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 6 SITREP

The Rocky Mount Holiday Inn Express has the same continental breakfast fare as Asheville. I ended up with cereal and coffee again. Made my reservations for the Holiday Inn in Gettysburg, PA. Then the Holiday Inn location was loaded into Mother. I also loaded in the Macungie address and changed some of Mother's avoidence parameters so she won't take me back to "Kelly School Road" when I direct her to find that rest stop again.

Thursday, June 14, 2007
Day 6 PRE Check

It was raining this morning so I only checked BillyBob's oil, which was still good, and did a visual inspection under the truck.


1.	Date and Time	June 14, 2007 8:30 AM
2.	Odometer	21,577
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

Well, the adjustments to Mother's settings were ignored by her. She took me back the same way! When we got to Kelly School Road, I said "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me." I kept on going and Mother recalculated an entrance onto the Parkway 2 miles to the south using the crumbling asphalt road I was already on. When I arrived at the rest stop (they call 'em "overlooks"), it was foggy.

Not much to see today. It was fog most of the way. Sometimes we were below it. Sometimes we were above it. Most of the time, we were in it. Slow going. 25-30 mph. There were forest critters like more turkeys and deer on the road at times. There was a fine misting rain to go with the fog. It was sleepy hollow and misty mountains.

I had to gas up on the Parkway one time. Mother indicated a shell station 6 miles away as the closest. It turned out to be six miles straight down, or at least it felt that way. It's that white spot in the middle of the last picture.

When we got to Shenandoah National Park and the Skyline Drive portion of the Parkway run, conditions had not improved. It was cold too. I didn't bring a jacket on this trip. Al Gore told me I didn't need one. This is the beginning of the Skyline Drive. I thought I saw Hawkeye and Chingaskook in the woods running along beside me. OOPs! That's a flashback to another story of misspent youth.

By mid-afternoon, it started to clear a bit and as I got to the end of the parkway, a bit warmer too. As soon as I got off the Parkway, I stopped for gas. When I was done gassing up, I got in the truck and the passenger door would not close. It would swing to within a foot of being closed and stop . . . I forced it! It will probably remain closed for the rest of the trip unless it falls off.

Now, I turned the trip over to Mother and she led me down the garden path again. Mother ran me straight towards Washington city and only turned north when we hit the rush hour traffic coming off the beltway. She mis-calculated a left turn in Fredericksburg and when I missed it because it was a ramp, not the hard left she indicated, She ran me thru downtown nightlife. I had made the mistake of telling her "no u-turns" when I was messing with the settings this morning. I found out the hard way what that means. The navigator will re-calc when you miss a turn and sometimes it will calculate a completely new route with different roads. This happened several times on the road(s) to Gettysburg. My night vision isn't what it used to be and the road noise all day had impared my hearing. I couldn't read Mother's display very well and understand what she was saying. We were like an old couple trying to communicate.

I didn't get to my hotel until ten PM. This was a long haul - over 11 hours and 400 miles. Had a cigar and slept the sleep of the dead. I'm writing this Friday morning and I have to get back on the road soon. The postings may be a little sporadic for the next few days because of the show (and the partying with the other old truckers).