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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.

7. Macungie Run

Day 13 SITREP

I'm getting off to a late start. I've spent a good part of the morning getting the past three days of log entries posted.

Thursday, June 21, 2007
Day 13 PRE Check

BillyBob is parked on a slope here so I have to guess at the fluid levels a bit when I check them. Everything appears to be ok.


1.	Date and Time	June 21, 2007 10:30 AM
2.	Odometer	22,780
3.	Comfort Supplies	Cellphone, AAA+ membership, reading glasses, my lucky WWII Army Air Corps mechanics cap, cheap aviator sunglasses, small cooler with water and trail mix
4.	Roadtrip Supplies	Inventory
5.	Prep	pack up, mount navigator

Engage

When I had "Mother" chart a course, she estimated that I would arrive at my Aunt Jane and Uncle Glaydon's place after five in the afternoon. I wanted to get there earlier than that so I relented and let her use the interstates. That shaved three hours off the estimated time of arrival so I went for it. Here we are on the Interstate and BillyBob is comfortable in the right hand lane at fifty-five to sixty mph.

I arrived in Penfield, Pa on schedule. Penfield is a one stoplight town on the way to my relatives' homesteads. I'm in familiar territory for the first time on this roadtrip. Aunt Jane and Uncle Glaydon's is a few miles out of town from here.

My relations are located off the Mount Pleasant Road. This is a narrow winding asphalt road similar to some of the others I've been down on this roadtrip. When I was a child on my way to "PopPop's" with JR, Mom and Dad, it was surfaced with "red dog", a red shale material.

What's behind door number 3? The access drive to my Uncle and Aunt's property in sandwiched between two adjacent properties. This was confusing to me the first time I drove here. In my childhood we almost always were traveling to my Paternal Grandfather's farm which is a bit further on on the Mount Pleasant Road. Aunt Jane and Uncle Glaydon have hosted family reunions at their farm for over a decade so it's second nature for me to pick the correct lane now.

We're here! No one came runnin' out of the house to greet me so I walked up into the field above the house to find Glaydon mowing. A storm was brewing on the horizon so he quit mowing and came back down to the house for the BillyBob technical review. When the rain came, Glaydon had me pull BillyBob into his garage. Then we went inside to find Aunt Jane.

Day 13 POST Check


1.	Date and Time	June 21, 2007 2:40 PM
2.	Odometer	22,969
3.	Mileage	189
4.	Elapsed Time	4 hrs, 10 minutes

Jane planned a chicken parmesan dinner and called my Uncle Dan and Aunt Charlene to come over. I got Dan (on the left) and Glaydon (on the right) to pose with BillyBob when they arrived and we pulled BillyBob back out of the garage after the rain had passed. Dan is the youngest of thirteen brothers and sisters and my Dad was the oldest. Jane is the oldest girl. Dan is eighteen months older than me. Of all my uncles, Dan is the one I spent the most time with as a child.

My Cousin, Jeremy, Dan's youngest son arrived a while later. We talked trucks awhile and had a great dinner. Before dinner, I had gone with Glaydon to pick up some beer and groceries. Jane and Glaydon don't drink much beer so after dinner I did my best to insure that they wouldn't have a big left over supply on their hands. I stayed over night with them since we are far from a hotel here.

Day 14 SITREP

Clearfield is less than twenty miles away from Dubois and Penfield so there will be no long distance roadtrip leg today.

About a month ago, my Uncle Jim, who lived in Pittsburgh near my Brother, suffered a stroke in the drive-thru lane of a fast food place. These people were on the ball and called 911. Uncle Jim was moved, after his hospital stay to an assisted care living facility in DuBois, Pa. That is nearby. Aunt Jane called ahead for me about visiting hours and I got off after 9 am to visit Jim before going on to my home town, Clearfield. Jane and Glaydon posed with BillyBob for me before my departure.

Jim is the third of the thirteen brothers and sisters. "Mother" could not find DuBois in her database. It's the biggest city in the county! Had to navigate the old fashioned way. Glaydon found a DuBois map and we plotted the course. Jim remembers me even tho' we don't see each other very often. Jim showed me where my Dad's grave was a couple of year's ago when he found me wondering around at the cemetary in search of it. That's a long story for another time.

Coming down Rockton Mountain into my home town of Clearfield. A verse from Jim Morrison's Celebration of the Lizard is going thru my head - "Tomorrow we enter the town of my birth. I want to be ready." I had put an announcement on Classmates.com that I would be visiting and would be at the Clearfield Diner this afternoon. I do not expect to see anyone show up. That's a couple of hours away and I have some other stops to make.

I stopped at my maternal grandparent's place first. I have a lot of happy childhood memories here but now everything I knew is gone. There is a grassy lot where my grandparents house and garage once stood. The church that now owns the property had a flower garden here the last time I visited but that is gone as well.

Then I headed up to the cemetary to visit my parents. I don't have trouble finding it anymore thanks to Uncle Jim. Jane and Glaydon attend the grave and replace flowers. I sat here for awhile and talked to them. I will most likely join them here in twenty or thirty years. I straightened up the flag of the Marine next to them before I left.

Arrived at the Clearfield Diner and hung out for a couple of hours. Nobody showed but I would have been surprised if anyone had. I would have come here anyway. When Mom and Dad were dating in the late forties, Mom was a Bell Telephone operator on the night shift up Main Street. Dad was a automotive machinist at Miller Hardware (the vine covered building behind the diner). Dad would work overtime grinding crankshafts and heads and would meet Mom at the diner on her break. When I left, the cook, waitress and I were the only ones there so we talked for a few minutes. They told me the diner would be torn down soon to make way for a YMCA expansion. That means the building my Dad worked in will see the wrecking ball too. I'm glad I got to eat a cheeseburger here one last time.

I went to the edge of town and checked into my hotel. Checked the Internet and found that "Denny's Beer Barrel Pub" was less than a mile away. Went there and had a few Iron City beers. Searched faces for people I might know. I don't think I saw any. A person's looks can change a lot in forty years. That's why they start putting yearbook photos on nametags at high school reunions. Made it back to the hotel before dark and had a good sleep.