Florida to San Jose in a 1963 Corvette. My buddy spent every penny he had buying it with nothing left over for a tune-up or fresh tires before we took off. (Mistake #1) He picked me up @ Hartsfield in Atlanta at 2 a.m, (long before cellphones....coordinating my late arrival was difficult) we ate at a Waffle House at 3 a.m. and off we went. It was to be all blue highways, back roads, 2-lanes, no interstates or national chain restaurants.

A copy of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” was to be our Bible.

We saw innumerable "See Rock City" signs and drove through the apparently fireworks capital of the world @ the Georgia/TN border.

The damn Vette kept breaking down, first a clutch in Nashville, later a U-joint near Clarksville.
I remember we saw “Weird Science” at the Clarksville theater, long before theaters were all 24-plexes. Afterwards at a bar we told the local ladies we were “Location Agents” in town scouting sites for a film that was going to be shot there. Remember, this was pre-HIV...

What surprised us most were the full size satellite TV dishes behind every farmhouse across America. From nothing to 250+ channels with nothing but a check and a bootleg converter. Rural America had gotten wired. Well, dished. News, or what passed for it, was now broadcast 24 hours a day. (Mistake #2?)

Mosquitoes ate us alive at some state park in Arkansas where we’d foolishly chosen to camp rather than get a cheap motel room. We had a cassette walkman to pass the time before sleep came. The waitress at the one cafe in some lonely small town in Kansas assured us “Charlie,” the Frito Lay guy, came by EVERY DAY to refill the rack.

We trailed a shiny stainless Kraft tanker truck across the loneliest highway in America, drafting for better fuel mileage,until he suddenly locked up the brakes and turned down a deserted dirt road. Trust me. There were no cows, and no dairies down that road. Must have been Area 51, or something else, cause a “milk truck” had no business being there. Fortunately we just missed creaming his rear bumper.

By this point we were getting around 7 mpg's, until a “19 year Chevy dealership mechanic” in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, Nevada, told us “No problem, one bowl on your Holley double pumper has sagged, I’ll file it flat and double gasket it and we were on our way again, back into, barely, double digit gas mileage. It was AS IF he had been placed there, just for us.

It seemed at every breakdown we ran into JUST the right guy to fix the ‘63 for us, although the 10# glove box door continued slamming into my knees all the way into San Jose. @#$@!!!!

Everywhere we went there was someone wanting to talk to us about the Vette. Either they’d owned one, their friend had owned one, a parent, or a good friend had died in one. We heard, or shall I say endured, endless Vette stories. (As I do again today, it’s the price of admission).

A fourth and final flat occurred near Lake Tahoe. I was ready to pull my hair out. Stopping at endless gas stations looking for ANY used tire that would fit and get us home. We were running for home at that point, late on our schedule.

A fly fishing trip on the South Fork of the North something river outside Denver had been the hi-light of the trip, along with an impromptu color TV repair at the cabin. My buddy pulled a trout out on his first cast, having never fished before. A cold solder joint in an old TV was repaired with a nail, held in Vice-Grips, and heated red hot over a stove burner. And the football field was green, once again. My companion impressed the shit out of me with that piece of wizardry.

Forty years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday.

We learned to take the road less traveled, and to take ALL the time needed with everyone who had a story to tell us.  We didn't take nearly enough (film) pictures. Mistake #3.