2-11 August 2020 - An Ending

 Eventually, All Good Things Must Come to an End: Although I, and I'm sure several of you, wish that my cross-country gallivanting could continue forever, time runs out quicker than I ever could have imagined. It has been over a month since I first set out on my trip, even though it feels like only yesterday that I was throwing my bags into the trunk and tapping the rev-limiter on the first (of many) on-ramps. 

~10500 Miles Down 

 2 August 2020: In what should be a surprise to no one at this point, the Cougar brought me quickly and safely to Long Beach Island, NJ. Well, that was after we made a brief pit-stop in NY before we showed up! I decided to make the ~200 mile detour because I could get a instant COVID-19 test at an UrgentCare in Yonkers. After you've driven over 10,000 miles, what's another 200, right?! 

3 August 2020: Well, it finally happened. After 10,000 miles of driving without a spare tire or plug kit, I finally found a nail on the road. 

    Thankfully, it was a slow leak and I noticed it while I was drinking my morning coffee on the porch. So I jacked it up, pulled the tire off, and threw it in the bed of my father's pickup. The next day we brought it to a tire shop and had them pull off the tire, patch from the inside, and then reinstall. The whole process cost $47, which seems kind of steep. I'm fairly certain I paid the tourist price, but it wasn't like I had much of a choice at that point. 

4-7 August: The family vacation was a well-deserved brake for the Cougar. She's worked very hard with only a few complaints for the last month. Based on what little I know about the previous two owners, it is highly likely that I put more miles on her in the last month than she has done in the last 10+ years. She only got two short drives the entire week; one to ferry me and my mother to the supermarket, and one to demonstrate the glory of vintage American Iron to my little cousin. She willingly launched from several stop lights and woke up all the retirees who were busy falling asleep at 8:30pm. My little cousin was smiling the whole time, and I think it's safe to say that he is already waiting for his next ride!

8-9 August 2020: Leaving LBI, we made the short (for us) journey back up to New York with my brother in the passenger seat! Once I got home, it was straight into packing up most of my earthly belongings and playing Tetris to get them into the Cougar. Well, there was quite a bit of procrastinating, but it did get done eventually. The next day, there were some teary goodbyes, and then I was headed to Georgia and the start of the next chapter of my life. 

    Now, even for me, the drive from New York to Georgia was a little too much to do in one day, so I stayed the night in Greensboro, NC, with one of my good friends from college. After checking out his new-to-him CPO 2017 V6 Accord, which is much quieter than the Cougar and surprisingly quick, I helped him pack up the last of his belongings before turning in for the night. 

10 August 2020: When I woke up the next morning, I witnessed a similar scene to what I had experienced the morning before; a dad saying goodbye to his son. My friend was moving out that morning as well, headed to the opposite side of Georgia as me. 

    So for the last time, I loaded my bags into the Cougar, loaded the directions onto Maps, and set off. The ride was almost disappointingly uneventful. Some hard rain came in 2-3 minute intervals, gas kept getting cheaper, and the Cougar continued to dutifully gallop south. 

    Only about an hour north of my destination, I realized that I had neglected to get the car weighed. And so began a long search for a weigh station that wasn't closed, which was a lot harder than I assumed it would be. It took me a good solid hour to find a Love's truck stop that a set of scales that I could use. Turns out that I had loaded enough stuff into her that, without me and with only half a tank of gas, she weighed 4020lbs! Now, for clarification, I did not bring all that stuff with me on the roadtrip. About half of the stuff (and probably about 2/3 of the weight) was picked up at my house in NY after my vacation. This is what an extra ~750lbs of stuff looks like.

All of This Fit in the Cougar!

11 August 2020: So I guess that's it. The Cougar is empty for the first time since 3 July, and riding higher than I remembered. The days of running through 30-40 gallons of gasoline a day are over. So are the days of shamelessly singing along to endless playlists in the car and passing slow cars in the fast lane. 

    30 States, 10,500+ miles, and an unacceptable amount of burned oil later, I am still having trouble believing it's over. I'd dreamed about doing a trip like this since I was young enough to realize that such a trip was even possible. As I was digging through my old stuff, I even found this little notebook that I filled when I was much younger, with endless plans and contingency plans for taking a roadtrip like this. 

    I have probably spent several hundred hours reading the stories of others that had gone on similar trips. At this point, I would be surprised if there was a single YouTube video worth watching, or article/blog worth reading about roadtripping that I haven't already read or watched twice. Hell, I finished my fifth read through of Dennis Matson's 104 page story about his 25,000 mile trip around the US on his Ducati Panigale superbike only about a week or two before I left on my own journey. Google 'Across the US with an Italian Supermodel' if you want to give that a read; I highly recommend it. 

    Sitting here typing this, I still can't believe that I've actually done it. If I didn't have all the pictures, and if there wasn't still Death Valley dust in the Cougar's trunk, I could easily be convinced it was just a dream. It would be cliche to call it a once in a lifetime trip; as Kelly pointed out during my visit, there's no reason you can only do a trip like this once. That being said, it's going to be at least a few years before I can do another one, especially since I'll be stuck on Hawaii for 4 years after I leave GA (I know, soooo sad!). But it's entirely possible that I get to drive across the southern US again to get the Cougar to California so she can be shipped halfway across the Pacific. I'll let you know if it happens!

    I'll likely do a follow-up post on both CCC and VMF detailing lessons learned and tips for anyone that wants to do a similar trip, but the number one thing I can say is that you absolutely can do it. Perfection is the enemy of progress, and if you wait until your car is perfect, you'll never leave. Your car does not have to be perfect to make a trip like this, and here's a list of all the Cougars deficiencies to prove it.

Issues Upon Leaving:

-Weeping Pinion Seal

-Not broken-in clutch

-Header interference with rag joint

- ~60 degrees of lash in my rear diff

-Weeping oil pan gasket

-Trans pops out of second gear on deceleration under 3000rpm

-AC blower doesn't work half the time (loose wire/ground somewhere)

-AC/PS belt impossible to tighten sufficiently

-Questionable brake lights (ya, I know, I thought I fixed them multiple times but I was wrong)

-Poor carburetor tuning 

-Rusty door corners and bumpers

-Burns ~1 quart of oil every 13 gallons of gas at highway speeds

-The only spares I carried were a coil and a voltage regulator

-No overdrive or EFI (for everyone who thinks you need stuff like that to do trips like this)

-She runs 205F on the highway without the AC on

-No speedometer or odometer

-Non-functional headlight doors

-Non-functional door locks

-You have to open the passenger door to roll the window up or down

    I'm not saying that any car can make it every time, but I am saying that you'll probably never know until you try. Worst case scenario is you blow up your engine and ship the car back to your house. Or, if you're really adventurous, you source one locally and install it, then continue! Either way, you're doing your car a disservice by keeping it cooped up in your garage. Pull off the car cover. Nowhere did the Cougar seem happier than when she was blasting along a highway, making a racket, and turning every head as she rocketed past people more interested in their phones than the amazing roads that snake their way through our Amazing Country. You'll bond with your car in a way that you never will get to if all you do is tinker and stay within the borders of your neighborhood. 

    She got me through Death Valley unscathed, blasted around Yellowstone, and outran a tornado warning in South Dakota. She drove around a forest of giants in Redwood, and rocketed past the very oil fields that feed her in Texas. She turned heads on the Tail of the Dragon, and introduced me to an amazing mechanic in Virginia. She brought me on the most incredible adventure of my life, and I brought her on her's. 

    When I drove my friends truck yesterday to pick up some furniture (there are some things you just can't fit in a Cougar, no matter how hard you try), it made me realize just how close that bond had become. Enthusiasts seem so worried about the rise of electric cars and the impending demise of the ICE, but I would put forward that my friend's truck, and almost all modern cars, might as well be electric when compared to the Cougar. If you can't fell the rumble of the engine or hear the exhaust note when the radio is turned up, what's the point? If your car doesn't make you want to mat the throttle everywhere and laugh while you do it, you need to find one that does. We spend enough of our lives in cars that they ought to make us smile; and even though she smells like the gas and oil she drinks and is definitely too loud, I still smile every time I turn the Cougar's key. 

    Thank you for following along for this long. I hoped you all enjoyed the story of my adventure, and I can't wait to read the stories of the next people to take an adventure themselves!

Final Route

Get Out and Drive!

Ken