Road Trip USA

[Erik Boattail]

Last Saturday (December 13th) we returned to Austin, TX for the flight home.

For Friday night we stayed in a hotel in Brownwood, TX, so it was just a short drive back to Austin.

 

First we went for some final shopping at the local Academy sports store (like we didn't bought enough t-shirts along the journey....) and after all that it was time to visit Frank again.

 

In the evening we went out for great steaks at a local restaurant, and after that Frank took us to a genuine Austin honky-tonk café.

 

Rob and I forgot about the name of the place, but we like to refer to it as "Bob's Country Bunker"...

 

Great place with people in cowboy hats playing dominos, and there was a live band performing, complete with steel guitar and the works.

Not really the place where the average Euro-tourist would end up for a night out, so for us it sure was great to see this all happening:

 

Click thumbnails

 

 

 

During the 5746 miles / 9245 km we travelled during this road trip, we never saw a Boattail in the wild.

So you can imagine the surprise when a 1972 Boattail showed up in the parking lot of "Bob's Country Bunker", in the last few hours of our vacation on American soil:

 

 

 

 

Our flight back home was scheduled for Sunday December 15th, 7.00 AM.

So this meant that we could check in at the airport at 5.00 AM.

 

We left "BCB" around midnight, discovered that we still had a half tank of petrol left, and for no specified reason we ended up in Johnston City, TX.

 

There we had this crazy conversation with a petrol station attendant who was driving a US$ 75.00 1984 Oldsmobile Ninety Eight.

 

We arrived at the airport around 4.30 AM, left the Trailblazer (not a bad car after all) at the rental company, checked in for our flight and found out that some of our bags where only a few pounds off the maximum weight limit.

 

Rob even took home a cast iron 1972 Riviera grille, a gift from James who had it laying around in his garage for a couple of years.

 

After a crazy day travelling from Austin to Atlanta, from Atlanta to Boston and from Boston to New York JFK, we boarded the plane to Amsterdam around 5.30 PM.

 

We arrived in Amsterdam on Monday December 16th, 7.30 AM local time.

 

Rob and I kissed and said goodbye, and I finally arrived back home around 9.30 AM.

 

So if any of you lot have a car that needs to be driven across the USA somewhere in the future: chime in and let us know !!!

 

 

 

 

We drove 2119 miles / 3409 km in the Riviera.

109 miles / 175 km in the rental Mustang convertible in Las Vegas.

And 3518 miles / 5660 km in the Trailblazer.

 

So that's a total of 5746 miles / 9245 km in 16 days !!!

(minus 1.5 day in Greenfield because of the trouble with the brakes)

 

Petrol for the Riviera:

 

We pumped 191.01 US gallons / 723 litres

(but the tank wasn't empty when we delivered the car in Austin)

 

Petrol for the Trailblazer:

 

177.51 US gallons / 671.87 litres

(we had to pay for a full tank when we collected the car in Austin, so we made sure that it was running on fumes when we delivered it back to the rental company)

 

Petrol for the Mustang in Las Vegas:

 

6.10 US gallons/ 23.08 litres

 

So that's 374.62 US gallon / 1417.93 litres for the whole trip

 

The first petrol stop in Fair Oaks, NY was also the most "expensive" one with a price of US$ 2.66 for 1 US gallon.

(We drove 9 miles on the petrol that was still left in the tank by the former owner)

 

Cheapest one was the last petrol stop at Coleman,TX: US$ 1.43 for 1 US gallon.

[JFKen]

Ohlalalallalala B)

 

Ca c'est du reportage

[Valkarth]

B) ça donne envie

 

Rien que les casses ça me ferais un super sujet photo pour mon BTM

[Ricky Chocx]

...ENORME !!!! B)

[lacastille57]

B) B) B)

[willscad]

SU PER BE B)

Modifié le 28 décembre 2008 par willscad

[Tbird61]

good trip B)

[Trooper Phil]

What's a great travel report Erik, thanks for sharing it with us. B)

It makes us dream about the USA, very nice dream. B)

[ford32]

Merci pour les photo vraiment superbe B) B)