a moment!!!

Awesome. I'll make sure to read the blog when I'm at work tomorrow.

Glad you made it back safely.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert_Nash (Post 108601)

Awesome trip report, Robert! Highly enjoyable to read. Northern Arizona has to be some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen. Driving on those two-lane highways you get constant scenes of grandeur and beauty that can't be believed. Did you do any high-speed passing (always a good time!)?

I'll bet they're building that bridge next to the Hoover Dam so they don't have to worry about truck bombs on the dam itself. The times we live in! :(

You seemed to get some great gas mileage. I'm surprised it was so high. I'm used to low-20's in my Mustang! But that's on regular fuel, so I'm saving a bit of money, I think. :)

How did the Z handle in the rain (I lol'd when you wrote "the hardest I've ever seen it rain"!)? You mentioned the poor traction in the hail, but rain is more common, obviously, so I'm really curious how the Z handled that.

We need more trip reports like this on the site! Glad you got home safe and with a great experience under your belt. :tup:

I suspect the bridge and the new road is being built both for security concerns as well as to simply move traffic much better as that route is a major route to get from Las Vegas into the South/East. It may also be that they are concerned with the volume of traffic going over the dam every day - I suspect it's not good for the dam!

I had to slow down quite a bit in the heavy rain...with mild showers you don't notice a problem but it was coming down so fast and hard that there was a lot of water on the road surface (it simply couldn't drain fast enough) and hydroplaning was a real concern...in those sections, which were quite long, I couldn't do over 50 and I saw a half-dozen wrecks of people who apparently didn't recognize the problem!

The MPG surprised me as well but the Z does quite well when speeds are held pretty constant and 70-80 seems to be the sweet spot for a balance between speed and mileage.

I did do some high speed passing but of course, speed wasn't what this trip was about. :) It's easy to see tipple digits and the 370 practically leaps to high speed - you wouldn't think that loosing a few pounds and adding a few HP would make that much difference but as good as the 350 is, the 370 is noticeably better.