Travels with BillyBob Log

WHAT'S NEW is a chronological listing of updates to the BillyBob site.

TRUCK LINKS including vendor sites for old parts, custom parts, and tools as well as sites for classic car and truck organizations

STORE Operating in association with Amazon.com, books, recordings and tools can be purchased.

PLANNING for the restoration including project schedule and cost estimates.

TRAVELS WITH BILLYBOB With apologies to Steinbeck, this area of BillyBob's Garage will be used to log the trips BillyBob and I make together.

WORK-IN-PROGRESS is the restoration of parts of BillyBob that I can accomplish without a garage.

PRE-RESTORATION includes log entries of minor repairs and and adventures between time of purchase and the time when I started restoration, a piece at a time.

JR'S KORNER JR's Korner is the history of BillyBob before I got him authored by my brother, Wm. C. Kephart.

BILLYBOB MAINTENANCE Ever changing detailing, oil change, lube, etc. maintenance routines specifically developed for BillyBob, including required tools, materials and procedures.

PARTS SHOP The Parts Shop is a repository of How-To articles. Things that I have done over and over enough times to have developed a procedure. This gives me a checklist and saves brain cells.

STEALTH SHOP Urban residence design with large integrated shop and separate living quarters for a relative or renter.

5. Christmas on the St. Lucie River

I am invited up to Stuart, Florida almost every year to spend Christmas Dinner with old friends Bill and Fay Clark (parents of Kim).

SITREP

Weather is windy and cloudy but no rain. I put a new tire on yesterday and BillyBob has good rubber on all four feet. The gas tank is nearly full. My intention is to travel State Road A-1-A up the coast as much as possible and I've programmed the intersection points where A-1-A merges with U.S.1 into the navigator (named "Mother" for the computer onboard the "Nostromo" from the movie "Alien"). Too bad you just can't tell the thing "follow A-1-A north" and be done with it.

PRE Check

1.	Date and Time	December 25, 2006 9:15 AM
2.	Odometer	17,404
3.	Emergency Supplies	Cellphone, AAA+ membership, reading glasses, my lucky WWII Army Air Corps mechanics cap
4.	Prep	Clean windshield, mount navigator

Engage

Fed Wingnut, locked up the Krash Lab and headed for the beach road. Had to pull over a block away when I remembered to set the Navigator stats back to zero. Couldn't remember how to do it and fiddling with "Mother" while driving was hazardous. Turned North when I hit A-1-A and this is the beach road in north Boca Raton.

The next town up the road is Delray Beach. Still on A-1-A here. There were a lot of people at the sidewalk cafes but I missed getting the camera ready for a shot when I passed by the strip. A lot of "thumbs up" today for an old truck with a wreath on his nose.

Still on A-1-A north of Delray, this is a shot at some rich digs across the Intracoastal Waterway. I think we're in the Lake Worth area here. "Mother" keeps instructing me to make a turn everytime we get close to a bridge over the waterway as her algorithms tell her that Federal Hwy is the better route to the first merge point of U.S.1 and A-1-A. I ignore her and she recalculates a new route to the next bridge.

Then "Mother" fooled me. After one of the recalcs, she told me to proceed to the round-about four miles up the road. I thought that might mean cul-de-sac so I crossed one bridge over the Intracoastal south of where I needed to. This is U.S.1 coming into West Palm Beach from the south. The road surface here is precast concrete pavers. It's sometimes used as a beautification and traffic-calming technique for residential and commercial areas.

After passing the Port of Palm Beach inlet, we were able to pick up A-1-A again and here we are in the Jupiter, Florida area along the ocean again. The sky was threatening, off and on, throughout the journey but I was lucky and it didn't actually rain while I was on the road.

Getting close to Stuart now. This is one of the few areas of South Florida that isn't built-out yet. I stopped for gas. If BillyBob doesn't catch on the first turn-over when the engine is warm, he can be a bit hard to start. That happened this time. Then the starter motor had one of those sessions where it chattered on the worn ringgear. I got underway again after 'bout thirty seconds of mechanical fun and games.

Made it! This is the St. Lucie River behind my friends' house. The view is up river. Two years ago, two hurricanes came directly over this area. There was a thirty foot sailboat in the yard right where I'm standing. It's amazing that the big banyan tree survived. They have shallow root systems.

This is the view down river from the same spot. That bridge in the background is U.S.1. The river is wide here and popular as a sailboat anchorage. It rained hard enuf while we were eating Christmas dinner that we couldn't see the other shore. I was a little anxious about the return trip at this point but it didn't rain for very long.

On the way back in the late afternoon. Leaving Stuart here on U.S.1. There are a few drops of rain and the road is damp. BillyBob is running good tho' except for some road vibrations in the forty-fifty mph range. I haven't been able to completely eliminate this irritation with the bias ply tires and the static wheel balancer.

Back on A-1-A along the ocean in the jupiter area again. Starting to get used to navigating with "Mother" now. Traffic has been pretty light all day. Normally, during season, the beach roads are like cruise nite parades and everybody is crawling along. People who get impatient at beach road traffic should choose the Interstate instead.

Another short run on U.S.1 and then back to A-1-A again. This is near a State Park area with the road heading back out to run along the beach again. That is not a bird in the sky . . . It is a bug on BillyBob's windshield.

Back in West Palm Beach again on U.S.1 trying to get around the inlet. I missed one of Mother's directions to turn and continued longer on a street called Broadway. This is a rundown area straight out of "Fritz the Cat". Lottsa people on the streets. Glad there weren't too many stoplights. The camera stopped taking pics at this point but it was starting to get dark anyway. I thought it was the batterys but it was filled to capacity. I might go for a lower resolution next time to get more photos.

This time, on the return leg, I picked up the extra six miles of A-1-A that I missed on the outward journey. Had a little excitement rounding a sharp curve to find oncoming cars in both lanes! I headed for the swale but it wasn't big enuf. I figured the big hedgerow adjoining the swale would be softer than the little Ferd pickup bearing down on me. Luckily, everyone was at relatively low speeds and the asshat was able to get back in his own lane. Damnation! I had about twenty miles to go in the dark and arrived safely at the Krash Lab by early evening.

POST Check

1.	Date and Time	December 26, 2006 7:00 AM
2.	Odometer	17,552
3.	Odo Mileage	148
4.	Elapsed Time	22 hrs
5.	Navigator Stats	146.4 mi Overall Avg 30.0 mph Moving Avg 32.6 mph Max Speed 56.2 mph Total Time 4:53 Moving Time 4:29

You can email me at  webmaster@laroke.com

Issued Tuesday December 26, 2006

Updated Tuesday January 10, 2017

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