Kevan
Full Access Member
For some reason, that Jerry Reed song got stuck in my head. Seems like an appropriate title for this journey. I'll stick with it.
It was time for a roadtrip. Rachel and I had put the deposit down on the black 2005 Dodge Ram SRT-10 regular cab on Tuesday. The pictures that the dealer had emailed over were great. I had asked for "a pic of the rear suspension and one of the front suspension". What he sent over looked like a NASCAR build file- about 10 pics of the under-carriage from a bunch of different angles. Nice work! All this did was change the amount of drool coming out of my mouth from 2.1gpm to 4.7gpm. I spoke with the dealer and let them know that we would be in on Sat. to pick up the truck. "No problem. We're open 'til 5." in a pretty hefty Southern accent.
After doing a little research, we decided that it'd be cheaper to drive down to Gadsden, Alabama rather than fly. The flight would have been several hundred dollars each and only would have saved us about 2 hours (after all the connections). I did check into having the truck shipped up here. That would have been 10-14 days, and cost about $900. No thanks. In the end, with gas, food, rental car and hotel, it cost us about $400 to get the truck from AL to OH.
The other bonus is that Rachel hasn't really seen this section of the country. Aside from a quick trip to Nashville where she slept most of the way, we don't do a ton of travelling. She's a hardcore NY girl, and so she was really excited to see the rest of the country.
It's about 550 miles from Columbus to Gadsden, then another 70 or so miles to Birmingham, AL where we were having dinner with some friends (their parents live in Birmingham) and then staying the night in the hotel. I rented a Chevy Mailbu from the local National rent-a-car. Nice folks, painless rental, cool little car.
Here's a shot of the garden shed...I mean...garage as we're about to leave.
Vehicles: Rachel's Jaguar, my Durango, and our little white Malibu rental in the driveway.
Our planning has us leaving Columbus at about 3AM so we can be at the dealership around 12PM.
This pic turned out like crap, but I tried. It's a Durango on the highway with a cargo pack on it's roof. Only a few people will understand the humor and why I needed to take this pic. The lady driving it probably thought I was some kinda freakazoid taking pics of her SUV at 4AM.
My craptastic camera takes such awesome pics. Here's Cincinatti at night. Rachel was worried about dropping the camera as she took the pics holding it out the window. I was praying she would drop it.
For those geographically-challenged, Cincinatti is right on the border of Ohio and Kentucky. So, once you're through Cinci, you're in a whole new state. Wow- only took one bridge. Cool! 2 states down, 3 to go.
One of our fuel stops was in London, KY. There were a bunch of ceramic lawn ornaments at one store by the exit ramp called The Dog Patch Trading Post. Rachel did want to stop, but....if I did, how could I be the 'big, bad, evil man'? LOL We're comin' back on the same road, so....if she REALLY wants a 3' ceramic rabbit smoking a cigar, we'll stop and get one.
Ok, enough of that shit. Let's get rollin'. Heh heh.....limiter my ass.
Crusing through the hills of Kentucky early in the morning gets you some great scenery. Too bad my camera doesn't take real pictures.
Rachel was trying to take shots of the "Welcome To ......" signs along the way. Unfortunately, it takes my camera about 3 minutes to fire up and focus. So, I have a nice truck and a shitty camera. I guess that balances out.
This place, however, you couldn't miss. LOL You see tons of fireworks stands and huge warehouse-type stores all along the highway. They love their fireworks in the South.
Somewhere in TN, we came across this gigantor cross. It's about 80' tall and made of what looks like galvanized sheet metal. It's a nice cross and all, but........there are no buildings near it. No churches. No homes. No....nothing. It's just between a couple of billboards along the roadside. Kinda weird. We drove a little further and found another cross just like the first, but this time it was near a church/house of prayer/worship-type building. I'm about as religious as a tire iron, so....I'm not sure what's up with all of that. They sure do have nice big metal crosses though.
I thought that Rachel might do some of the driving, but...when my 2nd wind kicked in, I said 'screw it', and just wanted to finish the trip and get to the truck. It's some kinda sick motivation.
It's a quick cruise though TN, then nip the NW corner of Georgia, and pop right into Alabama.
We arrive in Gadsden, AL at the Nissan dealership there a little after 12PM. We met with the salesman and the dealership GM. Very nice guys. Rachel couldn't stop giggling at the accent. I learned something new: "yesir" is one word once you get south of Tennessee. It's proper in pretty much any positive context. Cool guys, and we get the paperwork taken care of and sign the checks.
WOOHOO!!!!
I own a big black truck!!!!
(Technically, it's "we". Rachel and I split everything.)
I tried to be gentlemanly about accepting the keys to the truck, but I think I yanked them out of the salesman's hands like it was a NYC subway mugging (we'll have to check the video for that).
Now the sucky part: dropping the rental car off at the airport. Rachel hasn't learned how to drive stick yet, so she takes the Malibu and I drive the truck (of course...heh heh). It's about an hour from Gadsden to the Birmingham Airport. It's not very large, so the rental car places are all together. We drop the car off, and as the guy is signing us out, he says, "You want us to fill the tank?". SHIT. I forgot to fill up the rental. For giggles, I asked him, "How much per gallon?". He replies with, "Six bucks.". I laugh heartily. "Rachel- just sit in the truck for 10 minutes. I'll be right back." I scream out of there in the Malibu and go fill it up for $2.73 gal. at the station just outside the airport. $12 for me to fill the tank, or I could have been billed about $50. What a frickin' scam.
On the way to the airport, the 'Check Engine' light came on in the truck. I immediately loaded my shorts thinking that I haven't even had the truck 2 hours and I already jacked the engine. Damn it. I call my buddy who works for the SRT Track Experience and ask him about it. The reply, "It's a general warning that something isn't correct. It can be anything from a failing fuel rail to a pinhole leak in the exhaust." Damn. He says, "Is it flashing?". I reply, "No." He says, "Good. You should be fine until you can find a dealer and get it checked out. It's too new of a truck to have any major problems." I relax a little, but then realize: I'M IN ALABAMA!!! I have no clue where the nearest 5-star dealer is!
My next call is to my friend who's driving over with his wife from Atlanta to meet us for dinner. "G.E., are you near a computer? Awesome. Find me the nearest 5-star dealer in Birmingham." He knows I've been lusting for this truck for 2+ years, so he understands why my voice sounds so stressed. He found one! It's pretty close too- just off I-65. I exit the highway....into a VERY gnarly part of town. Thankfully, it's daytime. LOL It seems that the dealer has since moved. Oops. "Ok, who's next on the list?" Since he's originally from the area, he directs me over to a Dodge dealer about 20 min. away off of I-459, called Benchmark Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep (obligatory link to their site because they're cool guys). Thankfully, their service department is open until 5PM. Whew!
The dealership is NICE. I mean, like really, really nice. As in, eat soup off the garage floor nice. It looks really new too. I pull up to the service area, and like you all have said, people stare. Even at the dealership! I don't remember the name of the guy that took my info and calmed me down, but he was super cool. The 'doctor' took a look at the truck, pulled out his big computer and plugged it in. 10 very stressful minutes later, he pulls the truck back around to the front of the service area. I ask, "How bad is it, doc?" "Nah...not bad at all. The last time the truck got fueled, the leash for the gas cap got caught on the rim and didn't allow the cap to fully seal. That caused a little leak, and that's why your Check Engine light came on." WHEW! Of course, now I felt like a complete tool. Fugit. I can live with being a dolt for a few minutes. I mean, hell, I've only owned the damn thing for 2 hours! I walk back in and sign the paperwork (THANK YOU DODGE FOR 3 YRS/36K!!!), and pay my $0.00. Man, that was close.
Finally, we can go to the hotel and I can get a couple of hours of sleep before we have dinner with our friends from Atlanta.
No such luck. MapQuest's directions aren't exactly stellar, so....it took me a while to find the Courtyard hotel. Painless check-in. Folks in the South are extremely friendly and very patient. The room was nice, and had a shower! LOL That's all I was looking for after the roadtrip and the stress test of the CheckEngine light event. I shower and crash out for a bit. Rachel wanted to iron something, so....she ironed. I got about 40 min. of sleep before my cell rang. They had arrived.
My buddy G.E. (short for George Edward) is from Birmingham, AL. His folks still live there, but he does IT work in Atlanta now. We've been online buddies for almost a decade, and both love cars, and trucks. He digs the SRT-10 as much as I do. We decided to do some dinner (cajun or BBQ) while we were down there. The girls can chat about girl stuff, and we can talk about HP, torque, big black trucks, his BMW convertible, mock a few online guys, etc. Typical guy stuff. LOL
Dinner was at a place that G.E.'s dad recommended called Full Moon BBQ. Apparently, it used to be a Dairy Queen, and is now a big BBQ restaurant. They have one of those huge black smokestacks coming off the back of the building, and you can smell it from 10 miles away. It smells GOOD! G.E. tried to pull the "you're in my hometown, so I'm buying dinner" stunt. It didn't work. I played the "You saved my ass with finding me a dealership open until 5PM on the Saturday of a holiday weekend. You're lucky I'm only buying you dinner" card. Heh heh.
I ordered a burger (just in case their BBQ was 'all smell-no taste') and an open-face sandwich. I needed not worry about the taste thing. Their BBQ was offically 'down home' and thus deemed true. Good stuff.
PART TWO coming soon!!!
(12,000 character limit per post...heh heh)
It was time for a roadtrip. Rachel and I had put the deposit down on the black 2005 Dodge Ram SRT-10 regular cab on Tuesday. The pictures that the dealer had emailed over were great. I had asked for "a pic of the rear suspension and one of the front suspension". What he sent over looked like a NASCAR build file- about 10 pics of the under-carriage from a bunch of different angles. Nice work! All this did was change the amount of drool coming out of my mouth from 2.1gpm to 4.7gpm. I spoke with the dealer and let them know that we would be in on Sat. to pick up the truck. "No problem. We're open 'til 5." in a pretty hefty Southern accent.
After doing a little research, we decided that it'd be cheaper to drive down to Gadsden, Alabama rather than fly. The flight would have been several hundred dollars each and only would have saved us about 2 hours (after all the connections). I did check into having the truck shipped up here. That would have been 10-14 days, and cost about $900. No thanks. In the end, with gas, food, rental car and hotel, it cost us about $400 to get the truck from AL to OH.
The other bonus is that Rachel hasn't really seen this section of the country. Aside from a quick trip to Nashville where she slept most of the way, we don't do a ton of travelling. She's a hardcore NY girl, and so she was really excited to see the rest of the country.
It's about 550 miles from Columbus to Gadsden, then another 70 or so miles to Birmingham, AL where we were having dinner with some friends (their parents live in Birmingham) and then staying the night in the hotel. I rented a Chevy Mailbu from the local National rent-a-car. Nice folks, painless rental, cool little car.
Here's a shot of the garden shed...I mean...garage as we're about to leave.
Vehicles: Rachel's Jaguar, my Durango, and our little white Malibu rental in the driveway.
Our planning has us leaving Columbus at about 3AM so we can be at the dealership around 12PM.
This pic turned out like crap, but I tried. It's a Durango on the highway with a cargo pack on it's roof. Only a few people will understand the humor and why I needed to take this pic. The lady driving it probably thought I was some kinda freakazoid taking pics of her SUV at 4AM.
My craptastic camera takes such awesome pics. Here's Cincinatti at night. Rachel was worried about dropping the camera as she took the pics holding it out the window. I was praying she would drop it.
For those geographically-challenged, Cincinatti is right on the border of Ohio and Kentucky. So, once you're through Cinci, you're in a whole new state. Wow- only took one bridge. Cool! 2 states down, 3 to go.
One of our fuel stops was in London, KY. There were a bunch of ceramic lawn ornaments at one store by the exit ramp called The Dog Patch Trading Post. Rachel did want to stop, but....if I did, how could I be the 'big, bad, evil man'? LOL We're comin' back on the same road, so....if she REALLY wants a 3' ceramic rabbit smoking a cigar, we'll stop and get one.
Ok, enough of that shit. Let's get rollin'. Heh heh.....limiter my ass.
Crusing through the hills of Kentucky early in the morning gets you some great scenery. Too bad my camera doesn't take real pictures.
Rachel was trying to take shots of the "Welcome To ......" signs along the way. Unfortunately, it takes my camera about 3 minutes to fire up and focus. So, I have a nice truck and a shitty camera. I guess that balances out.
This place, however, you couldn't miss. LOL You see tons of fireworks stands and huge warehouse-type stores all along the highway. They love their fireworks in the South.
Somewhere in TN, we came across this gigantor cross. It's about 80' tall and made of what looks like galvanized sheet metal. It's a nice cross and all, but........there are no buildings near it. No churches. No homes. No....nothing. It's just between a couple of billboards along the roadside. Kinda weird. We drove a little further and found another cross just like the first, but this time it was near a church/house of prayer/worship-type building. I'm about as religious as a tire iron, so....I'm not sure what's up with all of that. They sure do have nice big metal crosses though.
I thought that Rachel might do some of the driving, but...when my 2nd wind kicked in, I said 'screw it', and just wanted to finish the trip and get to the truck. It's some kinda sick motivation.
It's a quick cruise though TN, then nip the NW corner of Georgia, and pop right into Alabama.
We arrive in Gadsden, AL at the Nissan dealership there a little after 12PM. We met with the salesman and the dealership GM. Very nice guys. Rachel couldn't stop giggling at the accent. I learned something new: "yesir" is one word once you get south of Tennessee. It's proper in pretty much any positive context. Cool guys, and we get the paperwork taken care of and sign the checks.
WOOHOO!!!!
I own a big black truck!!!!
(Technically, it's "we". Rachel and I split everything.)
I tried to be gentlemanly about accepting the keys to the truck, but I think I yanked them out of the salesman's hands like it was a NYC subway mugging (we'll have to check the video for that).
Now the sucky part: dropping the rental car off at the airport. Rachel hasn't learned how to drive stick yet, so she takes the Malibu and I drive the truck (of course...heh heh). It's about an hour from Gadsden to the Birmingham Airport. It's not very large, so the rental car places are all together. We drop the car off, and as the guy is signing us out, he says, "You want us to fill the tank?". SHIT. I forgot to fill up the rental. For giggles, I asked him, "How much per gallon?". He replies with, "Six bucks.". I laugh heartily. "Rachel- just sit in the truck for 10 minutes. I'll be right back." I scream out of there in the Malibu and go fill it up for $2.73 gal. at the station just outside the airport. $12 for me to fill the tank, or I could have been billed about $50. What a frickin' scam.
On the way to the airport, the 'Check Engine' light came on in the truck. I immediately loaded my shorts thinking that I haven't even had the truck 2 hours and I already jacked the engine. Damn it. I call my buddy who works for the SRT Track Experience and ask him about it. The reply, "It's a general warning that something isn't correct. It can be anything from a failing fuel rail to a pinhole leak in the exhaust." Damn. He says, "Is it flashing?". I reply, "No." He says, "Good. You should be fine until you can find a dealer and get it checked out. It's too new of a truck to have any major problems." I relax a little, but then realize: I'M IN ALABAMA!!! I have no clue where the nearest 5-star dealer is!
My next call is to my friend who's driving over with his wife from Atlanta to meet us for dinner. "G.E., are you near a computer? Awesome. Find me the nearest 5-star dealer in Birmingham." He knows I've been lusting for this truck for 2+ years, so he understands why my voice sounds so stressed. He found one! It's pretty close too- just off I-65. I exit the highway....into a VERY gnarly part of town. Thankfully, it's daytime. LOL It seems that the dealer has since moved. Oops. "Ok, who's next on the list?" Since he's originally from the area, he directs me over to a Dodge dealer about 20 min. away off of I-459, called Benchmark Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep (obligatory link to their site because they're cool guys). Thankfully, their service department is open until 5PM. Whew!
The dealership is NICE. I mean, like really, really nice. As in, eat soup off the garage floor nice. It looks really new too. I pull up to the service area, and like you all have said, people stare. Even at the dealership! I don't remember the name of the guy that took my info and calmed me down, but he was super cool. The 'doctor' took a look at the truck, pulled out his big computer and plugged it in. 10 very stressful minutes later, he pulls the truck back around to the front of the service area. I ask, "How bad is it, doc?" "Nah...not bad at all. The last time the truck got fueled, the leash for the gas cap got caught on the rim and didn't allow the cap to fully seal. That caused a little leak, and that's why your Check Engine light came on." WHEW! Of course, now I felt like a complete tool. Fugit. I can live with being a dolt for a few minutes. I mean, hell, I've only owned the damn thing for 2 hours! I walk back in and sign the paperwork (THANK YOU DODGE FOR 3 YRS/36K!!!), and pay my $0.00. Man, that was close.
Finally, we can go to the hotel and I can get a couple of hours of sleep before we have dinner with our friends from Atlanta.
No such luck. MapQuest's directions aren't exactly stellar, so....it took me a while to find the Courtyard hotel. Painless check-in. Folks in the South are extremely friendly and very patient. The room was nice, and had a shower! LOL That's all I was looking for after the roadtrip and the stress test of the CheckEngine light event. I shower and crash out for a bit. Rachel wanted to iron something, so....she ironed. I got about 40 min. of sleep before my cell rang. They had arrived.
My buddy G.E. (short for George Edward) is from Birmingham, AL. His folks still live there, but he does IT work in Atlanta now. We've been online buddies for almost a decade, and both love cars, and trucks. He digs the SRT-10 as much as I do. We decided to do some dinner (cajun or BBQ) while we were down there. The girls can chat about girl stuff, and we can talk about HP, torque, big black trucks, his BMW convertible, mock a few online guys, etc. Typical guy stuff. LOL
Dinner was at a place that G.E.'s dad recommended called Full Moon BBQ. Apparently, it used to be a Dairy Queen, and is now a big BBQ restaurant. They have one of those huge black smokestacks coming off the back of the building, and you can smell it from 10 miles away. It smells GOOD! G.E. tried to pull the "you're in my hometown, so I'm buying dinner" stunt. It didn't work. I played the "You saved my ass with finding me a dealership open until 5PM on the Saturday of a holiday weekend. You're lucky I'm only buying you dinner" card. Heh heh.
I ordered a burger (just in case their BBQ was 'all smell-no taste') and an open-face sandwich. I needed not worry about the taste thing. Their BBQ was offically 'down home' and thus deemed true. Good stuff.
PART TWO coming soon!!!
(12,000 character limit per post...heh heh)
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